User blog:Red Chevalier/Pure Evil Proposal: Tenjuro Banno

Been meaning to do this guy for a while. I'm planning on getting all my Kamen Rider proposals done before I move on to other PE candidates. Anyways, here's Professor Banno.

What is the work?
Kamen Rider Drive is the 16th installment in the Heisei era of Kamen Rider. It features Shinnosuke Tomari aka Kamen Rider Drive, a detective for the Special Investigation Unit who fights a series of killer androids called the "Roidmudes", robots with the ability to copy human appearances and develop human emotions.

Who is the villain?
Tenjuro Banno, the creator of the Roidmudes and Bigger Bad of the series. Banno is a scientist with a massive ego who seeks to prove his genius by digitizing everyone and ruling over the world as a god. He was also once the friend and lab partner of Krim Steinbelt, the scientist who created the Rider system our hero uses, until Banno's narcissism led to their partnership collapsing. He is also the father of the secondary Rider, Go Shijima/Kamen Rider Mach, and Kiriko Shijima, though he cares nothing for either of his children.

Banno is initially presented as a posthumous character, but is later revealed to have survived by uploading his consciousness to a tablet.

What does he do?
During the Roidmudes' development stage, when an investor refused to invest in Banno's Roidmude research, Banno activated Roidmude 002 and forced it to copy the appearance of the investor so he could vent his anger by torturing it. Keep in mind that the Roidmudes were designed to be sentient and experience human feelings, so Banno was causing pain to a fully aware being for no other reason than to vent his petty grudges, which wasn't even at the actual object of his rage.

Needless to say, after Krim found out what Banno had done he became disgusted with him and ended their partnership. However, Banno refused to admit any wrongdoing and blamed Krim for ruining their friendship. Out of petty spite, Banno implanted chips containing negative human emotions into the Roidmudes, leading to the Global Freeze, where the Roidmudes rose up and nearly wiped out humanity. Banno also broke in and stole Krim's mind-uploading technology.

During the Global Freeze, Banno was killed by the Roidmudes, but managed to preserve his consciousness by using the mind-uploading technology he stole from Krim to upload his consciousness into a digital tablet.

The Banno tablet wound up in the hands of the Roidmudes, but was later recovered by Go to rescue his dad. While Banno at first acts helpful to our heroes, he eventually betrays them once he's gathered the data he needed to create a copy of the Drive Driver with help from Roidmude 004, who Banno secretly programmed to be his right-hand man.

Finding an ideal host in Roidmude 006, Banno brainwashes the Medic Roidmude to be his loyal servant in order to force the other Roidmude Executives to obey him with the promise that he would let her go once his plans were completed. This was a lie of course as Banno actually planned to sacrifice her to stabilize his ultimate creation, Sigma Circular, with which Banno intended to use to convert everyone into data and only give bodies to those who agreed to bow down to him.

Heinous Standard
Banno sets it for Drive, and is probably among the baddest Kamen Rider villains in general. Pretty much everything that happens in Kamen Rider Drive is his fault in some way. Even the Big Bad, Heart, notes that Banno is far worse than any of the Roidmude antagonists in the show.

Mitigating Factors
None at all. Tenjuro Banno doesn't care for anyone who isn't named "Tenjuro Banno", not even his own family, who he was perfectly happy to sacrifice to achieve his goals. Case in point, even when he was pleading with his son Go to not finish him off, all Banno could talk about was himself and how the world needed his genius.

Final Verdict
Big yes. If there was ever a villain who deserved to be Pure Evil it was this guy.