Travis Touchdown

Travis Touchdown is a main character and the anti-hero protagonist of the No More Heroes video game series.

Travis is introduced as a 27-year-old (30-year-old in Desperate Struggle and 37-year-old in Travis Strikes Again) American assassin and stereotypical otaku – his motel room decorated with professional wrestling and anime collectibles – living in near poverty in the Motel "NO MORE HEROES" of Santa Destroy accompanied by his kitten Jeane (most likely named after his lost love). He appears to have interest in lucha libre, video games, Japanese pro wrestling icons, and anime; his favorite being a moe-driven anime series called Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Travis is a member of the Heroes Coalitions and is the leader of Team Extreme.

Appearance
Travis usually wears a lightweight leather jacket, t-shirt, jeans and sunglasses, though his outfit varies slightly in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle. Travis has dark spiky hair, and blue eyes.

Personality
Travis displays crude, punkish and immature behavior, and is especially cruel toward the male assassins he fights, he displays normal and decent behavior whenever he isn't on the job. Travis is relatively calm about killing people, and has been shown to be sexually stimulated by it in Desperate Struggle. In his starting days of the first No More Heroes, killing women made him feel uncomfortable, until Holly Summers told him that all assassins, no matter what gender, must die when they lose. He is capable of being touched by people's emotional and personal experiences, seeing that he didn't seem entirely settled after killing Dr. Peace, whose daughter was estranged from him, and with Margaret Moonlight , where he fulfilled her dying wish by remembering her song. Travis also has a certain amount of honor and respect for people he believes to be "true warriors" as he tries to spare the assassin Ryuji in Desperate Struggle, and soon shows a great deal of his humanity after the death of Alice Twilight, weary of the arranged manslaughter he accidentally promoted and by the various corporations that took advantage of it. Touchdown is very driven to prove himself, is shown to be highly intelligent and a quick learner, and can be surprisingly witty and even poetic. Travis takes his friendships very seriously as well, as evidenced by his quest to avenge the murder of Bishop Shidux, after which he seems to learn something about the repercussions that death has on others aside from the one being killed. Travis only ever removes his aviator glasses on-screen once, when he has sex with Sylvia Christel .

Abilities
Travis is a very formidable assassin, being skilled in the art of swordplay and physical combat. After becoming acquainted with Randall Lovikov, the town drunk, Travis is able to rely on Lovikov to teach him special techniquesthat compliment his fighting and questing skills. He is able to snap into a "Dark Side" mode by lining up three objects in a slot machine mini-game after executing a Death Blow. Each trance of Dark Side Mode entails Travis with superhuman strength, speed, invincibility and other powers. By Desperate Struggle, Travis appears to have gained limited yet passive powers over his ki, which culminates at its maximum as a power known as Super Mode, and gives him immense vitality and speed.

His preferred weapon is the beam katana, which he relies on scientist Dr. Naomi to design for him, and to optimize the models he already owns. Throughout No More Heroes, Travis acquires the Blood Berry, followed by the durable Tsubaki, the heavily upgraded and empowered Tsubaki Mk-II which is comprised of five rotating beams, and requires more finesse to wield, and finally the Tsubaki Mk-III, a very showy beam katana designed from the beam Samurai sword of his mentor, Thunder Ryu. In Desperate Struggle, Travis also gains the beam katanas Peony, a heavy, but powerful and potentially far reaching blade, and the dual katanas Rose Nasty, which gives Travis a powerful balanced edge to accomplish his ends.

His former experience of pro wrestling training through the use of correspondence tapes and some experience in Calgary allows him to use a great variety of wrestling moves to take down foes, and because of the dangerous nature of his career, Travis has taken a creative incentive to allow his Beam Katana to haphazardly finish off his intended targets.

Travis also shows to have some resistance to firearms, one instance being when Helter-Skelter riddled him with bullets and rockets, which culminated with absolutely no effect. In the lowest difficulty of No More Heroes, Travis is able to automatically block ranged bullets as long as the player does not move the Control Stick. Furthermore, in all subsequent difficulties, all it takes for Travis to block oncoming bullets is to guard using the Z Button. Aside from bullets, Travis also survived an electric shock and several laser attacks from the assassin Destroyman as well as three concussive grenade explosions from the assassin Holly Summers .

Travis Touchdown is shown to have a high degree of durability, probably because it is just a game and the protagonist of a game can't die from outside means. But combat wise, Travis is extremely resistant to firearms as mentioned above. He is also extremely resistant to poison as shown when he does not die upon inhaling Cloe Walsh's mist of poison. In addition to that, he is able to withstand most, if not all attacks that common enemies or bosses deal to him. He is able to withstand the devastating blades of a chainsaw, beam katanas and the massive earthquake that Dr. Letz Shake has created during in-game. In fact, he is able to withstand Jeanne's punch through the gut and still stand on his two feet, he is able to endure Bad Girl's endless hits and even Alice Twilight's attack in which the beam katana pierces through his chest during the clash battle.

Travis also seems to be very lucky. He is always rescued from his untimely death. In No More Heroes, he could have died from Bad Girl's endless hits with her bat if she did not succumb to her wounds. During his battle with Jeanne, he could have been killed if it weren't for Shinobu's timely arrival to save him from being killed. In No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle, he is once again rescued by luck when Henry came crashing in at the right time when Jasper had Travis' life in his hands.

Trivia

 * Creator Goichi Suda's favorite film is said to be Paris, Texas, wherein the main character is named Travis.
 * Travis Touchdown's red jacket, unique swordplay, dark hair, physical abilities and amoral persona as well as his love of women are comparable to Samurai Champloo's Mugen. Curiously, No More Heroes developer Grasshopper Manufacture was involved in the video game adaptation Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked. It should also be noted that in the Japanese version of No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise, Travis is voiced by Kazuya Nakai, who voiced Mugen.
 * While concept art on the trading card "Travis Touchdown" Front depicts Touchdown holding a gun which bares a strong resemblance to the Star Wars DL-44 blaster pistol, in No More Heroes he never makes use of any firearms.