Obake

"Nonsense! Do you know why Icarus plunged to his doom? (Hiro: Because he flew too high.) Because he needed better wings. We have the ability to remake the world, starting with this city! The worthy survive..."

- Obake showing his insanity. "Tragedy has molded us. Intellect has driven us. Now we stand at the doorway to greatness!"

- Obake to Hiro.

Bob Aken, better known as Obake, is the main antagonist of the Disney XD animated TV series Big Hero 6: The Series. He is a genius former student of the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology-turned supervillain who is obsessed with destroying San Fransokyo in order to rebuild it to be even greater than it was before, while also making Hiro Hamada his student and protege in the process.

He is voiced by Andrew Scott, who also played Jim Moriarty in Sherlock, and Max Denbigh in Spectre.

Past
20 years prior to the series, Obake (then known simply as Bob Aken) was a star student at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology under the tutelage of Professor Granville. Granville, noticing his clear potential, provided him with his own laboratory and permitted him to work after hours. However, Aken, as a result of his lack of limits, began taking more risks until he eventually decided to try and create an energy amplifier, which ended up blowing up in his face and sending him to the hospital. Not wanting Aken to take the blame for the destruction he caused, Granville claimed responsibility for the experiment and ended up resigning from her position at SFIT.

Although he survived, Aken ended up suffering from damage to the temporoparietal junction in his brain, which left him unable to tell right from wrong and also made the left side of his face glow. Despite being apparently aware of his injury, Aken never had it fixed, and also did not choose to return to SFIT either. During his adulthood, he took up the persona of Obake and devised a plan to recreate the experiment of his idol Lenore Shimamoto in order to destroy San Fransokyo and rebuild it greater than before.

First Encounters with Big Hero 6
Obake makes his debut in the series' pilot episode "Baymax Returns", where he contacts Mr. Yama and sends him to acquire a sculpture that Granville keeps on her desk (in reality, his failed energy amplifier) from SFIT. When Yama turns up empty-handed, Obake communicates with him when he is inside an elevator and threatens to send him plummeting. With his life on the line, Yama narrowly calms Obake by revealing that he managed to construct an army of Baymax duplicates. Obake sees potential in Yama's work and orders him to go after the sculpture again, warning him not to fail this time.

After Yama successfully obtains the sculpture, he calls Obake, demanding why he was not 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 should not be asking questions about his missions. Yama promises to return the sculpture soon, yet states that it is slightly broken and ends the call. However, Big Hero 6 end up thwarting his plans and destroys the sculpture. Despite losing the sculpture, Obake takes an interest in Big Hero 6 and observes them on a monitor screen from his lair at the end of the episode (he also makes a silhouette appearance of his back at this moment).

In "Issue 188", Obake is seen watching the news following Big Hero 6's victory over the mother-daughter supervillain duo High Voltage. He takes a look at a close-up picture of Hiro and Baymax, and his face then mysteriously glows while looking at them.

Enacting his Plan
In "Failure Mode", Obake (who is also completely seen for the first time) meets with Globby, whom he hired to steal Lenore Shimamoto's famous "City Rises" painting. Taking interest in Globby's strange physiology, he takes off a piece of his body, stating that further studies may reveal more potential. After Globby asks why he wanted the painting in the first place, Obake cracks open the frame and reveal hidden blueprints on the other side, commenting that Lenore Shimamoto the artist is of no use to him, but Lenore Shimamoto the scientist is.

In "The Impatient Patient", Obake hires the Mad Jacks to steal a valuable hard drive from Alistair Krei. After the Mad Jacks failed to steal the hard drive from Krei due to intervention from Hiro and Baymax, Obake insults them for losing to a child and orders them not to fail again. He then begins looking at a picture of Hiro in his superhero form and wonders what it will take to lay him low. Later on, once the Jacks succeed in stealing the hard drive, Greg Jack delivers it to Obake at his hideout. Obake then detects the incoming Big Hero 6 and Greg Jack tells him to leave with the drive while he and the other Jacks deal with the heroes. However, since Obake prioritizes the drive's security, Greg Jack decides to hold on to it until the threat is neutralized. Seeing this, Obake smiles, and his face begins to glow once more.

The Mad Jacks soon fail to defeat Big Hero 6 and lose the drive to them, where it is then returned to Krei. However, it is revealed that Obake was actually the one who sold the drive to Krei in the first place as part of his true plan. As he predicts from inside his lair, the attack from the Mad Jacks makes Krei paranoid enough to insert the drive into his computer without having it checked. However, when Krei does so, it appears that the drive has nothing on it. In reality, the drive contained a bug granting Obake hidden access to all of Krei's files, also allowing him to uncover Hiro's secret identity.

In "Killer App", Obake has numerous drones attack citizens in order to lure out Big Hero 6, and, after dismissing the drones as a failure, he decides that it is time to really get to know his enemies. The next day, Obake arrives at Noodle Burger after hours and kidnaps the Noodle Burger Boy robot, reprogramming him into becoming more hostile and able to use his prediction algorithm to foresee his opponent's attacks. Although Noodle Burger Boy fails to defeat Big Hero 6, Obake deems his mission a success upon learning that he had retrieved the data he asked for. Obake then uses Noodle Burger Boy's scans of Big Hero 6 to learn all of their secret identities.

In "Small Hiro One", a student who greatly resembles Obake is seen when Hiro checks the SFIT yearbooks.

In "Kentucky Kaiju", Obake has Globby break into a bank, where he imprisons Baymax in the vault and torments Hiro with the fact that he lacks useful powers before escaping. After retreating to Obake's lair, Globby states that he did what Obake asked, yet does not understand why, and he remarks that what he did was beyond his understanding. Obake 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. Obake later sends Noodle Burger Boy to cause havoc to test what Hiro has done, and is disappointed to find that he has upgraded himself with the "obvious" choice of super-strength. 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."

Later, Obake eats at the Lucky Cat Cafe to further spy on Hiro and unnerves his Aunt Cass with his creepy demeanor. That night, Noodle Burger Boy hijacks Fred's Kentucky Kaiju robot and sets it into battle mode using an advanced CPU chip, although Hiro manages to defeat it using his intelligence. While looking over the CPU chip following the fight, Hiro realizes that Noodle Burger Boy could not have made it and that Globby was trying to get into his head at the bank, deducing that the both of them must be working for someone else. At the same time, Obake, while spying on Big Hero 6, explains to his two minions that his true plan was to test Hiro's intelligence. Globby asks how smart Hiro is, to which Obake responds "very."

In "Rivalry Weak", Obake goes to the San Fransokyo Art Institute and visits Lenore Shimamoto’s newly restored house. He begins searching for Shimamoto's secret lab using a scanner disguised as a pair of glasses, only to be thwarted by a child who bumps into him and breaks them. Later, when news of Lenore Shimamoto’s secret lab was exposed to the public, he enhanced the news footage of the discovery to Honey Lemon to find that she is in possession of Shimamoto's diary. The next day, Obake disguises himself as a historian named "Herman Ebako" and tricks Honey Lemon into giving him the journal, although she soon realizes that she had been fooled afterwards.

Tracking the journal using Honey Lemon's SFIT ID card (which was left inside of it), Big Hero 6 confronts Obake, who 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 room that is slowly filling with water, Fred and Wasabi trapped in a replica of Fred's room with robotic duplicates of themselves, and GoGo and Honey Lemon trapped in a replica of Lenore Shimamoto's lab with the walls closing in on them.

After the team deduces the answers to the riddles and escapes from his traps, he became mildly impressed with their creativity and cleverness, before mysteriously vanishing. Fred soon begins conceptualizing possible names for the mysterious new villain, until the team finds that he wrote them a note in the journal, which states "Until next time - Obake." Back in his hideout, Obake has Lenore's diary digitized into his computer and reveals it's hidden contents, pondering where to start with it.

In "Fan Friction", Obake disguises himself as a prison guard and slips a piece of graphene concealed a paper with his insignia on it into Momakase's cell, saying that she can thank him for it later. Momakase subsequently escapes and is chased by Hiro and Baymax, but, before they can catch her, Obake sends a drone to distract the two heroes, allowing her to escape. In his hideout, Momakase confronts Obake, who states they have a mutual enemy in Big Hero 6 and offers her the chance to get revenge on them. Obake provides her with a scan-jammer to prevent Big Hero 6 from finding her, and she takes up his offer. Later, when Momakase tells Obake that she trapped Big Hero 6 on Akuma Island as planned, she asks about why he wants Hiro destroyed, as he has plans for him. Obake simply replies that, if Hiro is smart enough, he will survive the island's destruction.

In "Mini-Max", Obake reprograms a group of security robots to deem Hiro and Professor Granville threats at the school. While Hiro and Granville are evading the robots, Granville explains that she had allowed an ambitious young student to perform experiments after hours for 20 years ago, although this resulted in an explosion that left him damaged. She then took the fall for the student's actions and resigned from her position as dean of SFIT, and had not returned to the school until the present day. Now having a better understanding of Granville, Hiro apologizes to her and promises not to be like her former student after Fred and Mini-Max dispose of the robots. While Granville is cleaning up, Obake is last seen giving a look of disdain.

In "Steamer's Revenge", Hiro is seen connecting information regarding Obake and his possible plans, believing him to be up to something. Later on, Obake spies on Hiro and Baymax while they are fishing out Wasabi's car from the ocean using a robotic crab. His work is briefly interrupted by an underwater tremor, which he notices is being caused by a drill popping out of the sea floor. Upon analyzing it, learns that it belongs to Baron Von Steamer, which he remarks as a "stupid name". While Big Hero 6 is viewing the challenge made out to Boss Awesome by Steamer, Obake is shown to be secretly spying on them through a red dragon in Fred's room. Noodle Burgle Boy comments that Steamer could unintentionally interfere with his plans, but Obake is not worried, claiming that Big Hero 6 lives for stopping villains. While he is working, Noodle Burger Boy bothers him with questions regarding what he is doing, and he explains that he is converting H20 into D20, which he can use as fuel, before getting annoyed and shutting Noodle Burger Boy down.

As Big Hero 6 is frantically trying to figure out what Steamer's plan to destroy the city is, Obake hacks into their comm links and tells Hiro to think bigger, causing him to realize that the recently erected Boss Awesome statue in the bay is really a weapon. Big Hero 6 manages to destroy Steamer's statue, designed to suck in water from the bay for a giant steam cannon, as well as his submarine before having him arrested, although Wasabi still shows concern about Obake hacking them in order to help them save the city. Hiro then theorizes that Obake's intentions were not actually linked to saving the city, but rather to the water. At the same time, Obake finishes the D2O conversion and thanks Big Hero 6 for their help.

In "The Bot Fighter", after evading Big Hero 6, Trina retreats to Obake's lair, where its revealed that she is actually his robotic "daughter". At first criticizing her for wasting her time using the robots she corrupted to perform various thefts, Obake orders Trina to "show him something useful", to which she plays a recording of Hiro trying to persuade her to give up bot-fighting and join SFIT. Annoyed, Obake remarks on how they offered Hiro freedom and he rejected it, and, while hugging his daughter, states that it's time to "move forward".

In "Obake Yashiki", on Halloween night, Obake secretly slips digital imaging lenses into kinetoscopes inside Mr. Ohare's House of Scares, the lenses becoming attached to Big Hero 6 while they are touring the house. He then has Noodle Burger Boy steal a shipment container from Krei Tech, and he ends up escaping when Hiro sees his late brother Tadashi due to the augmented reality brought on by the lenses. The container is ultimately revealed to be carrying a shipment of B.U.D.D.Y. drones which Noodle Burger Boy takes control of and uses to try and steal a giant hyper conductive magnet at SFIT. While the other members of Big Hero 6 try to stop Noodle Burger Boy while dealing with their greatest fears brought to life by the lenses (GoGo's being leprechauns, Fred's spiders, Honey Lemon's hippos and Wasabi's heights), Hiro tracks Tadashi back to the House of Scares, and begins to converse with him.

However, Hiro becomes confused by Tadashi advising him to not be limited and not to fix Baymax, and realizes that his brother is being projected by the lenses at the same time GoGo deduces her fears are not real either. Tadashi's hat then morphs to form Obake's logo, and Obake, having been voicing Tadashi the entire time, calls him a clever boy for figuring him out. Back at Fred's house, Hiro reveals what Obake made him see, which Wasabi considers "crossing a line", and wonders how Obake even knew so much about Tadashi in the first place. In his hideout, Obake is seen watching one of the recordings Baymax took of Tadashi, when Noodle Burger Boy arrives with the magnet. Obake then makes preparations while the B.U.D.D.Y. drones construct a machine for him.

Attempting to Destroy San Fransokyo and Defeat
In "Countdown to Catastrophe", Obake sends Globby to steal a briefcase from a Krei warehouse, although he is foiled by Hiro and Baymax. Upon confronting Krei, Hiro, Baymax, GoGo and Fred learn that the briefcase contains a failed energy amplifier, which inspires Hiro to construct one of his own. Later on, Fred devises a plan to catch Obake by luring Globby in with the promise of another energy amplifier and subsequently catching him in order to make him reveal where Obake is hiding. The plan goes awry, however, when both Globby and Noodle Burger Boy show up, ultimately escaping with the decoy briefcase after the latter meddles with Baymax's systems. Though his henchmen believe that he will be upset after realizing they had been tricked, Obake tells them he's actually happy, as he had actually been manipulating Hiro into making a real energy amplifier the whole time.

The next day, Baymax detects Obake while he and Hiro are headed to the SFIT open house, and Hiro decides to abandon it in order to finally catch him. However, Hiro and Baymax soon realized that Obake had duped them with a robot replica of himself, which they quickly defeat. Even so, Obake's duplicate remarks that he kept them distracted long enough, and Hiro realizes that he is headed to the open house. As Hiro predicted, Obake arrives at the open house and walks up to Professor Granville, who recognizes him as her former student. Granville tries to apologize for what happened 20 years ago, yet Obake dismisses this, telling her she "made him the man he is today" while showing off his glowing face. He then tells Honey Lemon that her presentation on Lenore Shimamoto (which ended up revealing that she caused the great catastrophe in 1906) was interesting while walking out of the room. The heroes quickly recognize him, but, before they can confront him, Globby, Momakase and Noodle Burger Boy hold them off.

Using his old SFIT ID card, Obake enters Hiro's lab, mentioning how it used to belong to him, and takes the energy amplifier. Hiro and Baymax try to stop him, but when Baymax shoots his rocket fist, he ends up breaking the window, permitting Obake to escape on several B.U.D.D.Y. drones. Afterwards, Granville reveals that she knows Hiro and his friends are Big Hero 6, and discloses all the information she had on Bob Aken before he became Obake. Hiro returns to his house following this, where he discovers that Obake had planted a chip of his own inside Baymax, making him turn evil and take him to Obake's lair. There, Obake explains how Lenore Shimamoto's attempt to create unlimited energy created a star that quickly collapsed, which was how she caused the great catastrophe, and that he plans to recreate her experiment on a greater scale in order to destroy San Fransokyo and rebuild it, much to Hiro's horror.

He later reveals that he wants Hiro to become his student and help him rebuild the city. Although he refuses, Obake has Hiro locked up, believing that he'll change his mind once his plan comes to fruition. Fortunately, Globby, not wanting to destroy the city, frees Hiro and escapes with him, beating and restraining Momakase in the process. Obake comes across Momakase and, enraged to find out that Hiro has gotten away, cuts her loose and demands that she get him back, claiming that he needs his guidance. Obake subsequently sends Noodle Burger Boy to insert the energy amplifier into his machine within the lighthouse, and stays in his base as it powers up the machine and creates his star. Annoyed with Noodle Burger Boy once again, he shuts him off and instead activates Baymax, figuring he would be better company. Baymax scans Obake and takes note of his temporoparietal junction injury (which makes him literally unable to tell right from wrong, and Obake is well aware) and declining mental state, yet he refuses treatment, even saying that his lack of morality has been "liberating".

Ultimately, using the energy amplifier and Fred's recently recreated Kentucky Kaiju robot, Big Hero 6 is able to create a typhoon powerful enough to offset the star's implosion. Obake is distraught to see his plan fail, frustrated that Lenore Shimamoto is still going to be loved and revered while he will not be remembered as the man who remade San Fransokyo into something perfect, all while his base begins to crumble. Remorseful, he removes his chip from Baymax and tells him to go to Hiro, saying that he still thinks they would've done great things together before telling Baymax that he's satisfied with his care in order to make him leave. Obake is last seen sitting in his chair as his base falls apart, seemingly crushing him. Granville later asks Hiro if they ever found Obake, which he and Baymax fail to do while investigating the lair in their underwater gear. Hiro remarks that it would've been impossible for Obake to survive, although Baymax tells him "nothing is impossible."

Powers and Abilities

 * Genius-Level Intellect: Obake is a calculating, technological genius with prowess towards machines.
 * Hacking Skills: 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.
 * Technopathy (possibly): Although not confirmed, it is implied that he may be able to manipulate machines, as he is able to control his monitors and Trina's robotic body with hand gestures. This is also implied by the glowing half of his face.

Quotes
"Big Hero 6, what a busy bunch you have been. Time to really get to know you."

- Obake

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

- Obake

"I don't deny my method is harsh, but winning tends to settle any arguments."

- Obake to Hiro Hamada.

"I am satisfied with my care."

- Obake's last words to Baymax, before his presumed demise.

Trivia

 * Like Yokai, Obake is named after a creature in ancient Japanese folklore.
 * According to Baymax, Obake's body temperature is below normal.
 * Obake has a one-eyed ogre-like logo that appears on the screens and monitors he hacks into.
 * His alias "Ekabo" is Obake backwards.