Shredder (TMNT 2012)

"There is undoubtedly a fascinating story to how my old nemesis managed to teach ninjutsu to four mutant turtles. Perhaps I'll let one of you live long enough to tell me the tale."

- Shredder to Leonardo before trying to kill him

Shredder along with The Kraang is the main antagonist in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon on Nickelodeon. Like the comics, his real name is Oroku Saki. He and Hamato Yoshi (Splinter) used to be friends until the love of a woman tore them apart. During the fight, Yoshi's wife was killed and his baby daughter was lost. At the end of the pilot episode, Rise of the Turtles, he watches the news in Tokyo, Japan after the turtles have made themselves known. He concludes that Hamato Yoshi was building his own army and is headed to New York City to exact his revenge.

In the 2-part season finale "Showdown", he had April kidnapped just so he could fight Splinter one last time, completely uncaring about what the Kraang would do to the rest of the world so long as he could get revenge. When Splinter arrived to rescue April, he found too late that it was a trap, at which point Shredder attacked. During the battle, Shredder revealed that during the fire all those years ago, Splinter's daughter Miwa had not died, but had in fact been raised by Shredder to hate her biological father on the lie that it was he who had killed Tang Shen and not Shredder, with him reveling in how he had turned Splinter's own daughter against him. So it was that when Splinter defeated Shredder Karai came to his defense, and an emotionally devastated Splinter fled.

Despite his having raised Karai Shredder is shown to have no feelings for whatsoever, only using her to get revenge on Splinter/Hamato Yoshi. Nowhere is this more apparent than when Karai asks her adoptive father for assurance that he would have never let her be hurt by his new robotic foot soldiers, and he does not answer her. He has also repeatedly threatened to hurt her if she disobeys him, and it is strongly implied that he has done so in the past. Eventually, after Karai learned that Splinter was his real father, Shredder admitted the truth and had her locked up in a cell. However after this it is later shown that Shredder has truly grown to care for Karai and deeply loves her as his own daughter. Being devastated by her mutation, Shredder vows to avenge her by destroying Splinter, who he blames.

Besides Karai he has two other main henchmen, an apprentice and martial arts master named Chris Bradford, and a street thug named Xever. At the end of Pulverizer Returns, he allied himself with The Kraang to destroy the Turtles.

He is voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, who also voiced Captain Gantu from Lilo & Stitch and Goro from the Mortal Kombat Movie.