Akihiro Kurata

Akihiro Kurata (倉田 明宏) is the primary antagonist of Digimon Data Squad.

Appearance
Kurata has black hair and glasses, and wears a white lab coat over olive green undercoat and dark grey pants.

Description
Kurata pretends to have a merciful side, but this is a ruse to hide his bigoted phobia of Digimon. His true personality is sadistic and megalomaniac, wanting to murder all Digimon and install himself as ruler of both worlds. His ruthlessness towards this goal has him blackmail and kidnap potential allies, as well as encouraging the violent, sociopathic tendencies of people like Kouki Tsubasa.

Etymologies
Name used in the franchise.
 * Akihiro Kurata (倉田 明宏)
 * Ja: Kurata (倉田). Japanese surname that means "warehouse field".
 * Ja: Akihiro (明宏). A masculine Japanese name that means "bright vast".

Fiction
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Ten years before Marcus joins DATS, Kurata was a member of a Digital World exploration party tasked with investigating the Digital World and rescuing Keenan Crier. To the disdain of his supervisor, Spencer Damon, Kurata consistently reacted with fear to the inhabitants of the Digital World, but insisted he was superior to Spencer. Eventually, the group became terrorized by, who chased them to the Infinite Ice Ridge. While Spencer held off SaberLeomon, Kurata used a makeshift space-oscillation bomb to open a portal to the Real World through which the rest of the expedition escaped.

Kurata's resentment of Spencer and phobia of Digimon led him to decide that all Digimon must be eliminated by allying himself with the powerful in order to conquer both worlds. So while Spencer negotiated an alliance with the powerful, Kurata worked towards invading the Digital World by creating , a soulless, artificial Digimon able to permanently delete other Digimon. Kurata led an attack force into the Digital World, using an army of Gizumon to ravage the Digital World and exterminate as many Digimon as possible. Among the casualties were Keenan's guardian,. Merukimon, believing that Kurata was operating on Spencer's orders, decided that the humans had betrayed him and forced the humans to flee back to the Real World.

Kurata reappears after leads SaberLeomon's army in an attack on the Real World. Kurata uses a massive Digital Gate to return the army to their world, then reveals himself to DATS, portraying himself as a well-meaning ally. When SaberLeomon himself comes to the Real World, Kurata sends a Gizumon to execute him, to the horror of DATS. Though the team distrusted Kurata, only Sampson really understood what Kurata was planning.

After this, Kurata travels with DATS to the Digital World in order to settle matters with Merukimon. However, Merukimon reveals the truth of Kurata's heinous past to DATS, so Kurata dispenses with the charade and uses a Gizumon-AT to fatally wound Merukimon. The DATS team attempts to fight back, but are not able to defeat Gizumon-AT or its digivolved form, Gizumon-XT, until Merukimon performs one last suicidal attack alongside the newly digivolved. Unfortunately, Kurata escapes in the chaos.

--I've gotten to about here, but the above still needs storylinks--

In the Real World, Kurata tricked the Confidentiality Ministry, headed by Chief Hashiba, that Marcus and the other members of DATS were traitors. Through this, he had most of the group's memories erased, and had Keenan, Sampson, and all other members of the DATS branch imprisoned. However, thanks to their partners, Marcus, Thomas H. Norstein, and Yoshino Fujieda manage to recover their memories just as Kurata sent a Gizumon AT toward them. Undeterred from that defeat, Kurata blew up the DATS building, and with Gizumon XT, escaped to the Digital World, in order to put his plans for genocide into motion. He sent Kouki Tsubasa, Nanami, and Ivan (the same ones that defeated Crowmon) to deal with Marcus, Thomas, and Yoshino whom they ran afoul of. When it came to the Holy Capital invasion, Kurata gave his human henchmen an upgrade to their previous forms.

He planted Digital Gates that brought to the Real World to cause panic and give him control of the military. He had the Gizmon merge with a missile to destroy ElDradimon. Kurata got Thomas's father Franz on his side promising that he will cure Thomas's sister (his daughter); the cure involved performing surgery on Relena to fuse her with Digimon data, thus turning her into a Digimon-human hybrid. In addition, to ensure Thomas would not betray him he secretly had planted before a bomb device inside Relena's necklace (Thomas had to pretend to be on Kurata's side until the bomb was deactivated when the necklace was removed for the surgery to proceed). He later revealed to Thomas the Digimon Belphemon in his Sleep Mode and how he found his Digi-Egg and was using the deleted Digimon data to revive him. He planned to use the Digimon Demon Lord not only to subjugate the other Digimon and the Digital World and destroy them at his leisure, but for his bid to rule the human world as well.

When Thomas breaks the Digimon Control Device, he reveals himself to have never been on Kurata's side to begin with. Enraged, Kurata merges with Belphemon by transforming himself into a DigiSoul and transmitting into the beast, becoming his Rage Mode. He later temporarily loses control of the Demon Lord, regaining control when his face appears on Belphemon's chest. Kurata and Belphemon then drain the city's electricity and swallow the space-oscillation bombs, causing Belphemon to grow and gain the power to rip holes between the Real and Digital Worlds using dark energy. Marcus and ShineGreymon are able to destroy Belphemon when ShineGreymon digivolves to its Burst Mode, and Kurata is returned to human form. Furious, he sets off a space-oscillation bomb to destroy the Digital World, but instead aggravates the spaces between the Real and Digital World. He was then shocked for what he had done as this is not what he had planned at all. As he floated helplessly into the space between the worlds, he then vanishes into an explosion of bright light.

Memories of every atrocity, misdeed and cold-hearted action committed by Kurata himself remain. Despite his downfall, he leaves behind a foul legacy of sorts that haunts just about everyone for the remainder of the series. Because of his ruthless Digimon genocide, Spencer suffers, as well as sparking the conflict with the Royal Knights and Yggdrasill later on. Ultimately, his reckless handiwork left both the human and Digital World close on the verge of total destruction.

Thanks to DATS, with the collision stopped and Professor Kurata deceased, King Drasil apologizes and harmony in the two worlds is finally restored.-->

Details
Kurata is unique in that he is the first genuinely evil human character in the Digimon anime/manga series (as opposed to Yukio Oikawa and Ken Ichijouji, who were controlled/influenced by Myotismon, and Neo Saiba, who was manipulated by Daemon), although there have been evil humans in the Digimon video games. This is shown by the callous way he has reacted to the deaths of the Digimon he has exterminated, and the almost maniacal nature in which he reacts to the prospect of facing them. However, when he is unprotected or in the case of his fight with Burst mode ShineGreymon overpowered, this all drops away, and he is seized by a gripping fear for his own life at which point he is not above begging pitifully for mercy. It is through this that he justifies his actions—he is protecting humanity because all Digimon are, in the eyes of such a cowardly man, a threat. In a way, he parallels Hypnos member Mitsuo Yamaki from Digimon Tamers, in that they both believed Digimon were a constant threat to Earth's peace—but they differ in that Yamaki eventually learned the error of his ways and was more business-like in his actions, regarding what he did as nothing more than a job and duty while Kurata is bloodthirsty and clearly enjoys what he does. He may also be based on the villain Analogman, a twisted genius hacker who sought to control both Digital and Real Worlds by enslaving Digimon.

When attempting to coerce people or hide his true intentions, Kurata appears almost affable or absentminded, and to some extent, overly friendly. However, when he introduced himself to the members of DATS, most seemed annoyed by him. Curiously enough, he seemed to act as though he had an allergy towards Digimon, prompting him to sneeze whenever and  drew near him. Whether this is an unexplored character point or whether he did it as a way of subtly indicating his disgust towards Digimon has yet to be determined.

Kurata has his own catchphrase, spoken in English; "It's showtime!".

Commander Sampson made a brief reference about Kurata on DS episode 19 before he made his first appearance two episodes later. In fact, when Commander Sampson discloses to the DATS team the full account about the true purpose of the exploration party into the Digital World and who were the original members on the aforementioned episode, Kurata can be seen in a short cameo appearance.

Digimon Masters
Kurata is an NPC.

Digimon Heroes!
When fighting Belphemon Rage Mode, ShineGreymon Burst Mode calls him "Kurata", and Rosemon asks who this is.