Tanaka Amatsu is the youngest child of Tanaka Noburu and Jessica Chalmers.
Tanaka Noburu came to America in the 1960's, and through hard work and dedication built up his own corporation, 'Tanaka Defensive Systems, Inc.' (TDS). Initially he built and supplied security systems, but now the company also supplies body armour and defensive systems of all kinds and has a subsidiary branch in Nagoya, Japan.
Noburu was helped in his achievement by his first employee, later his business partner and research chief, a budding electronics genius named Hank Chalmers. The two of them conceived, designed, tested and marketed the products which made their fortunes together, and Noburu married Hank's sister Jessica.
Noburu and Jessica had two children, the first a daughter, Elisabeth, and three years later, a son, Amatsu.
In the mid-1970's TDS suffered a minor financial setback when a co-operative venture with Nishikawa Armaments collapsed amid much acrimony and threats of lawsuits.
Beth and Amatsu were raised bilingually, and were expected to take up positions in the company. Beth showed more interest in marketing and management and now heads the company's Japanese branch. Amatsu was always more interested in research and development, so when his father and uncle started work on a cybernetic battle armour project he was involved from the start. After several years work they had developed three working prototypes, one suit for each of Amatsu, Noburu and Hank, and were beginning to field test them.
Unfortunately both the Horsemen and Terror Inc. wanted to acquire their handiwork. The first to try were Terror Inc., but their agents were casually butchered by the Horsemen, who then proceeded to inform Noburu that he was in their debt, that he would support them in their struggle and, of course, would deliver the completed battle armour to them. Noburu remained diplomatically silent.
Noburu told his family about the Terror Inc. attack, but only Hank about the Horsemens demands, fearing that his family would be hurt if they tried to intervene. Amatsu was worried of course, and when his father had the experimental weapons and battle computer installed in his armour he decided to quickly visit Beth in Japan and see if he could persuade her to talk some sense into their father.
Of course, while he was away, the Horsemen returned to confront Noburu. It goes without saying that Hank had decided to 'keep an eye' on Noburu in his own Cyber-Samurai armour 'just in case'. Suffice it to say that Hank ended up with a broken back, and Amatsu's father died. However, the Horsemen failed to get their hands on the armour although they did reduce both their opponents suits to non-functional junk.
Initially Amatsu believed Terror Inc. were responsible for what had happened and, naturally enough, was very enthusiastic about paying them back. When he found out about this Hank, now walking again thanks to a bio-chip implant in his lower back, told him the full story, but not before Amatsu had nearly got himself killed a time or two.
It was on one of these occasions that his life was saved by the fortuitous intervention of a short figure in heavy armour wielding a battle axe, who later claimed to be a Dwarf calling himself Rathar Mage-Cleaver from another world called Dalkinor. Whilst somewhat unlikely this is not entirely impossible, and since Amatsu feels honour bound to protect Rathar he has chosen to accept his story....
Since then 'Amatsu' has discovered that he is in fact a clone of Toshikazu Nishikawa, the Ninja, brainwashed into believing himself to be Amatsu, and with deep-rooted programming which means his brain can be easily tampered with by those who know how. This apparently happened while he was touring the world some years ago. The fate of the real Tanaka Amatsu remains a mystery....
Cyber Samurai Development Armour (the experimental version used by Amatsu when superheroing) and its computer in Champions terms.
Cyber Samurai Production Armour (as sold to others) and its computer in Champions terms.
Elizabeth and Jessica Tanaka in Champions terms.