Tomohiro Machiya

"I am a cameraman, just like I promised you. I am only her to capture you beautifully, from the beginning to the end"

- Tomohiro Machiya, to Oushima Sanagi

Tomohiro Machiya is the villain protagonist of the manga Dead Tube. Machiya was a normal high school student living in Japan and a member of the student film club until the day he met Mai Mashiro, a girl in the swim club who asked him to film her every movement for the next two days. Machiya agrees, and films Mai swimming in the school swimming pool, before following her around for the rest of the day. Several times, Mai appears to be attempting to seduce Machiya, asking him to film her in the shower and even going to the bathroom. Machiya even films Mai while she sleeps for the entire night.

The next day, after school Mai reveals that she actually has a boyfriend, a boy who bullied Machiya in middle school named Yamamoto. Mai asks Machiya to film then on a date. Machiya agrees, seeming increasing disinterested in Mai, even as she tells Machiya to film her having sex with her boyfriend in an abandoned factory. Mai, however never completes the act, instead grabs a metal pipe from the factory floor and uses it to beat her Yamamoto to death. To Machiya's surprise, he discovers he is sexually aroused by the site of Mai murdering her "lover". Mai takes the memory card from Machiya, and in the process, kisses him all while still nude and covered in her victim's blood.

The next day, Mai approaches Machiya, telling him she has frame another person for her crime, and tells him to follow film the actions of his film club president Oushima Sanagi, claiming she will commit suicide in five days.

Oushima, Machiya, and the rest of the film club go on a field trip to shoot some scenes for a film to be screened at a school festival, joined by Mai, who agrees to "act in the film". Throughout the field trip, Oushima seems to behave in a provactive manner to Machiya, in spite of her claim that she already has a boyfriend. On the last day of the trip, Oushima takes Machiya aside and states that she received a text and photos from Mai showing her boyfriend murdered, as well as three boys in the film club. Mai also states that she had Mizuno, a girl from the film club raped by three male accomplices. The text warns that if Oushima does not commit suicide in two days, more of her friends will die. Oushima and Machiya formulate a plan to ambush and kill Mai the next day on the roof of the school. Shortly before enacting her plan, Oushima confesses her love for Tomohiro and kisses him, as she stands on the edge of the roof, as though about to jump to her death.

As Machiya confronts Mai on the roof, a partially clothed and beat up-looking Mizuno attacks Mai, tackling her to the ground, and begs Machiya to kill her, claiming Mai and her accomplices kidnapped and raped her. Mai, however seizes Mizuno and tosses her at the fence along edge of the roof. This causes Oushima to apparently fall to her death.

Machiya, however, has by this point become aware of both Mai's and Oushima's schemes. Machiya attacks Mai, but only uses a soft foam baseball bat covered in bandages filled with fake blood, essentially faking Mai's death. Shortly afterwards, Oushima reappears from the roof access door, along with Mizuno and two male accomplices, who reveal they planned the whole thing, for the deaths of the film-club members, to Mizuno's "rape", and even Oushima's "suicide"- Oushima caught herself on a soft awning hanging below on the third floor, while the body was actually that of a female member of the film club she had drugged and murdered. She then taunts Machiya about how she had lied to him about the whole thing, and about how she was sexually involved with her two male accomplices. Oushima intended to drive Machiya to suicide by his betrayal, film the suicide and upload it to an underground video sharing site known as "Dead Tube"

Instead, Machiya simply replies "Too bad". At this point, Mai gets up, and murders Oushima's accomplices with a collapsible baton and an awl. Oushima undresses and begs Machiya to save her, offering him sex. Mai responds by saying she will let Oushima live if she kneels at Machiya's feet and licks his shoes. However, shortly afterwards, Mai admits she was lying. Instead, Mai subdues Oushima and hangs her by her ankle from the fence around the edge of the school, before cutting the rope, causing her to fall to her death as Machiya films the scene. Oushima's death is then presumably uploaded to "Dead Tube"