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An essay on shame in Ape Escape 3, a character psychoanalysis on Dr. Tomouki

Over a decade has passed and I still love Ape Escape 3 as much as I loved it on the day I finished it, and the most major reason for that is one of the two villains of the game: Dr. Tomouki, a character who is still my most favorite singular character I’ve seen in fiction, and that is for a reason

He is not an often talked about character whenever someone brings up the Ape Escape series, despite being one of the deepest, if not the singular most deep character in the trilogy and the game series - not only because of the lore he offers to the game series as a whole, but the themes of shame and humiliation that are handled in his backstory

Full analysis under the cut - be aware that this will contain spoilers

Before I deep-dive into this character psychoanalysis, let me give you a brief synopsis of the game series, which is info that will come into play later:

Ape Escape is a 3D platformer video game series, that has 3 main games. The main idea of each game is that a group of apes have gotten access to intelligence-enhancing helmets, and are now led by a monkey called Specter, who has a different world-dominating plot depending on the game, and each time a different protagonist must defeat him and his army of primates

In the third installment, two twins, Satoru and Sayaka, with the help of their scientist aunt Aki, must stop Specter once again, but this time with a twist - this time around he has a human ally, and said human is the one and only Dr. Tomouki, whose character and themes we will dissect in this essay

I will use the EU translation of the game as a basis since it is more faithful to the original script, but the US translation of the game does follow a very similar premise

While Tomouki is teased as a new character and a villain in the very first cutscene of the game, he gets a proper introduction in the cutscene that follows after the first boss of the game. He is introduced as an over-the-top narcissist from the get-go, with him telling various info about him (like the fact that he is single, his weigth and heigth including afro, etc), and he is then adorned by roses. All of this is soon interrupted by Aki, and Tomouki is suddenly really humbled and surprised upon meeting her. This will come into play much later

From this cutscene forwards, the game is a fairly standard ride plot-wise, defeating a boss after boss and seeing the two man villains after each defeat with not much new lore to either character. I do want to note the cutscene after the third boss though, where the only dialogue is from Specter since Tomouki is too busy looking at his own reflection, which adds more to his narcissistic nature introduced earlier, and as a side-note, is comedy gold

Then we enter the second last stage in the game, Tomouki City, and if the game was an enjoyable ride this far, this is where things actually get really interesting

First I want to point out the enviromental storytelling in the stage - his previously established narcissism is amplified in his stage with the entire city having named after him, and his face plastered all over. There are posters of his face, there are golden statues all around, most of the catchable monkeys in the stage have afros, there stands an entire freaking tower modeled after him in the middle of the city, to name a few examples. You can almost touch his ego. And as a side-note here, I want to say that his aesthetics are on-point with the gold-purple-white palettes, heavenly-looking enviroments and roses

We get one more glimpse of this when we reach him in his boss chambers, the so-called Den of Splendor, where you can see pastiches of old paintings, but modified in his image. Then we enter his boss fight, where he fights in a mech that - you guessed it - is modeled after his face

After we jam to some Bach Invention 13 and completely obliterate his ass, this is where the real deal begins

After he is defeat, we learn of his background story - he was part of the group that created the series staple monkey helmets to begin with, with said group featuring Aki and a character simply called Professor, who is THE character behind the helmets, and a series staple character who has been featured in each main series game

Tomouki's role in the creation of the helmets was to be a test subject to the helmets, which then lead to an accident where one would be permanently stuck on his head (which we are actually teased in his introduction cutscene, where he flexes with his IQ if 1300) This drastic change in appearance led to him being a subject of ridicule by his peers and everyone around him, leading him to his current villainy

And this here, where the theme of shame and humiliation comes into full play. While on the surface level, the game and the series as a whole is still a very light experience, this moment here adds some surprising depth in a place no-one would expect it, that is a 2006 PS2 platformer aimed at children

So, let's now deep dive into the psychoanalysis here

Everything we have learned of the character falls so far falls into place in this very cutscene - we learn that his ego and narcissism wasn't played simply for laughs, but it is indeed a broken man's way to cope and re-build whatever strips of self-love he has left. We don't know whether he is trying to prove others or himself of his self-worth, so that is up to speculation, but the reason for his narcissistic tendencies is clear

It is not easily distinguished whether or not he is intentionally hilarious in his narcissistic presentation or not, but I can still safely say that if he wants to be hilarious, he wants to be hilarious in his own terms. He (and I'd dare to say, literally everyone else on this planet) doesn't want to be ridiculed by other people by a thing he cannot control, he doesn't want to be ridiculed against his will, which is in this case, is his permanent change in appearance

Speaking of appearance, usually when a character has a physical mark left of their past trauma, it is usually something like having a scar on their face, but even then that is usually integrated as a cool feature in the character's design Tomouki's case here, on the other hand, is like a slap to the face - you, as a player, have to face it, and he, as a character has too. There is nothing cool or aesthetically appealing in his current state of being. Shame is such an universal, such a human emotion (which is fitting coming from a game series that features a human vs primate conflict thorough it), and yet we don't see it handled that much in fiction, except - like I stated before - in this surprising place

After the reveal of the aforementioned lore, he is inviting Satoru and Sayaka to laugh at him like the rest, showing a glimpse of the spirit of a broken man. He tried to fight against fate one more time by joining forces with Specter, but even that attempt was futile, and he now greets defeat one more time.

While Satoru and Sayaka are still processing what is going on, Specter joins the invitation instead, only to be told off by Satoru about it, and upon seeing various people experience this part, their reactions have fallen mostly to these two categories - either to Specter's ridicule, or Satoru's sympathy. Specter then proceeds to put this plan into full action, with the specifics of said plan still being unclear to the main characters and the player. The main characters are now left to wonder how to stop this.

While abrupt, but fitting to the game's pace and narrative, Tomouki now offers to help the children instead After this small, simple act of kindness and sympathy, this man was actually set to the path of healing his faith in humanity, and helps the main characters to Specter's real hideout

From this moment on, he takes a backseat until the defeat of the final boss Again, spoilers ahead:

While Tomouki not present, it is revealed right before the final boss that the villains' plan was to split the earth in two for the two of them to rule each half. This sounds really extra spelled out loud, but is right at home in a game series as silly and insane as Ape Escape. After this, the protagonists point out that not even the apes will have a place to live if Specter decides to proceed with this plan

This bit goes to theory territory, but I am almost 100% sure that Tomouki's real intention with this plan was to indeed to end all of, well, everything. Perhaps partially as an act of revenge, partially of having serious depression (we will get here in a bit) and he somehow convinced Specter of this actually working

Fast forward to post-final boss, Tomouki appears once again before the main characters, advicing them to leave the villain's headquarters and let him stop the aforementioned plan. It is then soon revealed, that in order to stop the plan, the entire place needs to be blown up, with him along with it

But right before that, my previous statement about him having depression comes back into play here - Tomouki states that he has not been this high on life for ages, and while not spelling it out loud, this does heavily imply the character had long ago fell into depression due to the reasons stated above. After this, he thanks the protagonists, hugs his now-introduced robot friend, and ends it all

...Or so I would say, if this wasn't a game with children as its main audience - in the ending credits, it is revealed that he somehow survived all of that, and the last time we see him in the game and the series as a whole is in a photo featuring Satoru, Sayaka, Aki and various other characters from the series. Where he heads in life after this is unknown, but we are given hope that despite this man's past trauma, he now has a new direction in life with his faith in humanity restored

While the character (and the entire game) has maybe 30 minutes worth of cutscenes, there is so much lore and depth squeezed into it, whether intentional or not. While Ape Escape 3 is the only official piece of media Tomouki has appeared in to this day, his character arc in this game is such a neatly tied package, that he doesn't really need anything more, even if I am personally craving for more of that sweet Tomouki content

He goes through an insane character arc in such a short period of time, and all of it unfolds so naturally There is also a lot of lore to be found outside the cutscenes too, with the designs of the Teleborgs, the real-life trends of 2006, things lost in translation and such, but those are something to handle another time

So, TL;DR : Dr. Tomouki Ape Escape 3 is one of the most important if not THE most important in the Ape Escape lore, and he has surprising depth to his character handling very overall unhandled themes like shame and humiliation in an enviroment fairly light on story elements

Or maybe I am just overthinking as a helpless simp. Maybe.

I just think Dr. Tomouki Ape Escape 3 is neat

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