Kinji Tohyama

"The only work I hate... is that of a Butei."

- Kinji Tohyama

"--I'm a senior high school student. My grades are slightly below average, and I attend a violent school."

- Kinji Tohyama, Volume 14, Chapter 1

Kinji Tohyama (遠山 キンジ) is the main male protagonist of the Hidan no Aria series. He was a Rank-E Inquesta student at Tokyo Butei High School prior to his retirement. Formerly, he was an S-Rank of the Assault department, however the death of his brother caused Kinji to seek quitting the life of a Butei and become a normal person. Despite this, he attracts the attention of the transfer student and Assault Ace, Aria H. Kanzaki, and becomes her partner to clear the name of her wrongfully imprisoned mother.

After enduring many battles throughout the series, Kinji is given the name Enable, the man who can make the impossible, possible. He was also able to bring down the IU, end the Far Eastern Warfare (FEW) conflict, defeated the Scarlet Blazing Goddess, which eventually freed Aria's mother.

Kinji later became President of his own militant company, Tohyama Warrior Office after retiring from the Butei in order to keep his Butei licenseundefined until he stepped down and prepared for college entrance exams.undefined

He is the younger brother of Kinichi Tohyama (Kana) and the older genetic half-brother of Kinzou Tohyama (GIII), Kaname Tohyama, and Kanade Tohyama.

Appearance
Kinji is a young man of average height and built with wavy black hair and brown eyes. He has been described by others as both handsome and gloomy. Throughout most of the series, he wears his Butei High School uniform. After he retired from being a Butei, he began to wearing a black three piece suit and tie.

Similar to Kinichi, Kinji crossdresses at times as Clomaetel Belmondo. Clomaetel has the appearance of a cute, tall girl with red eyes and long hair black hair going down to the waist with a feminine face similar to Kana.

Personality
Due to the apparent death of his older brother, Kinichi, as well as the ridicule he suffered afterwards, Kinji is a very bitter, cynical and sarcastic young man who rarely has a good word to say about anybody. Before meeting Aria, he wanted nothing more than to quit his life as a Butei and live a normal life, believing his life doesn't have to be special just because he comes from a famous family. However, Aria accuses him of simply running away and being scared of his true potential, and he eventually agrees to become her partner, albeit reluctantly. Kinji has also shown an inferiority complex throughout the series, believing he is unworthy to be the partner of a "winner" like Aria, something that doesn't go away even after embracing Butei life.undefined He almost never smiles, and when he does it's usually his way of acting like nothing suspicious is going on, and therefore hardly ever sincere.

On the outside, Kinji appears to be highly anti-social to most people and especially cold to women, even borderline misogynistic due to trauma with girls during middle school, where he was taken advantage of and being ganged up when trying to stand up for himself. To his classmates, he's often thought as a loser, shut-in, womanizer, and a waste of talent because of his indifferent attitude to the point of feeling isolated among the student body. He's even believed to be homosexual since he shows little to no interest in women. Kinji can also be downright cruel at times; when he and Aria are watching over Shirayuki, Kinji, being convinced that Durandal isn't real, tries to convince Aria that she's deluded herself into thinking he's real out of desperation to clear her mother's name, and when Aria begs him to trust her intuition, he tells her to go and 'cool off', though he later comes to regret this when it's revealed that Durandal really does exist, after which he has the sense to admit he should have given Aria the benefit of the doubt.

While under the influence of Hysteria Savant Syndrome, Kinji's personality undergoes a very drastic change. He becomes very smug and smooth-talking, and feels compelled to protect the girl in front of him no matter what, with seemingly no regard for his own life. His personality while in this state is overpowering, to the point that it has caused women to become seduced and sometimes even faint. However, when he is under the influence of Hysteria Berserk, all of his bottled up feelings including rage are released and set free. Kinji is able to remember everything he said while in Hysteria Mode, and gets really embarrassed whenever he looks back on it, saying he feels like a complete idiot.

Despite his snarky, pessimistic attitude, deep down Kinji is a kind and caring person with a strong sense of justice as a Tohyama, even though he hates it. He believes the powerful should not harass those without power and will follow the rules of law even if his life is at risk for the sake of order. Kinji, to the dismay of Aria, prefers a non-violent approach when facing the enemy before attacking. Also, as noted by Aria, Kinji will show world-class bravery in the face of great danger. Kinji also doesn't believe in holding grudges against people for past actions, as he considers it to be a waste of time, and has even shown reluctance towards killing animals such as wolves.

Kinji's desire to be normal is challenged frequently, especially by the Cao Cao Sisters, who outright tell him that he'll never be able to live among "normal" people due to his Hysteria Mode.undefined Indeed, after Kinji finally transfers out of Butei High and experiences how unfulfilling civilian life is, he comes back and embraces being a Butei as it was the only thing he was good at to a certain extent.undefined However, he still wishes to be a normal Butei, which he found impossible after becoming known to the U.S. military, Intergovernmental Armed Detective Alliance (IADA), and other governments and groups based his battles since meeting Aria. While at the same time he still has disdain towards Butei High.undefined

Kinji personality seems to change slightly to become more feminine while he is is dressed as Clomaetel,undefined which can stick with him a little even when he returns to his normal form, such as crying in a girlish way.undefined

Background
Kinji was born as the youngest child of the Tohyama family before Kinzou, Kaname, and Kanade were created. As a child he learned his family arts and Hysteria Savant Syndrome from his older brother, Kinichi. He became very proficient at his family's craft, much to the admiration of his older brother. Also, he often made regular visits with his family to the Hotogi Shrine, where on one occasion he met and befriended Shirayuki. Often times they would play together and, despite knowing the punishment Kinji would receive, he brought her to the world outside of the Hotogi Shrine. However, during Kinji's youth, his parent died sometime and was raised by Kinichi.

During middle school, he and Shirayuki parted ways, so he took on the role of becoming a Butei like his older brother by entering in a school meant to train Butei's. It was during this time period where he met Kikuyo Kagataka, who was hiding and crying after being bullied, while cleaning. Kinji would comfort her and under the influence of HSS, would get the girls who bullied her to apologize. However, school life would be anything, but easy for him after this due to the girls in his class, including Kikuyo, investigating him and exploiting his HSS ability in order be their personal "Ally of Justice." undefined This would have a lasting effect on Kinji, as he would develop a complex against women and using his family's special talent, especially after being ganged upon after trying to stand up for himself each time. Despite, what Kikuyo did to Kinji, he did stand up for her when she was accused of stealing money from the classroom lock box and resulted in her not using his abilities against him for the remainder of her stay in middle school. Also, while in middle school, Kinji encountered an underclassmen, Hina Fuuma, where he fought her in a duel and beat the her, earning her respect eventually culminating in her recruitment as his Amica later on.

Upon graduating middle school, he enrolled in Tokyo Butei High as a member of the Assault department, much like his brother. When taking the entrance exam for the school, he met Reki for the first time at Futoukita platform on Academy Island. Later, Kinji would meet Riko Mine and Ryou Shiranui for the first as well as Shirayuki again, who put Kinji under Hysteria Mode before taking the Assault Exam. Then, while under the influence of Hysteria Mode, he took the Assault Exam in a 14-story building where he single-handedly caught all the other Assault exam candidates and even defeated the five instructors hidden in the building earning him an S-Rank. Later, he would get into a Lumberjack duel with Gouki Mutou over Shirayuki resulting in them becoming friends.undefinedIt was during this time period that Kinji would work together quite a bit with Reki, where they were known as the "Golden Duo." undefined However, school life again would take a turn for the worse for Kinji because his older brother was reported as killed in action from the Butei Killer, where despite saving everyone on board, Kinichi was ridiculed for losing his life and Kinji became the target for the ridicule as well by the media. After losing his only family, Kinji was forced to suffer alone and harbored a deep hatred towards the Butei for causing Kinichi to lose his life. This would cause him to transfer out of Assault to Inquesta, throw away his family heritage, let his reputation to those outside of Assault to plummet severely, allow his prestigious S-Rank to drop to E-Rank, and sought to transfer out of Butei High altogether into normal life.

Quotes

 * (Narrating) "All I ever wanted was to have an ordinary life. I didn't want to be noticed or even talk to anyone for that matter. I wanted to get out of my psycho school. Just because my last name, Tohyama, is famous doesn't mean my life has to be special." (Anime, Episode 1)
 * (To Aria) "Butei Charter, Article 1: Trust your friends and help when they need it. I put my trust in you, Aria. Now it's time for you to put your trust in me for a change." (Anime, Episode 5)
 * (Kinji commanding Kou): "Don't look this way. If I decide that you're getting ready to fire a laser, I'll shoot. Butei Law prohibits killing. But you're not human, are you. Raise both of your hands slowly--" (Volume 13, Chapter 3)
 * (Kinji calming down a crying Kou): "You're hungry, aren't? Me too. Have some of this. [Banana]" (Volume 13, Chapter 3)
 * (Kinji to Kou, who is willing to die): "No that...it was only a threat..I'm mad, but I won't go as far as killing you. Don't cry. Please don't." (Volume 13, Chapter 3)
 * (Kinji fighting back at Aria): "This is my first time overseas! I didn't study abroad like you!...You're the one that's fired! I'll defeat Ranpan by myself." (Volume 13, Chapter 3)
 * (Kinji quoting Butei Charter, Article 10 to Seigen Shokatsu): "Butei Charter, Article 10: Never give up. A Butei never, ever gives up. If you don't like the future you see, you have to fight back. Even if it means fighting me, you have to live -- not knowing when to quit!" (Volume 14, Chapter 2)

Etymology

 * The name Kinji means "gold, money, metal" (金) (kin) and "next" (次) (ji), which is a reference to being Konza Tohyama's (Golden Cross) second son.
 * Kinji's surname Tohyama means "far, distant" (遠) (toh) and "mountain, hill" (山) (yama).

Trivia

 * Chugaku Akamatsu's next light novel series, Yagate Maken no Alicebell; share the same universe where the protagonists crossover at some point.
 * Three years later from the novel series, It is revealed that Kinji enrolled into Tokyo University, while a member of the Security Police.undefined
 * In Volume 12, Kinji would succeed in his goal of transferring out of Butei High, but he would return in Volume 13, Chapter 1 after learning he could not live an ordinary life.
 * Most of the enemies Kinji has fought have been girls.
 * Kinji's desire to be a normal Butei can be compared to Harry Potter's desire to be a normal wizard i.e. not "normal" in the traditional sense, but not the center of attention either.
 * Kinji has either been expelled from or left every educational institution and team in the series.
 * Although Kinji himself is not very popular, Clomaetel is very popular with both men and women and Kinji's alter ego has fan club websites in the Netherlands, USA and Japan, something that greatly embarrasses him.
 * Kinji is particularly weak against women who are older than him.
 * Being an independent, Kinji is frequently worried about money.
 * It has been hinted that Kinji has some unresolved issues regarding the loss of his mother.