Matthias

Name	Matthias
Designer	Superjustinbros
Gender	Male
Age	23 (Arc 1) 25 (Arc 2) 27 (Arc 3) 30 (Arc 4) 32 (Arc 5) 34 (Arc 6)
Nationality	German-Japanese
Height	5ft, 9in

Matthias (マティアス Matiasu) is a character in the Aozora's Adventure series.

Background

Matthias is the lead guitarist and signer of his personal rock band, the Sapphire Skulls. Growing up with his family, he was always interested in music and took a liking to rock and roll and heavy metal after seeing and watching his father play them when he was alone. Matthias would ask his father to bring home more CD's containing songs and participate in karaoke sessions with his friends. At these karaoke meetups, Matthias' father and his group of close friends would discover Matthias' singing voice.

Growing more interested in the bands of the time that he followed, Matthias wanted to try and write his own songs. Getting guidance from his father, taking lessons, and borrowing his father's old guitar, he slowly became accustomed to playing music and singing at the same time. Several years later, Matthias, now sixteen years of age, was given the chance to play onstage at an amateur music festival. Taking the day off from work, Matthias' parents took him to perform the song he had been working on for years, only for the song to be interrupted when a gang of band members that were previously banned from perfuming in the concert hall entered the audience and picked a fight. Matthias, his father and his friends, and several other large and muscular men attending the concert, including other performers, jumped in to fight the gang. Despite his efforts, Matthias was inefficient in combat, allowing one of the gang members to draw a knife and slash across Matthias' chest and arms until Matthias' father could jump in and save him- noticing his old guitar was smashed up from Matthias using it as a blunt weapon.

Matthias was taken to the hospital and given stitches while the story made rounds on the news. His father was saddened and his mother was furious, worrying that another incident like it would put Matthias out permanently. Even with the wounds on his body, Matthias wanted to continue singing and playing the guitar, reminding his mother that he had people cheering him and dancing along with the song. Sometime later, Matthias was let out of the hospital and was taken to pick out a new, modern, professionally built electric guitar to continue practicing on. Once his wounds healed, Matthias began reshaping his image to be more fierce and tough, styling his hair, getting tattoos, and bulking up his muscles and fighting capabilities through fitness training and and boxing classes.

Now 18 years of age, Matthias continued to train, practice, and refine his new image. While picking out accessories for his guitar at a music store one day, he was approached by three young adult boys named Moriyama, Miyashiro, and Ishihara that formed an underground band and saw the disaster years prior. Commenting that Matthias' singing and skills at the guitar were "unreal", they offered Matthias a chance to join as their leader. Matthias accepted the offer but was anxious at the prospect of leading an entire band. Remembering his close bond with his father, he was certain he would get along perfectly with the band in due time, though it would take several months for Matthias to become in sync with the rest of the band.

With the band now under Matthias' wing, they all moved in under one household and decided on calling the band the "Sapphire Skulls". They proceeded to turn the home into a rock and roll haven with a metal aesthetic and picked out new signature outfits filled with black leather, exposed upper bodies, exotic hair colors, chains, and makeshift stone bracelets. Determined to improve his bond with Moriyama, Miyashiro, and Ishihara, he gave everyone flexible schedules, breaks if needed, and a day off, if they so choose.

Powers and Abilities

Matthias is very muscular and has good physical strength and swift melee skills. The guitar Matthias uses for performances is outfitted with a sturdy steel lining and extra internal parts to increase the mass of the guitar, allowing the guitar to be used as a blunt weapon gripped from the neck and as a makeshift shield to block oncoming blows. While Matthias is a reliable fighter, he has a weakness to his chest area and his difficulty shrugging off stronger attacks.

In response to all the ranged attackers and superpowered beings he would meet, Matthias secretly rigged his guitar to have an "attack mode" only he can trigger and activate that turns the gestures he makes on his guitar into various forms of magical attacks. If Matthias does a slicing motion with his arms over the strings of the guitar, it forms into a sharp sonic wave shaped like a crescent. More dramatic slices result in the wave becoming larger but slower. If a more reliable but slightly weaker attack is desired, Matthias can aim the guitar and emit blue rings filled with sound energy from the headstock by strumming its strings in peculiar patterns. The further up the neck the strings are strummed, the smaller the rings and the lesser its force upon impact.

If Matthias aggressively plays his guitar without stopping for several seconds, he summons the "Sapphire Skeleton", a large skeleton made of sapphire with glowing cyan eyes and equipped with a multi-neck electric guitar. The skeleton joins its summoner for combo attacks and is intangible, unable to be touched by anything other than other forms of electricity and energy. During concerts, the Sapphire Skeleton inherits energy from the instruments of Matthias' fellow band members, including bass player and secondary vocalist Moriyama, keyboard player Miyashiro, and drummer Ishihara, and becomes a giant, glowing spectacle filled with energy and greater power as it replicates the Sapphire Skulls' music.

Gallery

• 

  Original concept sketch with reference colors

Trivia

• Alongside Fakhriya, Matthias was the first character created for the Rock-Aozora subseries, being conceptualized in July 2011.

Characters