Ken Yamaguchi

Registry of the Non-Evolved Database

File #19 Aug 2009 04:47

Summary

Name Ken Yamaguchi Aliases Status Unregistered Non-Evolved Gender Male Race/Eth. Japanese-American Birthdate 02/27/1971 Age 38 Height 6'2" Build Athletic Eyes Brown Hair Black Residence New York, NY Employment NYPD Detective Parents Siblings Marital Status Maria Yamaguchi Children Christopher Yamaguchi (4) First Seen Last Seen Profile Ken is a veteran NYPD Homicide detective with over 10 years on the force. He originally hails from California, but compensates for his liberal background by actually making himself useful when things go wrong. His opinions about the Evolved he mostly keeps to himself; he's not overly talkative, and there are easier things to do than get into arguments. The overriding motivation in his life is apparently to expend as little energy as possible. He's a good guy to have at your back, provided you can keep him from falling asleep. He is happily married and has a young son, Christopher.

portrayed by Hiroshi Abe

Background

Ken Yamaguchi is Japanese-American: born and bred in the good old USA. In Sunnyvale, CA to be exact. He was the second son of a set of three, 4th generation Japanese (there is a trace of Caucasian in his ancestry, a grandmother back on his father's side) but as thoroughly American as they come with only a peripheral familiarity with his ancestral roots. In California, this is hardly uncommon. He grew up in the normal way, raised in what was, likewise, a normal way. His parents were music teachers and liberals; his older brother inherited a talent for music, while his younger demonstrated a prodigy's ability with mathematics. The one went to the Paris Conservatory, while the other went to MIT.

Ken, being depressingly average in all respects, compensated for normalcy by getting an average degree (BA) at an average school (UC Santa Clara) and then moving to New York City to work for The Man.

It would not be understating it to say that his career choice — the NYPD — pained his parents, who had hoped for better, safer things for their second-born. For Yamaguchi however, who combined an interest in people with a dislike for officework, the job was ideal. He put his time in as a patrolman, living in a tiny apartment and dating his way through New York City wildlife; after six years, he applied for the detective exam and joined Robbery. Three years after that, he married his Spanish girlfriend of the time, Maria, and transferred to Vice.

From there, it was only a short step to fatherhood and Homicide. Three years later, he did both, becoming the father of a little boy, Christopher. It was a happy time for him and his fledgling family, difficult though things were given the demands of his career.

Two years later, New York went Boom.

Yamaguchi was singularly fortunate, by almost all standards. True, he lost half of his in-laws to the explosion, and a significant proportion of his colleagues. On the other hand, his wife and son were on a visit to California, a family vacation for which he was set to join them when the bomb went off. Pure chance saved his life as well; on the way to the airport, his partner — the driver — caught a call in Brooklyn. Yamaguchi, depending on his badge to clear security quickly, rode along for the fun of it rather than wait at JFK. As a result, he was safely away when the explosion wiped out much of New York City.

The revelation of the Evolved had little impact on him, beyond the rather vague annoyance of a busy man faced with official flummery. The reality check of subsequent events resulted in a quiet struggle between liberal overcompensation — the automatic overreaction towards the side of tolerance — versus the complicated resentment of a cop forced to deal with the aftermath of Evolved-created disaster. It took almost a year for him to achieve some sort of equilibrium, in which cop instincts share uneasy space with humanist ones. Now in Homicide, with his family squirreled safely away in a small one-bedroom in Jersey, he muddles as best as he can through moral minefields, ignoring inconvenient shades of grey where he can.

Psych Profile

Yamaguchi is conflicted towards the concept of the Evolved and the subject of Registration. On the one hand, he is Japanese-American, and out of touch with his roots though he may be, America has had an ignominious history of exclusion and Othering towards his people — his own grandparents and great-grandparents being examples of these, having been interned in their own day. On the other hand, BOOM. He dutifully works at trying to be fair and scrupulous towards Evolved that he encounters, uneasily aware of his own prejudices against them. He is not unaware of the irony of this.

In general, his way of dealing things is through dry humor, and a deadpan acceptance (one might say encouragement) of the ridiculous. A kind person might say he is tolerant; his wife, who knows him better, says he's simply too lazy to meddle — at least insofar as it might keep someone from making a fool out of themselves. Much of his worthier attributes he manages to cover up in this fashion, claiming that it is too much trouble to invest the kind of effort required to exhibit those qualities.

In most aspects he is scrupulously fair, and adheres to the spirit rather than the letter of the law. He says he has a poor memory, which again covers up all sorts of sins; on the other hand, he manages to remember exactly what he wants to, which rather gives the lie to that particular claim. He is a dedicated and loyal family man and friend, which is easy enough as it does not require any great imagination on his part.

Appendices

Memorable Quotes:

• "If I'd known you were wearing, I wouldn't've tried to shoot you."

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Trivia and Notes:

• Ken likes to play chess. If people refuse to play chess with him, he will expend extra effort to play practical jokes on them until they agree to play with him. Lazy in almost all other respects, he is absolutely relentless in this one.
• He speaks quasi-decent Spanish, with occasional descents into radical grammar and creative vocabulary patching.
• He plays old-fashioned arcade games every chance he gets. Think Pacman and Centipede, rather than Mortal Kombat. As a result, he's embarrassingly good at the most unimpressive platformers imaginable.