Botulism
Really Corrupt
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2023
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The Date Household, Abandoned as of Year 2000.
DATE ICHIRO
The Last Samurai
The Best Businessman
<:: ACCESS GRANTED. ::>
Birthdate: August 4, 1962 (Age 58)
Place of Birth: Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecutre, Japan
Collaborator Status: Tier 4
Bloodtype: O+
Religion: Roman Catholic
Former Occupation: Vice-President of Sales, Nippon Steel Corporation
Known Languages: Japanese, English, Russian
City Eight Occupation: Founder of Date Investment Firm
BACKSTORY
Wearing traditional dueling garb, Date gives a few swings with the family blade. Summer of 2000
"Uncle, why do we make so much money? Why shouldn't we get our hands dirty, buy one of these stores around us, set up shop some-place nice?"
"Because in our lineage, we always play to win, Nephew. We give loans to businesses and private individuals, and if they don't pay back?
We pay Civil Protection to deal with them."
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Many would believe Date Ichiro came from high wealth, a man that was always a member of high Japanese society, one that lingered around the Tokyo-born Zaibatsu shareholders and always had a politician in every country on stand-by...
This was hardly the case, however. Born in the steel-town of Kamaishi, his father was a veteran of World War Two. Having served as an Engineering Officer in the Burmese and Chinese campaigns, he made sure to remind the young Ichiro of every single hardship he had faced. Now a major salesman for the Nippon Steel Corporation, his main focus in life was to forget the Mandalay monsoon and to groom his son for taking his job someday. The Young Ichiro had no expense spared in his education, as he was to be sent to only the best - the University of Tokyo.
The Date Clan were Ichiro's claimed descendants; the great warriors of northern Japan, they lived by the sword and fell when their greed outgrew their intelligence. According to family legend, the founder of the Date family in Kamiashi was a distant relative of the Daimyo of Sendai. He was a loyal retainer and Samurai who, during the Boshin War, attempted to flee north to Hokkaido to escape the Imperial Army. His ship wrecked near Kamaishi, and with nothing left to lose, he stowed away his sword and established an inn. The inn and family house were still there when Ichiro returned around the year two-thousand, but they were both derelict, not having been lived in for some time. The well-travelled businessman let out a sigh, and with a tattooed Yakuza friend by his side, they began the process of gathering every leftover family heirloom in sight.
The family sword had been left behind, something Ichiro would take and need during the Portal Storms. It would later be lost again during the Occupation, and to this day, he still dreams of going out in search of it.
Kamiashi was a shithole, always was, always had been. During the Meiji Era it was a refuge for gangsters and monks, dancers and priests alike, but once the foundry was built, it became a bustling working-class town. Even though Ichiro's family was rapidly becoming upper-class by the seventies, his earliest childhood memories placed him in the most rural bits of Japan. He played and learned with the sons of Yakuza men, steelworkers and foremen...His earliest memories place him swimming in countryside lakes, practicing Kendo after school, and going with his father on business trips to the foundry.
During his small bits of time away from schooling, the elder Date would take his son around the world. While he handled business, he let his son tour with his mother, who doted and did well to nurture him. He visited the Americas, Brazil, both Koreas, various European countries, and the Soviet Union, the summer nights in Moscow and Vladivostok he still remembers fondly to this day. In school, he learned English and Russian, tools that would become immensely useful to him in the lost decade, when Japan was struggling to maintain its' economic edge.
This was hardly the case, however. Born in the steel-town of Kamaishi, his father was a veteran of World War Two. Having served as an Engineering Officer in the Burmese and Chinese campaigns, he made sure to remind the young Ichiro of every single hardship he had faced. Now a major salesman for the Nippon Steel Corporation, his main focus in life was to forget the Mandalay monsoon and to groom his son for taking his job someday. The Young Ichiro had no expense spared in his education, as he was to be sent to only the best - the University of Tokyo.
The Date Clan were Ichiro's claimed descendants; the great warriors of northern Japan, they lived by the sword and fell when their greed outgrew their intelligence. According to family legend, the founder of the Date family in Kamiashi was a distant relative of the Daimyo of Sendai. He was a loyal retainer and Samurai who, during the Boshin War, attempted to flee north to Hokkaido to escape the Imperial Army. His ship wrecked near Kamaishi, and with nothing left to lose, he stowed away his sword and established an inn. The inn and family house were still there when Ichiro returned around the year two-thousand, but they were both derelict, not having been lived in for some time. The well-travelled businessman let out a sigh, and with a tattooed Yakuza friend by his side, they began the process of gathering every leftover family heirloom in sight.
The family sword had been left behind, something Ichiro would take and need during the Portal Storms. It would later be lost again during the Occupation, and to this day, he still dreams of going out in search of it.
Kamiashi was a shithole, always was, always had been. During the Meiji Era it was a refuge for gangsters and monks, dancers and priests alike, but once the foundry was built, it became a bustling working-class town. Even though Ichiro's family was rapidly becoming upper-class by the seventies, his earliest childhood memories placed him in the most rural bits of Japan. He played and learned with the sons of Yakuza men, steelworkers and foremen...His earliest memories place him swimming in countryside lakes, practicing Kendo after school, and going with his father on business trips to the foundry.
During his small bits of time away from schooling, the elder Date would take his son around the world. While he handled business, he let his son tour with his mother, who doted and did well to nurture him. He visited the Americas, Brazil, both Koreas, various European countries, and the Soviet Union, the summer nights in Moscow and Vladivostok he still remembers fondly to this day. In school, he learned English and Russian, tools that would become immensely useful to him in the lost decade, when Japan was struggling to maintain its' economic edge.
With night-long cramming sessions to ace his tests, Date Ichiro was ready for University, but also grew to be immensely cynical of the life around him. He dreamed of the working class life, of the gangster's life. Through his time in Tokyo in the early eighties, he regularly wrote to his hometown friends, meeting those who had moved to Tokyo and enjoying long nights out with them. He was constantly lonely, fed up, and even depressed with life. Attempting to fill the void, he experimented with drugs, people, went out to random small towns just to cause a ruckus, attended concerts, and attempted to even hang himself on one occasion. The shame he'd feel if he failed University in this life or the next made him snap out of it, however, and he pushed himself to obtain his degree before doing anything drastic.
The very next day after he graduated from the University of Tokyo, Date sent an application into his father's company. With his legacy and his masters' degree in finance, he was quickly accepted, working under his father in the company's' sales division. With the booming economy of the mid to late eighties on his heels, Date, along with many other salesmen, made groundbreaking connections for the company -- dozens of new contracts were signed and written in the United States, South Korea, China and the Soviet Union, and billions of Yen were made every quarter, a small percentage of that revenue being generated by Date himself.
The Lost Decade of the nineties hit Japan hard, and Nippon Steel Corporation had it no different. Contracts were lost and operations across Japan had to be scaled down. The Kamiashi foundry closed, but Date only saw more personal opportunity within the larger chaos. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and Central Asia were ripe for economic investment. With his knowledge of Russian, Date became acquainted with the mining oligarchs and their many companies, keeping his bottom-line afloat.
Throughout the nineties, Date dedicated his time to successful business and to cultivating his own garden -- building a family, if one would. His father had retired by then, and his elderly boss had a niece who he believed Date was the perfect fit for. They dated, married, and eventually had a daughter that Ichiro doted upon, mimicking his mother's nature. He always wanted a son deep-down, however, and took regular care of one of his nephews, raising the boy alongside his little girl when his brother wasn't available. A pretty typical story for most Japanese businessmen, but one Date would happily blabber about for hours on end, filling you with every dramatic detail of how he almost lost his future wife on the first date, etc.
This all changed with the Portal Storms, however -- Date had increasingly less time to perform business, and spent most of his time upon survival and nostalgic pursuits in the chaos of Tokyo during that period. He sheltered his family in various places across the country, investing his wealth so as to not suddenly go destitute. He still attempted to use his connections for garnering safety for those he held dear, but not even Ichiro expected The Occupation to occur.
The very next day after he graduated from the University of Tokyo, Date sent an application into his father's company. With his legacy and his masters' degree in finance, he was quickly accepted, working under his father in the company's' sales division. With the booming economy of the mid to late eighties on his heels, Date, along with many other salesmen, made groundbreaking connections for the company -- dozens of new contracts were signed and written in the United States, South Korea, China and the Soviet Union, and billions of Yen were made every quarter, a small percentage of that revenue being generated by Date himself.
The Lost Decade of the nineties hit Japan hard, and Nippon Steel Corporation had it no different. Contracts were lost and operations across Japan had to be scaled down. The Kamiashi foundry closed, but Date only saw more personal opportunity within the larger chaos. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and Central Asia were ripe for economic investment. With his knowledge of Russian, Date became acquainted with the mining oligarchs and their many companies, keeping his bottom-line afloat.
Throughout the nineties, Date dedicated his time to successful business and to cultivating his own garden -- building a family, if one would. His father had retired by then, and his elderly boss had a niece who he believed Date was the perfect fit for. They dated, married, and eventually had a daughter that Ichiro doted upon, mimicking his mother's nature. He always wanted a son deep-down, however, and took regular care of one of his nephews, raising the boy alongside his little girl when his brother wasn't available. A pretty typical story for most Japanese businessmen, but one Date would happily blabber about for hours on end, filling you with every dramatic detail of how he almost lost his future wife on the first date, etc.
This all changed with the Portal Storms, however -- Date had increasingly less time to perform business, and spent most of his time upon survival and nostalgic pursuits in the chaos of Tokyo during that period. He sheltered his family in various places across the country, investing his wealth so as to not suddenly go destitute. He still attempted to use his connections for garnering safety for those he held dear, but not even Ichiro expected The Occupation to occur.
Company Logo, Circa 2020
The Occupation changed everything.
Nippon Steel disappeared in an instant, and Date, in order to survive, quickly adjusted to life under the Combine. When his family was taken away, he found new joy in teaching his young nephew, who was quickly transferred to an ECHELON facility within the first year of the occupation. Once that joy left him too, the businessman had no time for anything else but what he did best; making money. Using his connections, Date was able to always waive transfers and avoid leaving the city he had spent so much time in, bribing cops and low-level members of the administration to get his way. Within time, he was accepted as a foreman for the Civil Workers Union, slowly building a varied portfolio.
As the years went by, Date was getting older, and wanted some independence. With a lot of personal wealth, he decided to invest; applying for a Union-approved business, the Date Investment Firm is more of a bank than anything. Giving out loans, both public and private, to any citizen or business owner in need, Date has a heavy hand in keeping City Eights' business sector alive and afloat. He is willing to give extensions for those who cannot pay up, but if they do not come to him with money (and interest) by the time allotted, he bribes a gang of Civil Protection Officers to deal with them.
His home is still abandoned, and his family's status unknown to him. Will Date garner enough money and influence to see them again? Will he use it for good, bad, or an amalgamation of both? Only time shall tell. Date-Toshikaisha Banzai!
CONCLUSION
Yayyy, banker corrupt Japanese businessman dude.
I'll add character relationships, thoughts about various things, etc. If accepted, as I'll just turn the rest of this into a character biography. I read a lot about City Eights' cops and wanted a character that would be really fun to work with for them, along with business-savvy citizens and criminals who need extra money, including credits or chips. If this also requires a business application, I'd be willing to make it, as I've yet to seen a bank-type entity in Willards HL2RP. I just wanna give out loans and make tons of money through giving money. Woo-hoo!
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OOC STUFF (I FORGOT)
Steam Name: Botulism City
Discord: deathinthemidwest
Steam ID: STEAM_0:0:47312124
Name: Date Ichiro
Tier: 4
If a portrait needs to be made, reach out please! I have a good reference for a portrait-style photo.
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