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Chai

From The Codex


And I know it now... I don't need a guitar. I AM a rockstar.

Background

Chai is the main playable protagonist of Hi-Fi Rush. One of the Heroes in the game, Chai is a college dropout that became a "defect" after a botched experiment from Project Armstrong, making him a target of Vandelay Technologies.

This dropdown contains the synopsis of Chai’s story. Read at your own risk as you may be spoiled otherwise!

Sometime after dropping out of college, Chai became interested in getting a robotic implant from Project Armstrong to replace his disabled right arm and to finally become a rockstar, but Vandelay's assessment of his profile would have landed him on simple garbage pickup duty. However, this ended up going sideways as his MP3 player that was tossed aside by Kale Vandelay himself (unknowingly) landed on his chest just as he was about to get his implant. This resulted in the MP3 player becoming embedded in his chest, giving him, in his own words, "musical robot powers".

General Information

Name: Chai

Origin: Hi-Fi Rush

Sex: Male

Age: 25 (Wrote down his age along with his profession during the beginning of the game)

Classification: Cyborg, "Defect", "Future Rockstar"

Species: Human

Occupation: Rockstar

Affiliations: 808, Peppermint, Macaron, Korsica (After her fight with Chai), CNMN

Enemies: Kale Vandelay, Rekka, Zanzo, Korsica (Formerly), Mimosa, Roquefort

Status: Alive

Alignment: Chaotic Good (Chai is apart of a rebellious group of hackers aiming to stop Vandelay's plan to use Spectra to mind control people)

Codex Statistics

Grade: S

Tier: 8-B

Cardinality: Finite

Dimensionality: 3-D

Attack Potency: City Block level (Fought and defeated QA-1MIL, a robot of this size, towering this far. Fought and defeated wolf form Roquefort, a massively giant robotic wolf. Can cause craters with his attacks. Can harm those who can harm him)

Durability: City Block level (Tanked an explosion from the power gun, that resulted in this levels of energy. Tanked getting hit from the HG-OG bot, sending him through 6 thick concrete walls with a single strike. Tanked an explosion that launched him into glass hard enough to crack it. Tanked getting hit by wolf form Roquefort, sending him flying in a cracked safe and through a massive gold wall)

Striking Strength: City Block Class

Lifting Strength: Unknown

Travel Speed: Superhuman (Can move so fast that he creates afterimages from just dashing)

Attack Speed: Superhuman, can't be blitzed due to his music powers

Reaction Speed: Superhuman, can't be blitzed due to his music powers (The entire world moves to the beat, including objects in the background. With it even being further noted by Smidge that the whole world moves to Chai's beat. Due to the world moving to Chai's beat even objects far faster then him, such as lasers, must abide by his beat allowing him to easily parry them)

Stamina: Above Average (Has shown to clear entire stages while fighting in an underground magma fueled area without showing any real signs of tiring)

Range: Standard Melee, Extended Melee with Waste Remover, Tens of Meters through Summoning Korsica (Korsica's wind blast are capable of reaching this far) & Harmonic Beam (Shoots out a beam that reaches this far), Hundreds of Meters through Summoning Peppermint (Peppermint is issued with a PC-338 energy gun to help shoot long-ranged targets Chai can't hit), Universal with his music powers (The entire world moves to the beat, including objects in the background. With it even being further noted by Smidge that the whole world moves to Chai's beat. Learned how to perfectly parry attacks where the accuracy code was flawless)

Intelligence: Gifted Intelligence

Knowledge:


Powers and Techniques

Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Human Achievements (By the end of the game, became a skilled musician, with him even noting to Kale he wasn't winging it anymore), Acrobatics & Multiple Jumps (Even before receiving his cybernetic upgrades, Chai has shown to be an acrobatic person, and shown after his cybernetic upgrades to be capable of doing superhuman leaps. Chai is able to double jump), Weapon Mastery (Is equipped with a waste remover, that he can use the metals around him to form into a guitar that he uses in battle for various combos), Cyborgization (Partial; Was put into an experiment where his arm was replcaed with a cybernetic arm and a MP3 player embedded in his chest that allows him to feel the "beat of the world"), Accelerated Development (Other, Abilities; Chai can learn new attacks and special attacks from buying them in the shop), Stealth Mastery (Chai is able to hide from visual sight in combat through quickly going behind the enemy, giving them a hard time at finding him), Enhanced Senses (Able to fight just fine in dark rooms), Afterimage Creation (Can create multi-colored afterimages from dashing), Breaking the Fourth Wall & Plot Manipulation (Narrative Manipulation; Traditional; Defensive; Chai can directly direct himself to the audience. Chai and his friends are able to cause continuity errors being acknowledged as meta moments that the characters acknowledge, going further enough to go to areas that they couldn't even be there yet, along with activate cutscenes, Chai can use these continuity errors to also escape out of being imprisoned, it's also directly noted that the continuity errors aren't due to an 808 upgrade as Peppermint mentioned she can't teleport Chai back, and it's further noted all of these events are plot inconsistencies), Magnetism Manipulation & Metal Manipulation (Chai with his arm is meant for magnetic waste removal, which allows him to magnetically grab all metals around his weapon and form it into a guitar. Chai's magnetic arm allows him to perform a magnet grab, where he can reach far away places or quickly close in on enemies in battle. Dodging is able to pull items from far away to Chai), Reality Warping, Sound Manipulation, Broadway Force & Velocity Manipulation (Passive; Defensive & Offensive; As Chai's MP3 player is embedded into his chest, this allows him to feel the "beat of the world", and make everything sync with the beat, Chai's attacks will automatically sync up with the music and always land on the beat. The entire world moves to the beat, including objects in the background. With it even being further noted by Smidge that the whole world moves to Chai's beat), Precognition (Analytical Prediction; As everything moves to the beat, that includes enemies, as the security units are moving and acting to the same rhythm as Chai, which means he knows exactly when attacks will come and be able to avoid them), Statistics Amplification (The music player in his chest is powering up Chai's robot arm), Technology Manipulation (Can sync himself with other robotics), Damage Boost (Attacking enemies on the beat does more damage then his regular attacks), Absorption (His arm is able to absorb a lot of energy into him that he can let out to destroy things he previously couldn't break), Hacking (Can hack into robots in order to get items out of them), Electricity Manipulation (Can re-surge power into a busted generator through hitting it at the correct beat, causing eletric sparks), Perfect Guard & Attack Reflection (Can parry attacks to reflect attacks back and perfect guard all attacks), Air Manipulation (Seemingly caused a massive gust of wind after beating Mimosa in a beat off), Durability Negation (Chai is able to synchronize with the frequency of an object in order to completely destroy it, this includes even forcefields that he himself can't break through along with Peppermint and Macaron), One Hit KO (Through rhythm Parry Attacks, Chai can parry all attacks and take an enemy out in one hit, regardless of how hard they were to kill previously), Explosion Manipulation (With Echo Splash, the combo ends with an explosion), Energy Projection (With Harmonic Beam, shhots out a powerful energy beam), Healing (With Pick Me Up!, Chai busts out a reserve energy drink to give him a health boost mid battle), Aura (With Rip and Tear, Chai harnesses the energy of the beast, creating an aura of beastly claws that rip apart any enemies in front of Chai), Illusion Creation (Standard Illusions; With Holo-Chai, Chai creates a hologram to confuse the enemy and attack the wrong Chai), Time Manipulation (With Hibiki, Chai slows down time to use one of his hardest hitting attacks. Chai also slows down time with Overdrive Slash), Intangibility (Phasing; Can dodge through attacks through perfect dashing), Limited Transmutation (Can transform his waste remover into an actual guitar).


Resistance to Extreme Heats (Can travel through the R&D branch, an area deep blow the island that uses magma as a natural power source), Fire Manipulation (Can be set on fire and easily douse himself with no lasting injuries), Electricity Manipulation (Can tank getting eletrocuted with no lasting effects), Paralysis Inducement (Can take hits from Korsica's wind attacks, without being paralyzed/stunned), Information Analysis (Noted by CNMN that every time he tried to quantify Chai and put him into a calculation he kept getting an error, noting him as the human equivalent of dividing by zero)

Equipment


  • Waste Remover: Chai possesses a modified Project Armstrong arm implant capable of containing a trash grabber, when combined, the arm attracts scraps of metal to the grabber, giving it a form reminiscent of a V-shaped guitar and allowing it to be used as a mace-like weapon. The grabber will sometimes transform into a real guitar when Chai finishes up a boss. Additionally, he can zip from Point A to Point B with his arm implant by using its magnetic properties.

Notable Techniques


  • Magnetic Arm and Grabber: Chai possesses a modified Project Armstrong arm implant capable of containing a trash grabber, when combined, the arm attracts scraps of metal to the grabber, giving it a form reminiscent of a V-shaped guitar and allowing it to be used as a mace-like weapon. The grabber will sometimes transform into a real guitar when Chai finishes up a boss. Additionally, he can zip from Point A to Point B with his arm implant by using its magnetic properties.
  • "Musical Robot Powers": With Chai's MP3 player embedded in his chest, he can feel the rhythm of the world. It somewhat acts as his "sixth sense", as he can feel the beat of his entire environment as if the world is a musical score, allowing him to time his movement when traversing through dangerous areas, read his opponents' movements and evade any of their attacks, parry said attacks, and more. Additionally, he can also create what it seems to be colorful shockwave blasts and guitar sounds per each attack.
  • Temporal Displacement: Thanks to 808's configurations by Peppermint, Chai is able to call upon his friends to help him out during battle at any place and any time.
  • Blunt Weapon Proficiency: Although it may look "ineffective" under normal conditions, Chai's possesses remarkable skills with his "scrap guitar", creating rhythmic swings and strikes, and even flamboyant attacks like throwing the weapon around him like a boomerang, attacking while airborne, and more.
  • Enhanced Durability: Chai appears to have enhanced durability to a fairly high degree, crashing through several windows and falling from various heights without injury. He can also take a large amount of punishment from weapons such as the beam batons and swords wielded by the foot soldiers of Vandelay.

Other

Standard Tactics: Chai will use his musical powers to have one fight to his beat where he will incoporate various combos and summon allies into battle to help him.

Weaknesses: Chai is seemingly delusional at points viewing himself as being on a stage when learning new attacks, even though he's not actually there. Chai summoning allies takes a bit out of him, requiring him to recharge before he can summon an ally again.

Note: Despite some misconceptions, Chai is able to fight without his weapon, one of his special attacks has him uppercut an opponent with his robot arm.

Trivia

  • Chai is voiced by Robbie Daymond in English, known for voicing Spider-Man in various Marvel TV shows and some Video Games.
    • Chai is also voiced by Hiro Shimono in Japanese, known for voicing Zenitsu Agatsuma in Shueisha and Aniplex's Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Zephyr in Sega's Resonance of Fate, Dabi/Touya Todoroki in Shueisha's My Hero Academia, and the titular protagonist of Peter Grill and the Philosopher's Time.
  • Before signing up to Project Armstrong, Chai was originally assigned to waste management as a garbage collector before becoming a defect, explaining why he has a grabber and magnetically collects nuts and bolts.
  • His name means "Tea" in several languages. This follows the pattern of several characters being named after foods/drinks.
  • Chai is scared of both regular spiders and robot spiders.
  • Despite claiming that he's a 'future' rock star when joining the Armstrong program, he had never actually played any guitar at all prior as pointed out by Peppermint and Kale. A theory to why he never did was confirmed by the game's director, that Chai didn't have full function of his right arm and wasn't simply faking it with his scarf in the intro. It also explains why he signed up to the Armstrong program, to replace it and finally have a chance at his dream.[1]

References

Gallery

Battle Records