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Obake is a villainous figure who made his debut in the animated TV show Big Hero 6: The Series since its pilot. He is the main antagonist of the first season.
Background
Little is known about Obake, but he has ulterior motives involving the San Fransokyo underworld, as first shown when he hired Mr. Yama to carry out his plans. He can hack into most devices utilizing robots and chips in order to communicate with his associates, usually with his ogre-like emblem appearing on the monitor.
Personality
Obake is an intimidating man who can terrify other criminals like Yama, and was described by one of the Mad Jacks as "kind of a freak". Still, he is a calculating person with knowledge of many things that others do not seem to be aware of, such as Professor Granville's paperweight being a source of power or Lenore Shimamoto's secret career as scientist.
He likes remaining obscure to most of the outside world and performs his attacks anonymously, sending out his minions or hired villains for his schemes, but he sometimes goes out himself, and since very few people know him he goes unnoticed. When going to crowded or public places, he disguises himself to keep his identity secret.
Obake also has connections to criminals in the city and is well informed about the events that occur in it, hiring Globby not long after his mutation and constantly seen watching the news or the city's surveillance cameras, particularly when Big Hero 6 appear in them.
His fixation on acquiring the most sophisticated and powerful science and technology is contrasted by his low opinion of artistic expression, as he didn't hesitate to damage the "City Rising" artwork in order to acquire the blueprints beneath it. In general, he only seems interested in things that can be proven factually, while having no interest in subjective opinions.
Because many of his plans have been foiled by Big Hero 6, he started obtaining information about them, getting as many details as possible and becoming upset when his hired criminals fail their missions after facing them. Due to this, he has also made alliances with the villains that have faced Big Hero 6 in the past.
Appearance
Obake is a slender male, who has pale and almost greyish skin, blue eyes and an English accent. His hair is black with a red streak sometimes visible.
At times, the left side of his face glows with a purple light. He can apparently do this at will.
Powers and Abilities
- Genius-level intellect: Obake is a patient, calculating, technological genius with prowess towards machines. He is skilled in hacking, as he managed to hack into multiple systems and take control of them. Based on his hideout, it seems Obake can also access the city's surveillance systems, as he learned about the Big Hero 6 when observing them through nearby cameras.
Equipment
- Watch: Obake wears a watch that also has a hologram map. He was able to trace Big Hero 6 with it, noticing they were approaching to his location when they searched for the Mad Jacks.
- Small graphene knife: Similar to Momakase's knives, Obake owns a small graphene-bladed knife that he used to take a slice of Globby's substance.
- Black market chip: A chip that he created himself and sold to Alistair Krei for an insane amount of cash, doing so anonymously and with lies by making him believe it was cutting-edge technology; in reality, it was an empty drive used to hack and obtain his files.
- Micro-Drones: A group of small flying robots that he sends to attack or spy.
- CPU Robot: It is a small spider robot with Obake's symbol imprinted in it. Obake gave it to Noodle Burger Boy in order to take over the Kentucky Kaiju's system.
- Scanner Glasses: Obake owns a pair of glasses used to digitalize Lenore Shimamoto's journal so he could read it from his own base, as well as scanning her house trying to find her secret laboratory. The first glasses were accidentally broken by a kid, but he could either fix them or build another pair.
- Graphene shard: He gave it to Momakase in order to help her break free from prison.
- Crab Robot: Another of his creations, it is a semi-sentient robot modeled after a real crab. It works underwater and allowed Obake to record everything around his underwater base, as well as automatically uploading the feed to his computer.
History
In the series' pilot, Obake contacted Yama to acquire a sculpture used as a paperweight from the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. When Yama turns up empty-handed, an unhappy Obake communicates with him when Yama is inside an elevator and threatens to send him plummeting. With his life in the line, Yama narrowly calms Obake by revealing he managed to construct an army of Baymax duplicates. Obake sees potential in his work but warns Yama not to fail him this time. After Yama successfully obtains the sculpture, he calls Obake demanding why he wasn't informed of the sculpture's capabilities. Obake, working on an unknown device and watching Yama from his computer's screen, simply reasons that Yama is his subordinate and he shouldn't be asking questions about his missions. Yama promises to return the item soon and ends the call. However, a new superhero group known as the Big Hero 6 end up thwarting his plans and destroy the sculpture. Despite losing it, Obake takes an interest in the team as he observes them on the monitor screen from his lair.
Some time later, Obake is seen watching the pictures of Big Hero 6 following their victory against High Voltage, then a close-up picture of Hiro and Baymax. His face glows while looking at them.
He remains silent until "Failure Mode", when he employs Globby to steal a painting called "City Rising" from the San Fransokyo Museum of Art, knowing that the artist of the piece, Lenore Shimamoto, was also a scientist. When Globby succeeds and meets with him at a hideout, Obake soon becomes interested in Globby's gooey body substance and takes a slice of it for further study, stating it may reveal more potential. He then breaks the painting's frame to reveal blueprints hidden beneath it.
In order to find out more about Big Hero 6, Obake carefully laid a double plan in "The Impatient Patient" by hiring the Mad Jacks to steal a valuable chip that Alistair Krei bought on the black market. Little did anyone know, that it was also Obake who sold Krei the drive in the first place. Hiro, Baymax and Fred prevented the Jacks from taking the chip, and the Jacks contacted Obake, who was upset they were beaten by a child and told them to finish the job. He then begins looking at a picture of Hiro in his superhero suit, and wonders what it will take to lay him low.
The Mad Jacks later abducted Krei from his office and succeeded at getting the drive, subsequently leaving Krei hanging from an antenna on top of his company's building. Krei called Big Hero 6 for help and so they began looking for the Jacks, who at the time were meeting Obake at a warehouse.
Obake noticed the heroes were after the Mad Jacks and told them to take away the chip while he escaped. The Jacks ended up caught by the team and saw themselves forced to lend the chip, then escaped. Later, the chip is returned to Krei and it's revealed that Obake accurately predicted everything that Krei would do and that he only used the Mad Jacks to get Krei paranoid enough to keep the secrets in the chip to himself instead of telling anyone in his team.
Krei plugged the drive in his computer and found it was empty, getting angry that buying the chip and everything that happened afterwards was for nothing. It turned out that the drive itself was actually a bug that allowed Obake to spy on Krei and hack into his computers when he plugged it in. Once inside Krei Tech's systems, Obake not only gained access to top secret projects, but also uncovered Hiro's secret identity.
Following this discovery, in "Killer App" Obake sends an army of weaponized Micro-Drones to attack civilians at Night Market Square, trapping them atop Telegraph Tower until Big Hero 6 once more appeared to foil the attack. Obake watched the whole scene and called the drones disappointing, then makes it his mission to uncover the identities of the five remaining members of the team.
He goes about this by personally breaking into a Noodle Burger restaurant at night to steal their animatronic mascot, Noodle Burger Boy, and reprogramming it. With Noodle Burger Boy's ability to obtain personal information of customers by scanning them, Obake sends it out to retrieve information on Big Hero 6. The robot succeded, but also attempted to engage in battle with the team a couple times, failing each time and later going back to Obake's hideout whilst sounding scared and sad because of it. However, since the robot did manage to obtain their data, Obake did not mind that it couldn't beat them. He plugged Noodle Burger Boy to a computer and uploaded the heroes' info, then watched and "got to know" the true identities of Baymax, Fred, Honey Lemon, Go Go Tomago and Wasabi.
Now, aware of the entire team's identities, he proceeds to test out Hiro's intelligence and personality in the episode "Kentucky Kaiju" by sending out Globby to a bank just to fight the Big Hero 6 rather than having him steal anything; he orders Globby to make Hiro feel useless, which he manages to do. After returning to Obake's lair, Globby states that he did what Obake asked, yet doesn't understand why, and Obake remarks that what he did was beyond his understanding. He then explains to Globby that he planted doubt in Hiro's mind, and that they will now observe how the boy genius will act on that said doubt.
For the next step, he sends out Noodle Burger Boy to cause havoc and fight the team, equipped with a new flying mech. Hiro had upgraded himself with "Nano-Dex", which enhanced his physical strength and allowed him to take on the robot with no help. Later, Noodle Burger Boy returns with Obake and Globby, and the trio watch a video of Hiro's fight. Turns out, Obake had also predicted Hiro would react the way he did of trying to prove himself independent, and called his upgrade an obvious choice, but was still impressed by it. After being annoyed by his minions, Obake notices the Nano-Dex Hiro used to increase his strength, and remarks that "it's too bad he rushed it."
Obake later goes to Lucky Cat Café seemingly as a regular client, and sees Hiro and Baymax leave to Fred's house to see if they could solve Hiro's problem after his Nano-Dex shirt wouldn't come off. Obake hears their discussion and simply smiles at them whilst covering his face with a newspaper. Aunt Cass approaches him and asks if he is liking the food, to which Obake replies positively.
Noodle Burger Boy then goes and steals Fred's giant Kentucky Kaiju animatronic, and installs an advanced CPU chip that Obake gave to him into the robot to make it attack the city. Hiro manages to beat the huge robot by using his intelligence, and Obake spies on the team again through cameras at his lair, along with his two minions.
While looking over the CPU chip following the fight, Hiro realizes that Noodle Burger Boy couldn't have made it and that Globby never stole anything from the bank and was trying to get into his head instead, deducing that the both of them must be working for "someone else". At the same time, Obake, while still spying on Big Hero 6, explains to his two minions that his plan was to test Hiro's intelligence. Globby then asks how smart Hiro is, to which Obake responds "very."
During "Rivalry Weak", Obake goes to the SFAI in order to find more secrets from the scientist Lenore Shimamoto after her house is restored and allowed people to tour inside it. Wearing a hoodie and cap to remain anonymous, he enters her house and using a pair of scanner glasses, tries to find Lenore's secret journal, but his plan fails when a kid accidentally bumps into him and makes Obake drop the glasses, then the kid breaks them by stepping on them. Obake simply scares the child and retreats, but later, sees in the news that Honey Lemon, Baymax, Go Go and Hiro found the artist's secret lab while they were trying to prank the SFAI.
Honey Lemon secretly takes the journal with her and Obake notices this, then next day goes to the SFIT disguised and calling himself "Herman Ekabo", claiming to be a historian from the museum. Pretending to be unaware of the journal's existence, he induces Honey Lemon into giving it to him. Honey Lemon later goes to the museum but finds out "Herman Ekabo" is not a real person, then calls her team to help find the thief since she left her SFIT ID inside the book. The geared up Big Hero 6 track the ID down to an empty warehouse and see Obake calmly reading the book with his scanner glasses on, but they are unaware about anything Obake has done so far and believe he is a stranger.
The team break inside but Obake keeps on reading unworried, and simply claims to be disappointed, as he believed the team could have tracked him down sooner. Obake then says he needs one more minute to finish reading and comments that this is also how much time they all have left, before trapping them in separate containers that give them all only one minute to solve particular death traps—Hiro and Baymax trapped in a replica of Hiro's bedroom that is slowly filling with water and threatens to drown them, Go Go and Honey Lemon trapped inside a replica of Lenore Shimamoto's laboratory with the walls closing in on them and threatening to crush them, while Fred and Wasabi are inside a replica of Fred's room where they fight against clones of themselves.
They all manage to make their way out of the containers, so Obake becomes mildly impressed and praises them for their creativity and intelligence. He remains, however, unintimidated by the heroes, then hands them the book. Before Big Hero 6 get the chance to do anything else, the lights are turned off, Obake's face glows, and he vanishes from the place, leaving the team to wonder who the mystery man is. As Fred soon begins conceptualizing possible names for their mysterious new enemy, they open Shimamoto's book and see Obake left them a message in one of the blank pages with his "name" signed, letting the heroes know they will meet again.
Back at his hideout, Obake uploads the glasses' data onto his computer, having Shimamoto's diary completely digitalized for himself, then uses a filter on the seemingly blank last pages that reveal many hidden notes and formulas written within them and ponders where to start with it.
Obake then allies himself with more of Big Hero 6's enemies, starting with Momakase in "Fan Friction". Disguised as a security guard, he goes to prison and finds the special cell where Momakase is held, then gives her a graphene shard to help her escape.
He aids her with a Micro-Drone after Hiro and Baymax find out about this and chase her. Momakase successfully runs away, but the drone is destroyed and Hiro realizes the drone was sent by Obake. Both villains meet at Obake's hideout, and even though Momakase still doesn't trust him and puts a graphene knife against his neck, Obake doesn't flinch and shows her all of his investigation on Big Hero 6, inviting her to join his "club". Momakase agrees due to her seeking revenge against them, and Obake tells her that he has plans for Hiro. He also gives her a scan-jammer to prevent Big Hero 6 from locating her.
He then tasks her with a mission where she traps Big Hero 6 (as well as Karmi) in Akuma Island. Upon succeeding and leaving the team to their doom when the island is about to blow up, she gets away riding a boat and contacts Obake, who tells her that Hiro will survive if he is smart enough.
In "Mini-Max", Obake has a relatively minor role, where he hacks Granville's Security System Robots and makes them attack Hiro and Granville at the SFIT. Fred and Mini-Max go and defeat the robots, but Obake still spies on Granville and Hiro the next day through one of the trashed robots when they talk about Granville's past "mistakes".
After this, he remains silent with the attacks and instead works on the blueprints he obtained. He operates in an underwater base with Noodle Burger Boy at the San Fransokyo bay, and creates a robotic crab to survey the area. Meanwhile, Hiro has been trying to figure out Obake's plan, but remains unsuccessful and soon Fred calls him to celebrate Wasabi's birthday. The team decide to recover Wasabi's car which was lost underwater after having faced Yokai and fix it for him as a present, so Hiro creates underwater suits for Baymax and himself.
The robot crab records them and returns to the base, where Obake was now turning water into fuel. The robot uploads its data to the computer, showing Obake the feed of Hiro and Baymax, but he also notices Baron Von Steamer using his drill vehicle underwater although he simply ignores him.
Later, Von Steamer reveals he had planned to attack the city to challenge Boss Awesome but Big Hero 6 must fight him instead as Boss Awesome was in another part of the world at the time. Steamer's plan involved sucking up the water of San Fransokyo to blast the city, which would interfere with Obake's plan, so he hacked Big Hero 6's communicators and aided them into realizing Steamer's scheme. After Steamer is defeated by them and captured, the team wonder why Obake would help them, and they go take a look at Hiro's research to help him resolve things.
Etymology
- Obake - Obake means "ghost" or "apparition" in Japanese and can also refer to "monster". The term itself literally means a thing that changes, referring to transformation. In Japanese folklore, an Obake (お化け) is a supernatural entity either capable of transformation or is a human ghost. The Obake is closely related to the Japanese Yōkai; fittingly, Robert Callaghan, another supervillain encountered by the Big Hero 6, used "Yokai" as a codename.
Trivia
- The last name of his disguised alias "Herman Ekabo" is just "Obake" backwards.
Gallery
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An Image Gallery is available for Obake.
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