Hitani Mario

"Hitani Mario"

- Whew... I'll make you listen... to my melody of revenge!

About
Hitani Mario is a student at Arashino Academy in the Chou ward of the district of Toukyou. He's trying to find the man who killed his lover.

During the events of Big Bang Age, Wolf Fang, lead by Zanma Rouga, takes control of Seijou Academy. This causes two groups to begin fighting Wolf Fang and each other. One is the Sensouji Academy banchou Kongomaru Sanzo, the other is Gokuren's Idagawa Ren. Ren starts a rebellion against Sensouji to try and conquer Japan. Upon starting the rebellion, Gokuren tasks Mario, a friend of Ren's, to fight back against Wolf Fang.

After being captured by Wolf Fang, Rouga convinces Mario to join him. However, in return, Rouga needs to assist Mario in finding the killer of Nanjou Asuka, his lover.

Upon being asked by Rouga whether he has any leads, Mario states he only knows the killer is somewhere in the Kantou, Hokkaido or Kansai regions, which comprises almost the entirety of Japan. Mario then investigates Akihabara, Sapporo and Oosaka. In each region he believes to have found Asuka's killer, corners them in a flashy, over the top manner (such as riding in on a white horse, riding in on a mammoth stampede or jumping off a building), then accuses them of raping and killing his lover. Each man claims they did not do it, because of various reasons (such as being a virgin, being impotent, orhaving lost their penis through an accident). After Mario performs a 'Johnson Inspection', where he checks each man's penis, Mario concludes they were unable to rape Asuka and then forcibly makes them join Wolf Fang, all renamed as a color.

After searching all over Japan and not finding Asuka's killer, a defeated Mario is sitting down and watching the sunset with Rouga. Suddenly, a woman approaches Mario. That woman is Asuka, alive and well. It turns out that Mario simply imagined Asuka being raped and killed because, according to Asuka, Mario's 'brain is just stuck on drama'. This concludes Mario's 'quest for revenge'.

During the ending, Mario gets approached by a professor, who claims to belong to a secret organization. The professor is very impressed by Mario's fighting abilities and wants Mario to assume command of a group called the 'Secret Rangers'. He then gives Mario a 'transformation bracelet' that will allow him to change into his battle suit. Mario accepts, then breaks the fourth wall and tells the viewer to 'watch him on television soon'.

Abilities
Mario is a mid-ranged fighter who uses his white guitar to attack his opponents. He approaches the enemy, slams his guitar down on them, then sits on his guitar and fires off sparkles that causes him to be pushed away from his opponent.

His special ability, Flashy, available only in hard mode, allows for additional control points to be taken away from regions when attacking them.

Outside of battle, Mario apparently possesses a strange ability to blend into his surroundings. During one particular event, Rouga calls Mario into his office, then sits down and waits a while. After some time, Rouga is surprised that he's been sitting on Mario, who was pretending to be a chair, the entire time. Rouga had not noticed this at all, other than his chair feeling more uncomfortable than normal.

Appearance
Mario is a strange character with a flair for the theatrical. When confronting the men he suspects raped and killed his lover Nanjou Asuka, he always arrives in an over the top manner, like jumping off buildings or riding a herd of stampeding mammoths. His quest for something to exhilerate him is so major, he will delude himself into believing his lover has been raped and murdered, when she is actually alive and well.

Mario has medium length blue hair underneath a white cowboy hat with green and gold-colored ovals around the rim. He wears a flashy short cowboy jacket, with fringes around his armpits and white sleeves up to his elbows. Underneath is a black shirt with gold buttons. He wears long white pants with a brown belt, adorned with a flashy gold buckle. Around his neck he wears a white bandana. On his hands he wears black fingerless gloves. He is always seen with a white guitar that he also uses in battle.

Trivia

 * Mario's flashy entrances, naming the men he suspected of killing his lover after different colors and the ending sequence where he gets approached to command a group called the 'Secret Rangers', which use transformation bracelets to change into their battle suits, are all references to Toei Company and Bandai's tokusatsu series 'Super Sentai'. The show is best known outside of Japan for being the source material for the show Power Rangers.