Kihara Amata

Kihara Amata (木原数多) is an antagonist in the original Toaru Majutsu no Index series. A member of the Kihara family, he displays a vicious nature befitting of the commander of Hound Dog. He is also a researcher, and most notably is the former mentor of the strongest esper in Academy City, Accelerator.

He is the main Science side antagonist of the Academy City Invasion Arc, as a counterpart to the arc's Magic side antagonist, Vento of the Front.

Appearance
Amata is only seen wearing a pair of pants and a jacket over his black shirt which is somewhat similar to Accelerator's black and white shirt. The most of notable of all his clothes is his long white lab coat, which makes him stand out amongst his own forces that wear all black.

He wears his blonde hair short, which compliments his strong facial features, such as his square jaw and cheek bones. Most prominently, Amata has a tattoo on the left side of his face.

Other notable apparel he wears is a pair of machine gloves known as Micromanipulators, used for high precision work.

Personality
Kihara Amata thinks little of human lives, especially that of his subordinates, calling them garbage with no human rights even more with espers who he sees no more than mere guinea pigs. This thinking is allowing him to kill any person that he deems useless without remorse, and takes pleasure out of taking away life; this thought process is compared to that of him simply pulling out weeds.

However, because of his very nature, Vento of the Front's Divine Punishment does not affect him, as even with the intent to kill Vento, he shows none of the hostility that is required for the spell to work. She even describes Kihara Amata truly rotten to the core, and is at least similar to her.

Kihara Amata also has a penchant for peppering his dialogue with profanity even in non-hostile situations.

Background
Not much is known regarding Amata, though he is regarded in Academy City as the greatest ability development researcher for development of Accelerator. Even during that time, Amata wanted to kill Accelerator, though could not because he was research material. Even so, Amata was able to train Accelerator to his specifications, giving him weaknesses to his own abilities that he could readily exploit if he desired, most notably the ability to bypass Accelerator's Redirection. Even though he is a developer of esper abilities, he believes that espers are simply experimental animals.

Some time later, Amata became the leader of the Hound Dogs under the command of Aleister Crowley.

He also apparently has a son, but not much is known.

Academy City Invasion Arc

 * Main article:Academy City Invasion Arc

Kihara Amata first appears before Accelerator in attempt to kill him and subdue Last Order under the direct orders of Aleister Crowley, after Vento of the Front's invasion of Academy City and crippling its infrastructure.

Here, Accelerator underestimates Amata's capabilities and is throroughly beaten to a bloody pulp. Accelerator however, was able to catapult Last Order out of grasps of the Hound Dogs and is later saved by the arrival of Index, who distracted them. While trying to attack the vehicle that Accelerator commandeered from the Hound Dogs, Amata meets Vento of the Front who is also looking for Index as so she could kill her. Much to her mild amusement, Amata is totally immune to Divine Punishment even after attacking her. Annoyed, Amata orders the Hound Dogs to form teams to eliminate Accelerator and any witnesses, Vento of the Front, and a team to come with him at the rendezvous point. Before leaving Amata tells Vento of the Front to be more capable if she wants to face him.

Kihara Amata is later seen at the rendezvous point, intrigued at the Hound Dogs becoming unconscious due to Divine Punishment and later orders the set up the Testament machine for use on Last Order. Much later, the Hound Dogs retrieve Last Order, to which Amata uses to taunt Accelerator over the phone, however, Accelerator sees through Amata's ruse of threatening Last Order with harm, since the higher ups of Academy City(Crowley) have ordered him not to harm her, greatly angering Kihara Amata.

Later, Amata uses the Testament machine to write a virus on the captured Last Order to activate Fuse KAZAKIRI. Here, he is greatly amused by Aleister's creation of something that likens to an angel. His excitement however, is interrupted by the arrival of Accelerator. Here, Amata uses his own Hound Dogs as a shield to counter Accelerator's gunshots, and later does battle with Accelerator after he mows down all remaining members of the Hound Dog with him. Predictably, Amata easily deals with Accelerator who later runs out of power for his collar. However, Kihara Amata is later taken by surprise by Accelerator trying to stand up and fight him even though his powers have run out, with this Amata is injured by his constant attacks, in anger however, Amata takes the chip that can treat the virus infecting Last Order and destroys it, taunting Accelerator at the same time. He then proceeds to beat down on Accelerator, however, the latter is saved by the arrival of Index, who has come to discover that Last Order is the core to keeping Kazakiri's Angel form.

Amata tries to attack her while she is curing Last Order, but stopped by the constant attack of Accelerator. Amata angered by Accelerator, finally uses a grenade on a weakened Accelerator. Much to his surprise, Accelerator survives the explosion of the grenade and sees before him the black wings that sprout forth from his back. Here, he surmises that the wings are made out of AIM, and describes his form as an angel. Amata met his demise after being used by Accelerator as the projectile for his own version of the Railgun.

Abilities
As the commander of the Hound Dogs, Kihara Amata is capable of operating a anti-tank missile launcher on his own, as well as anti-personnel grenade.

Kihara Amata is also a talented researcher and power developer, capable of operating a Testament machine. He was the one who "gave" Accelerator his powers, and knew his weaknesses as a result, such as throwing off Accelerator's wind control calculations by using a soundwave that changed the factors in Accelerator's calculations. Amata himself explains that he perfectly understands that "controlling" something with vectors requires very difficult calculations, so by adding an unknown element to "wind" such as "sound", a "blind spot" in the calculations is created and properly manipulating wind for air attacks becomes too hard.

     Main Article: Kihara Counter

Because of his intricate knowledge of the Accelerator's skills, Amata can bypass Accelerator's Redirection. Amata can hit Accelerator by pulling back his attack right before it is redirected by Accelerator's field, because Accelerator's redirection field simply changes the direction of the vector towards its opposite, as such anything that is coming towards Accelerator will be redirected back in the opposite direction. In this method, Kihara can use his 'Counter' to retract his fist the moment before it makes contact with Accelerator, so the vector redirection instead pulls it towards Accelerator.

Toaru Majutsu no Index (PSP game)

 * Main article:Toaru Majutsu no Index (PSP game)

Kihara Amata appears as a non-playable character in the game, here he is first seen in Accelerator's story route where he kidnaps Last Order to activate angel mode of Kazakiri Hyouka, after defeating her, Accelerator regains Last Order, the final scene unlocks a CG of Accelerator about to do battle with Kihara Amata.

Amata also appears in Mugino Shizuri's story route, he gives her a traitorous Sister clone as a partner and gives her missions for her and the clone to complete.

Design evolution
Appearing only once in the series, Kihara Amata was designed as something unexpected in the world of Toaru Majutsu no Index, and references Don Quixote regarding his design.

Trivia

 * Kihara Amata is the first Kihara known to have control of a military unit in Academy City. A relative of his Therestina Kihara Lifeline, also controlled a pseudo-military unit in Academy City, known as a MAR. Both lost their positions, with Therestina becoming incarcerated and Amata being killed.
 * In a way, how Accelerator "screams" Kihara's name ("KIHARA-KUN!!!") somehow becomes a joke amongst internet fans.
 * In the anime Blue Exorcist, Kihara's seiyuu, Keiji Fujiwara voices Shirou Fujimoto, the surrogate father of one of the main characters, Rin Okumura. The irony here is that Rin is voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto, Accelerator's seiyuu. Rin even shows certain distain towards Fujimoto in this possible nod.

Quotes

 * (To Accelerator)"Man, I want to kill you now. I really want to kill you. I knew I should've killed you before. What a blunder. What the hell was I doing? So, I'm going to kill you now, you damn brat!"
 * (To Accelerator)"I know your characteristics, equations, personal reality, everything! I don't call myself your power developer for nothing!"
 * (To a Hound Dog)"Let me teach you one rule you don't seem to understand. You are one piece of crap in a pile of garbage. You don't have any human rights. We can find replacement garbage anywhere. If you get in the way of this very important plan, I have no problem of throwing you in the gutter. Get it? You're as good as dead."
 * (To Accelerator) : "Could it be that you think that you are the hottest thing around or something? Standing up all by your own and fighting off the evil guys giving it your all to save a pitiable captured brat. - Do you think that all of your sins will be written off just by doing that?"