Is the Yoshi kid in TMNT3 related to Hamato Yoshi?

[madyankees]

I finally got through the 3rd movie and it was as advertised.:x
Anyway there was one thing that peaked my interest. There's this kid called Yoshi in the movie that Mikey rescued. And I was thinking...Yoshi. Same name as Splinter/Splinter's sensei.

Granted I am aware that Yoshi seemed to be the kid's first name while the Yoshi in Hamato Yoshi is his last name. But anyone think they could actually be like related or something?

[Aaronardo]

I thought it was obvious :P

Anyway, yes. But why would you even ask? If it didn't make any sense to you, that whole movie doesn't make sense anyway xD

[madyankees]

But why would you even ask?

The only thing in my head was...time paradox time paradox time paradox...:D

[Shark_Blade]

I think he might be Hamato Yoshi's ancestor.

Though back then as a kid when watching it, only this "Yoshi" character comes to my mind. :lol:

http://i.imgur.com/xopo1L0.jpg

[snake]

Yeah, he's probably his ancestor. Or at least, that's what I thought when I first saw it.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

I think it's open for interpretation. Wes are given hints that he could be by Raph's
interactions with him but nothing concrete. It would make some sense though given the subplot with the scroll.

[Leo656]

I think it's there if you want it to be but that it's not necessarily true.

Wouldn't Splinter's family name actually be Hamato, not Yoshi? It's also not an uncommon Japanese name, either.

I could actually believe the producers figured it was just a name kids could pronounce based on how popular the video game character was at the time and decided to use the name based on that. Hollywood is not exactly known for being creative when giving characters ethnic names.

[Toby Barrett]

Granted I am aware that Yoshi seemed to be the kid's first name while the Yoshi in Hamato Yoshi is his last name. But anyone think they could actually be like related or something?

Ah, no. Hamato would be his last name.

[CyberCubed]

I think it's there if you want it to be but that it's not necessarily true.

Wouldn't Splinter's family name actually be Hamato, not Yoshi? It's also not an uncommon Japanese name, either.

I could actually believe the producers figured it was just a name kids could pronounce based on how popular the video game character was at the time and decided to use the name based on that. Hollywood is not exactly known for being creative when giving characters ethnic names.

I doubt the name was chosen because of a green dinosaur from Mario. It's a common Japanese name.

[sgtfbomb]

I never even gave it a thought. Then again, the only thing I ever took from TMNT 3 was the awesome poster, which was 100x better than the movie itself and was shamefully not used for the VHS, and that Baltimora song that kept popping up at that time.

[Foot Soldier Clang]

Ah, no. Hamato would be his last name.

Yep this is correct. It's a Japanese custom to introduce yourself last name first because you "represent your family before yourself". And it's common to be called and referred to by your last name by most people, while your close friends and relatives would use your first name.

[Plasticplayhouse]

lol, never occured to me. i was so annoyed with how silly the film was that i dont even remember much of it.

[BubblyShell22]

When I was younger, I never even thought about it, but now I think he may have been an ancestor or maybe Yoshi himself when he was a boy. You never know.

[Powder]

If that were the case, then Mikey would have been essentially trying to bone his own ancestor.

[Ninjinister]

The family name of the clan is Hamato but since the 1987 series paid f**k all attention to Japanese naming convention, I'd suspect that the writers of the film my not have giving a damn either.

[FlogginMcMurryZombiePizza]

I think it's there if you want it to be but that it's not necessarily true.

Wouldn't Splinter's family name actually be Hamato, not Yoshi? It's also not an uncommon Japanese name, either.

I could actually believe the producers figured it was just a name kids could pronounce based on how popular the video game character was at the time and decided to use the name based on that. Hollywood is not exactly known for being creative when giving characters ethnic names.

I was about to point this out too...
Japanese surnames come first and the given name is the "lower name" (when written vertically in Japanese kanji).

It only looks like his first name because that's what we are accustomed to in America.
The proper American name for him would be Yoshi Hamato.

I would be very surprised if "Hamato" was the actual given name and he was the son of the Yoshi family. I'm not even 100% sure Yoshi is a surname anyway.

Oroku Saki would be the same also, Oroku being the surname and Saki was his given name.

So there wouldn't be any relation. That would be like saying anyone with my given name, "Ryan", is related to or an ancestor of me.

At any rate it couldn't possibly be the same kid who would become their martial arts master... even in a time paradox. It makes less sense!
The film was set in 1603... Yoshi was already a boy so just figure how old he is and that tells you his birth year.
The "present day" we can assume to be 1993, when the film released.
That would mean, if this were Hamato Yoshi, he would be 390 years old in the present. Even if you were to argue that maybe the mutagen gave him prolonged life, he's never portrayed as "elderly". Wise, yes. Older? No, not so much.
YoshiSplinter's age, to my knowledge, has never been stated so even if we assumed Yoshi got to age 40, that would be in the year 1643. That would still tack on hundreds of years still to age him to the late 80s or early 90s.

This is of course assuming that Splinter is Yoshi.
But even if Yoshi is a separate character and Splinter the pet rat learned from observation of his master, rats don't have long lives (only a couple years for pet rats) and that would still put Yoshi at an unnatural age before the events of the rat to mutate (assuming mutation might prolong life) and raise the turtles to teenage years.

[Jester]

The family name of the clan is Hamato but since the 1987 series paid f**k all attention to Japanese naming convention, I'd suspect that the writers of the film my not have giving a damn either.
That's not entirely true. The great season 7 episode Legend of Koji got it right.

Mitsu and Yoshi could very well be Hamatos.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Very true, Jester- We're never actually told their last name- or even their grandfather's first name, either. They very well COULD have been Hamatos, but it was never explicitly stated, so they left it for the audience to guess. I still think it had something to do with the scroll and the legend, though- if they'd already "been there, done that" 400 years BEFORE that, as both Mitsu and Norinaga suggest, who's to say they didn't somehow influence their own timeline? Which is what makes that movie so intriguing to me on a time/space level. If the scepter hadn't been fried at the end, we might have learned more.

As I said before, it IS possible that it was Hamato Yoshi's DISTANT ancestor (and perhaps Raph's advice is what started the "control your temper" bit Splinter told Raph in TMNT 1?) but that would not make him an ancestor of either Splinter OR the turtles, in any case- movie Splinter was Yoshi's PET, not the man himself. So, no, Mikey was NOT trying to "bone" his own ancestor, as someone suggested- they had no relation to each other.

[Jester]

You know....that's a very cool theory. Raphael told Yoshi to watch his temper, which becomes "Master Yoshi's 1'st rule" from Turtles 1. It really helps to make Turtles III more than the sum of it's parts...and it needs all the help it can get. I think I'm gonna use that logic to make TMNT III a better movie to me.

Heck...it may very much be implied. I wanna say that Whit is explicitly implied to be Casey Jones' ancestor. Norinaga and Kenshin very well may be Saki's ancestor, and Mitsu and Yosh may well be Hamatos. The bigger "WHA!?" is the implication that Yoshi and Saki may have had a shared ancestry.

[FlogginMcMurryZombiePizza]

I'm just going to re-quote what I already said on the matter. I still can not possible see how we get that "Yoshi" the boy somehow becomes an influence to Hamato Yoshi, the owner of/future mutated rat.

I think there is a lot of stretching going on to find depth in a shallow pool.
But that's just me.



So there wouldn't be any relation. That would be like saying anyone with my given name, "Ryan", is related to or an ancestor of me.

At any rate it couldn't possibly be the same kid who would become their martial arts master... even in a time paradox. It makes less sense!
The film was set in 1603... Yoshi was already a boy so just figure how old he is and that tells you his birth year.
The "present day" we can assume to be 1993, when the film released.
That would mean, if this were Hamato Yoshi, he would be 390 years old in the present. Even if you were to argue that maybe the mutagen gave him prolonged life, he's never portrayed as "elderly". Wise, yes. Older? No, not so much.
YoshiSplinter's age, to my knowledge, has never been stated so even if we assumed Yoshi got to age 40, that would be in the year 1643. That would still tack on hundreds of years still to age him to the late 80s or early 90s.

This is of course assuming that Splinter is Yoshi.
But even if Yoshi is a separate character and Splinter the pet rat learned from observation of his master, rats don't have long lives (only a couple years for pet rats) and that would still put Yoshi at an unnatural age before the events of the rat to mutate (assuming mutation might prolong life) and raise the turtles to teenage years.

[Jester]

No one is saying That Yoshi IS Hamato Yoshi, just that He is one of Hamato Yoshi's ancestors. Yoshi could very well be a "family name." Like I said earlier, it seems that there is a serious implication that Whit is Casey's ancestor. Is it so far fetched to assume that this kid who shares a name with another player in the Turtle mythos is his ancestor?

[Leo656]

I doubt the name was chosen because of a green dinosaur from Mario. It's a common Japanese name.

One of the things I absolutely love about you is your ability to unwittingly agree and disagree with someone equally within the same sentence and not even realize it. :) Have a great summer, don't ever change!

I can definitely see a bunch of places it could be implied the kid was Splinter's ancestor, especially since I'd put money on Whit being Casey's. So it could have been a running theme of the movie that they just only bothered making explicit in the one case (The Whit/Casey connection), and ambiguous in the rest. If it was the case, it wouldn't have hurt them to make it more clear, since the rest of the movie (and the series in general) was not exactly "subtle". One thing that makes me feel like the name was just a coincidence is that based on evidence, if the kid was in fact Hamato Yoshi's ancestor, they probably would have spelled it out a bit more so there would be no mistaking it. Just going by the type of movie it was.

BUT, I say if you want to link Yoshi and Hamato Yoshi, and it makes it a better movie for you, go for it. Nothing disproves it, after all. Like pretending Prof. Perry was an Utrom after all when watching "Secret of the Ooze"; it can change the entire experience around in your head and make it more interesting.

[Jester]

I have a question:
Mikey (and Leo) wind up saving Yoshi from being burned alive in the fire. Was the Turtles appearance in the 1600's what lead to the fire...or did they save this kid from his intended fate?

[Leo656]

:o

Well f*ck.

[FlogginMcMurryZombiePizza]

No one is saying That Yoshi IS Hamato Yoshi, just that He is one of Hamato Yoshi's ancestors. Yoshi could very well be a "family name." Like I said earlier, it seems that there is a serious implication that Whit is Casey's ancestor. Is it so far fetched to assume that this kid who shares a name with another player in the Turtle mythos is his ancestor?

Then I will repeat this quote again
" That would be like saying anyone with my given name, "Ryan", is related to or an ancestor of me."

Yoshi is not a surname. It's a given name. You're connecting to dots that shouldn't be connected without connecting the family names. I went over that before, unless everyone glazed over the wall of text that was my post.
HAMATO is the family name.

Japanese Names: Family Name/Given Name
American Names: Given Name/Family Name

But hey, it's a hypotheses, right? And as Leo put it:

BUT, I say if you want to link Yoshi and Hamato Yoshi, and it makes it a better movie for you, go for it. Nothing disproves it, after all. Like pretending Prof. Perry was an Utrom after all when watching "Secret of the Ooze"; it can change the entire experience around in your head and make it more interesting.
I'm just stating you're connecting a character to another character based on an (un)common given name (or his "first name") in Japan.

Saki is a bit more unique of a name, I think. You just don't hear too many people named Saki so if a character existed in that movie with the name, then that would open a whole new box of snakes.

What would have been nice if the characters wore, or had family crests displayed. We have seen Splinter's family crest displayed a few times, notably recently in the first episode of the Nick show.

As for Whit/Casey...
I honestly don't think there is a connection. But it's possible. He's a prisoner, right? Is he English, atleast? Or are we meant to think he's a local?
Either way the movie doesn't give you any information on anything. It hardly lets you in on the plot itself anyway!
But, again, if it helps.

Maybe I'm just rejecting it more 'cus I never liked it even as a child.

I have a question:
Mikey (and Leo) wind up saving Yoshi from being burned alive in the fire. Was the Turtles appearance in the 1600's what lead to the fire...or did they save this kid from his intended fate?
That's some Back to the Future/Doctor Who time paradox provoking thought there.

You could argue that by going back in the timeline as they did, it altered history. But on the same note, it may have all happened because that's how it was meant to be when they went back becasue it had already happened in the history of their present day (everything in the past already happened on the timeline before the movie started and April got the Scepter). Was he meant to die? Did they completely alter the time line? (Back to the Future 3). Who knows, but it's a damn good thought.

[Leo656]

If Whit wasn't at least implied to be Casey's ancestor, I have to think he would have been played by a different actor, possibly one of the several who stood in the background doing little or nothing the whole movie.

Generally, in kids movies, when a familiar actor plays a "new" character, it is strongly implied there is a connection between the two, sometimes ancestral, or a "stand-in" for someone else like in "Wizard of Oz", etc. It's not strictly in kids movies, either, with the "Back to the Futrure" series being a main example; when you see someone from the past (or future) played by a familiar actor, you don't *have* to be told they're related, you already know before they inevitably spell it out for you. By that logic, it's far more likely Whit is Casey's ancestor than Yoshi being Hamato Yoshi's. The people making the movie would know that a 5-year-old kid would see Whit's face and make an immediate visual connection with Casey, a character they know, and think "Well sh*t, they're in the past and he looks just like Casey, so he must be related to him!" Meanwhile, most young kids probably made little to no connection between Yoshi and Hamato Yoshi; they likely failed to notice it or chalked it up to coincidence.

Again, I'm just going off of how kids' movies generally present ideas and information. I'm pretty sure we are led to believe Whit and Casey are related, simply because there is no other reason for Elias Koteas to play a second role and for the main cast to acknowledge, repeatedly, the resemblance between characters. Meanwhile, not one main character stops to think aloud, "Yoshi? As in HAMATO Yoshi? WOAH, mind blown!"

In either case, you can choose to believe whatever improves the movie for you. :) I just feel like they "told" us in visual that Whit and Casey are related and don't do anything of the same with the Yoshi/Yoshi "connection".

[FlogginMcMurryZombiePizza]

Ya, on the same note, kids were referring to Tokka and Rahzar as Bebop and Rocksteady because of who they were in the cartoon. That's who T&R were to them.

I got Whit being played by Elias from the story standpoint that it's a familiar face therefore we can trust this character because he's Casey, even if he isn't.
But I think there is a better chance at this being an ancestor than Hamato Yoshi being connected to ??? Yoshi.

[Jester]

I guess I'm just reading into the film a seeming "theme" of ancestors. Whit is heavily implied to be Casey's ancestor...complete with April's recognition of him when they share a cell in Norinaga's palace. (and the rat...which I'm sure was just a throw away gag.) Again...neither of us is right. You chose to not see any connection, I seem to read WAY too much into said connection. It's all in good fun...and an attempt to make something more of a movie that gets no love.

[Leo656]

Whit is heavenly implied to be Casey's ancestor...
:o So GOD told you Whit and Casey are related? Holy f*ckt*tties, that completely blows my reasoning straight out of the water! YOU WIN, sir! :lol:

[Jester]

:o So GOD told you Whit and Casey are related? Holy f*ckt*tties, that completely blows my reasoning straight out of the water! YOU WIN, sir! :lol:
Flippin' typos...

[Leo656]

But it totally worked out in your favor. No one can argue higher than God told them Whit and Casey are related. TAKE THE WIN! :P

[gobo]

I doubt it. It's possible that whatever writers they had working for peanuts were leaning that way, but it would have been confirmed by Splinter or something if they wanted you to think that. Personally, that idea just seems really weak.

[Leo656]

Splinter didn't care, he spent the entire day waiting for them to get home so he could do the lampshade gag. He totally didn't give a f*ck what happened otherwise.

[Jester]

Considering he's half the rat he was in the previous films...literally...I can understand.

[Leo656]

:lol: He shrank in Donnie's rigged-up Electric Hot Air Kimono Dryer (patent pending) :lol:

[Olmosa]

I'm assuming using Yoshi as the kid's name was meant in a way to tie this Yoshi to Hamato Yoshi, but Hollywood being the ignorant bunch they are probably didn't think about the fact that Japanese place surnames first. That's like if they had a character names Jones Casey and then later on down the line they had a character named Casey and we're supposed to assume they are related.

[Bo Staff.]

No, he can't be. He lives in the 1600s, long before Hamato Yoshi was born.

[Jester]

No, he can't be. He lives in the 1600s, long before Hamato Yoshi was born.
QU0tU9iAekE

[The Boston Ninja Turtle]

my brother had this theory about Yoshi..as someone said cause of the surname first thing

[Bo Staff.]

QU0tU9iAekE

Wait...was the OP meaning that Yoshi was just an earlier incarnation of Hamato Yoshi? And not 20th century Hamato Yoshi himself?

[Jester]

Is Yoshi, like Whit seems to be with Casey, Hamato Yoshi's ancestor?

That's the question....

[Bo Staff.]

Is Yoshi, like Whit seems to be with Casey, Hamato Yoshi's ancestor?

That's the question....

Gotcha. Thanks.

[The Boston Ninja Turtle]

Wait...was the OP meaning that Yoshi was just an earlier incarnation of Hamato Yoshi? And not 20th century Hamato Yoshi himself?

relative most likely, great grandfather or something

[Garfield]

You know....that's a very cool theory. Raphael told Yoshi to watch his temper, which becomes "Master Yoshi's 1'st rule" from Turtles 1. It really helps to make Turtles III more than the sum of it's parts...and it needs all the help it can get. I think I'm gonna use that logic to make TMNT III a better movie to me.



Yeah I like how it makes a full circle of it, (a paradox). And it shows how Raph has grown as a character by the end. I love the relationship between Raph and Yoshi. Raph being a bit of a mentor Big brother type and I think all the more for it if Yoshi was related Hamato Yoshi.

Sometimes, I'm a bit iffy about the time traveling stories where characters, out of all of the people in the world just so conveniently stumble upon their ancestors or progeny. TMNT III does the same I suppose, but its charming because of the ambiguity and that it developed some of the characters and had great character interaction.

[Candy Kappa]

I'm just stating you're connecting a character to another character based on an (un)common given name (or his "first name") in Japan.

Or you can take in consideration that we meet Casey's ancestor, a familiar" rat. The time travel theme of meeting other ancestors does make it seem very likely that the kid Yoshi in TMNT 3 might be a member of the Hamato family.

Yoshi might be a regular given name in the family, stuff like that happens. My dad have given me and my brothers and sister similar names, based of past family members.


Saki is a bit more unique of a name, I think. You just don't hear too many people named Saki so if a character existed in that movie with the name, then that would open a whole new box of snakes.

Not really, Saki is a fairly common name. But it is a girl's name.

That is why Shredder was renamed in the Japanese dub to Sawaki, a proper boy's name

[MsMarvelDuckie]

You know....that's a very cool theory. Raphael told Yoshi to watch his temper, which becomes "Master Yoshi's 1'st rule" from Turtles 1. It really helps to make Turtles III more than the sum of it's parts...and it needs all the help it can get. I think I'm gonna use that logic to make TMNT III a better movie to me.

Heck...it may very much be implied. I wanna say that Whit is explicitly implied to be Casey Jones' ancestor. Norinaga and Kenshin very well may be Saki's ancestor, and Mitsu and Yosh may well be Hamatos. The bigger "WHA!?" is the implication that Yoshi and Saki may have had a shared ancestry.

That was exactly what I was thinking the first time I saw it- and the idea that they might have shared ancestors ties in nicely to the known history of the Foot clan. Yoshi has (usually) been depicted as a former member of the Foot, so why not? Most ninja clans were hereditary, after all! So "Yoshi" the kid might have been the one who began the "first rule" that Splinter taught them. Also, Kenshen and Mitsu were implied to end up uniting their families to end the rebellion, so that could have been the beginning of the Foot, maybe?
And although Whit was never implicitly stated to be Casey's ancestor, it sure looks that way from the way he seems to connect so easily with April- could be a case of history repeating itself.....

[Jester]

Maybe part of my thoughts on Yoshi being a common name among the Hamatos is tied to the fact that I'm Kevin Jr. and my son is Kevin the Third. No, not every Kevin is a McGill, but in my family, a lot (ok...just 3) are named Kevin.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

That makes sense, actually. It's possible that Hamato Yoshi was named for an ancestor. That is a common practice in some cultures, or has been, historically.

[darthwahl56]

I guess I'm just reading into the film a seeming "theme" of ancestors. Whit is heavily implied to be Casey's ancestor...complete with April's recognition of him when they share a cell in Norinaga's palace. (and the rat...which I'm sure was just a throw away gag.) Again...neither of us is right. You chose to not see any connection, I seem to read WAY too much into said connection. It's all in good fun...and an attempt to make something more of a movie that gets no love.

When I was a kid I liked the movie, still do to an extent. I was glad that they actually used their weapons a bit more than in the second movie. Costumes should have been done by the Jim Henson company, would have helped.

The time theme was pretty cool, would have been cool to maybe get a quote or phrase from Splinter (from his master) that could have connected yoshi the kid to the pet rat, asking too much? Probably not much more than a rat learning ninja moves in a cage, then taking said moves and training turtles how to fight ninja style.

Also the action figure of Whit that came with a catapult came with a helmet fitting to make him look like Casey when he was being a goalie back with the soldiers in present day.