Yukio Oikawa

Yukio Oikawa is a fictional character in the anime series Digimon Adventure 02. He is voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa in the original version and by Jamieson Price in the English dub version.

Oikawa is considered by many to be the most tragic character in the series. He is one of the few human adults to have a knowledge of the Digital World.

Pre-Digimon and between Digimon Adventure & 02
Oikawa was born around 1969. As a child, he was an extreme loner; mocked and shunned by classmates, he had no friends. A boy around the same age named Hiroki Hida was the only one who never treated him like dirt and became his only friend.

Hiroki was obsessed with the idea that he could communicate with the Digital World through old video games and he shared the same obsession with Yukio. They both ended up communicating with the Digital World, spending hours and hours on the video games talking with the Digital World.

Hiroki's father, Chikara, became very worried about the obsession his son had. He forbade his son from playing video games and tried to separate Hiroki from Oikawa, fearing that they were spending too much time together. The two were heartbroken but remained close friends; they made the promise to each other that, one day, they would go to the Digital World and they started sharing their dreams and never told anyone else about it.

In adulthood, Oikawa worked with Ken Ichijouji's father as a computer programmer, while Hiroki became a police officer and started a family. Evidently, the two continued to study the Digital World; in 1995, when the Hikarigaoka (Highton View Terrance in the dub) incident occurred, Oikawa went to investigate and worked alongside Natsuko Takaishi (Nancy), Takeru Takaishi's mother. There, Oikawa learned that Hikarigaoka served as a gateway to the Digital World.

In 1999, Hiroki took a bullet for an important political figure and died from his wounds. Oikawa was utterly devastated by the death of Hiroki, though he still continued his investigation of the Digital World. He was angry and sad, however, since Hiroki had broken his promise.

On August 3, 1999, Oikawa was present in Tokyo Harbor when the Chosen Children defeated Myotismon. He saw the Digital World in the sky and the Chosen returning to the Digital World. He had raised a framed picture of Hiroki to the sky, crying that he wanted Hiroki to see their dream realized. Oikawa was soon possessed by the disembodied spirit of Myotismon after it promised to make his wish to go to the Digital World come true. He wasn't consciously aware of the spirit, but it gave him the knowledge to create two Digimon to serve him: Arukenimon and Mummymon, created by combining data with his own DNA. While they could travel to the Digital World, he still could not. He knew he would have to weaken the boundaries between the worlds to accomplish this. After seeing Ken Ichijouji in the funeral of the boy's older brother and sensing his Dark Seed, he manipulated Ken into becoming the Digimon Kaiser (Digimon Emperor in the English dub).

Digimon Adventure 02
As the Digimon Kaiser, Ken constructed Dark Towers which began to weaken the boundaries and upset the balance of the many worlds. But when the Chosen Children defeated the Digimon Kaiser and began demolishing the towers, Oikawa knew he would have to take action. He sent Arukenimon and Mummymon to battle against the Chosen Children and complete the Kaiser's work. Arukenimon and Mummymon's plan of having BlackWarGreymon, one of Arukenimon's creations, destroy the Destiny Stones almost succeeded, but was thwarted at the last minute. Following this, he decided it would be easier to weaken the barrier from his own side.

Oikawa instructed Arukenimon to open the Digital Gates in the entire world. During Christmas day, the Japanese Chosen Children traveled around the world and helped close the gates, Arukenimon and Mummymon drove around Tokyo in a truck and kidnapped twenty children. The following day, they kidnapped Ken as well, so that Oikawa could scan his Dark Seed and pass it on to the children. After this, Oikawa, Arukenimon and Mummymon ran off to hide in a vacation house in the mountains, but BlackWarGreymon came from the Digital World to destroy them. BlackWarGreymon sensed that Arukenimon and Mummymon were not natural Digimon, which Oikawa confirmed. He also sensed that Oikawa belonged to neither world, due to Myotismon's spirit. Oikawa received unlikely help from the Chosen Children, as they knew they might need him to take the Dark Seeds out of the children. As BlackWarGreymon battled WarGreymon and Imperialdramon Fighter Mode Oikawa and his henchmen fled and returned to Oikawa's run-down apartment in Tokyo.

The next day, he confronted Iori Hida, not knowing that he was Hiroki's son. However, as he saw the name Hida on Iori's bag, he realized that this is his best friend's son and fled. That night, he visited Hiroki's grave, plagued by memories and guilt. He didn't let this stop him, however, and went on to absorb the Dark Flower of Noriko Kawada, whose Dark Seed blossomed earlier than expected. He succeeded in this despite the Chosen Children's attempts to stop him. Unexpectedly, Chikara happened upon them tried to talk Oikawa down, almost succeeding. However, Myotismon interfered, using the power he absorbed from the Dark Flower, and tries to kill the old man. BlackWarGreymon intercepted the attack and was fatally injured. While everyone was shocked from this, Arukenimon and Mummymon pulled Oikawa away from the scene.

After the other Dark Seeds had grown strong enough to bloom into Dark Flowers, Oikawa gathered all of the children together in Hikarigaoka and used the Dark Seeds to try and open a gate to the Digital World. However, he did not know that BlackWarGreymon had sealed the passageway to the Digital World with the last of his power. Myotismon sensed this, and made Oikawa open up a portal to an entirely different world, the world of dreams. He entered the portal along with the Dark Seed children, his henchmen and the younger Chosen Children, who made it through the portal at the last second. Oikawa was confused when he realized he didn't reach the Digital World, and Myotismon's spirit used the powers of the dream world to remind Oikawa that he had possessed him. Following this, Oikawa fell to his knees in pain and the spirit of Myotismon left him as his mirror image. It absorbed the Dark Seeds of the children and transformed into MaloMyotismon.

The spirit's departure left Oikawa with barely any life for himself, but he was able to witness the final battle between all of the Chosen Children from around the world against MaloMyotismon. After the battle was over, Iori went back to the world of dreams through a rip that was created in the barrier between the worlds, and tried to bring Oikawa to the Digital World. Thanks to his best friend's son, he finally met the Digimon he had seen so long ago in the video game, Datirimon, who said he was Oikawa's partner Digimon. Oikawa apologized to the Chosen Children for what he had done before using the power of the world of dreams to repair the damaged Digital World with his own body, changing his body into data (shown in the form of a swarm of rainbow butterflies). His spirit lived on as a part of the Digital World itself.