Yukio Oikawa

Yukio Oikawa is a fictional character in the anime series Digimon. He is voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japan) & Jamieson Price (US).

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. He was born in 1969. As a kid, he was an extreme loner; mocked and shunned by classmates, he had no friends. A boy named Hiroki Hida was the only one who never treated him like dirt and became his only friend; Hiroki was born in the same year as Oikawa.

Pre-Digimon & between Digimon Adventure & 02
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 Oikawa. They both ended up communicating with the Digital World. They spent 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 so he decided that Hiroki and Oikawa were being too childish. Chikara 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 they remained 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. Oikawa worked with Ken Ichijouji's father as a computer programmer. He was utterly devastated by the death of Hiroki and would carry a photograph of Hiroki.

In 1995, when the Hikarigaoka (Highton View Terrance in the dub) incident occurred, Oikawa went to investigate and worked alongside Nancy Takaishi. There, Oikawa learned that Hikarigaoka served as a gateway to the Digital World. Four years later, on August 3, 1999, Oikawa visited the grave of the recently dead Hiroki, angry that Hiroki had broken his promise. Oikawa then saw the DigiDestined in the sky as they left Odaiba. Seeing his 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 knowledge enough to create two Digimon to serve him: Arukenimon and Mummymon. 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. He manipulated Ken Ichijouji into becoming the Digimon Emperor.

Digimon Adventure 02
As the Digimon Emperor, Ken constructed Control Spires which began to weaken the boundaries and upset the balance of the many worlds. But when the DigiDestined defeated the Digimon Emperor and began demolishing the towers, Oikawa knew he would have to take action. He sent Arukenimon and Mummymon to battle against the DigiDestined many times. Later he decided it would be easier to weaken the barrier from his own side. He captured Ken and copied the Dark Spore that was inside him, then placed the copy into several other children, such as Noriko. This led to some conflict with Daemon whom also sought the Dark Spore inside Ken. But once Oikawa copied it, he no longer needed Ken and handed him over, though the other DigiDestined showed up and rescued him during the hand over.

As he waited for the Dark Spores to grow stronger, one of Arukenimon's creations, BlackWarGreymon, interrupted his rest. BlackWarGreymon, knowing Oikawa was the mastermind responsible for his existence and sensing that Oikawa belonged in neither world, was going to put an end to them. Oikawa received unlikely help from the DigiDestined, though only because they knew they might need him to take the Dark Spores out. As BlackWarGreymon fought against the DigiDestined, Oikawa fled with Arukenimon and Mummymon.

But later he again confronted both the DigiDestined and BlackWarGreymon, who were then working together. Oikawa absorbed the Dark Flower from Noriko, giving him an eerie power. Unexpectedly, Chikara happened upon them at this very minute and tried to talk Oikawa down, almost succeeding. However, this caused the spirit of Myotismon to take over and use the Dark Flower's power to try 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 and used the Dark Seeds to try and open a gate to the Digital World. But unbeknownst to him, BlackWarGreymon had sealed the passageway to the Digital World with the last of his power. Instead he opened up a portal to an entirely different world. Some of the DigiDestined showed up at the last second and made it through the portal to that world as well. It was a confusing world that looked entirely random and had no sense of direction and was later revealed to have the power to grant dreams and wishes. Oikawa suddenly fell to his knees in pain and the spirit of Myotismon left him. It absorbed the Dark Spores 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 DigiDestined from around the world against MaloMyotismon. After the battle was over, he met the Digimon he had seen so long ago in the video game, Datirimon, who said he was Oikawa's partner Digimon. He apologized to the DigiDestined for what he had done before passing away. Using the power of the Other World, he decided to use his life to repair the damaged Digital World, 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.