Aichi Sendou

Aichi Sendou is the main protagonist of ''Cardfight!! Vanguard'' anime and manga.

Aichi is a somewhat shy and timid young man who wishes to be a Vanguard Fighter, but has never had the chance to have a real fight until his second encounter with Kai. When starting to play Vanguard, he believes more in himself, becoming a powerful Vanguard Fighter. His Vanguard Circle's color is blue; but when using a Shadow Paladin deck, the color changes to dark blue.

In the AWA fics, Aichi is a student at the AWA Academy and is part of Class 4.

Appearance
Aichi is a boy with long blue hair with a right hair bang which is his signature style. He is first seen in his Hitsue Middle School uniform which is mostly all gray with white linings along with a red sweater under it. His civilian clothes varies with the change in season particularly wearing a short green jacket with a red sweater under it for cold seasons while sporting a white double sleeved shirt for warm seasons. He is quite particularly short compared to other characters of the same grade.

By the start of the second season, he still wears his middle school uniform but he is mostly seen in his civilian clothes by the time of the VF Circuit which is a white jacket with a red sweater beneath it.

In the start of the third season, he is now a high school student at Miyaji Academy wearing the basic male uniform which is a black blazer with red linings along with a white formal shirt underneath it and a red necktie. By this time, he has short hair but still maintaining his signature right hair bang and has significantly grown taller. His civilian clothing shown so far is a varying colored jacket of dark purple and white while having a light purple sweater underneath.

In the fourth season, as the host of Link Joker, he wears a general coat schemed with red & black and his clothes shares the same theme as the Quatre Knights. After finally appearing he is shown to have shorter hair, dull eyes and he may have possibly grown slightly taller. He also has a cold and cruel look on his face due to Link Joker's effects, and the signature black and red aura.

In sixth season, he is shown that he is still wearing a white jacket with the same blue haired color. His attire is still the same as what he had in Season 3 when he was fighting against Reverse.

In NEXT, he has a light blue jacket and jeans. He has grown taller and his hair has grown noticeably as well.

Personality
At first, he is a shy, taciturn and timid boy who doesn't stand out, but is always kind and nice to everyone. After he starts playing Vanguard, he starts to come out of his shell and appears more confident in himself, resulting in a boost on his Cardfight skills. During the regional tournament, he doubted his ability when Misaki wouldn't make it in time for most of the tournament, and again when he was paired up to fight Gouki in the finals, but through winning the team's first match, and some encouragement from Kai, he regained his confidence and grew determined to win.

After Aichi gains PSY Qualia, he begins to act very much like Ren Suzugamori; arrogant and obsessed with growing stronger, yet staying eerily polite throughout, which he frequently displayed once Ren gave him a Shadow Paladin deck, which appears to fuel his PSY Qualia. After Kai brought him back, Aichi started doubting himself, but quickly gets over it after seeing his friends having fun during a shop tournament at Card Capital.

During Season 2, he displays more of his calm and determined personality while he was fighting with other fighters, even when he was in the brink of losing against Christopher Lo after the latter got PSY Qualia powers. However, he grows increasingly worried when his Royal Paladins were replaced by the Gold Paladins, and desperate for answers as to what happened. This starts to lessen after fighting with the new clan and learning to respect it. After facing fighters like Kourin and Jun, he begins to forge his own path, growing stronger with each fight. He refuses to leave his friends in trouble if he can help them, even when the circumstances dictate that it is a waste of valuable time, as shown when he accepted Christopher's rematch to try and break him out of his PSY Qualia-induced madness, even when Cray and Earth were in danger.

In Season 3, it is shown that Aichi, outside of any Cardfight!! Vanguard-related event, is still quite unsure and nervous, but this side of him completely vanishes whenever he plays. He also starts to act more like a leader in the Cardfight Club. Naoki, Rekka, and Kourin have all noted that during their fights with him, he seems like a different person, only looking forward and having his sights set on winning.

Based on his cardfighting ability and place in Miyaji, Aichi is highly intelligent and perceptive, though this is mostly hidden by his shyness. His intelligence is seen in his cardfight strategies and ability to keep his deck evolving, and his perceptiveness allowed him to see Naoki Ishida had been reversed even if he didn't know what was actually wrong with his friend. Even so, he is dense when not cardfighting especially when he fails to realize Kourin had a crush on him and when Naoki bought a deck to cardfight him.

In Season 4 after waking up under the influence of Link Joker, Aichi is show to have become cold and cruel under its effects, striking Kourin and Philippe Neve with his dark power. He also fought ruthlessly during his cardfight against Kai, showing determination to be sealed away again. At that time, he felt that there was no other way to save Earth and Cray from Link Joker other than to disappear from the world. However, he had a slight change of heart when he realized that everybody was willing to take his burden in order to end his misery of being the host of the Seed. He had also shown more care and concern towards Kourin, during the times when she tried to take more of his agony and when he saved her from the Link Joker miasma. His wish to prevent the incident from happening again was apparent as he was able to hold back Link Joker for a prolonged time despite the clan's efforts to break his soul and body. After his fate was changed by his friends and Planet Cray, he was able to relieve his burdens of the future.

In NEXT, he is more confident than before but still very clumsy as he misses his train while helping some foreigners. He is very caring and offers to buy Chrono and Kamui drinks. When he plays Vanguard, he becomes a completely different person, becoming more confident in himself and concentrating on the game.

In the Cardfight!! Vanguard manga, Aichi (during the Link Joker arc) becomes a very cold person under the influence of Psy Qualia Zombie's effect.

Abilities
In the beginning of the series, he was used by Cray as one of the keys in the war between the Royal Paladin and Shadow Paladins. However, after the end of the Link Joker invasion, his spiritual strength was on par with Takuto, even though not as strong as the host of Ezel. This was later proven as Planet Cray was willing to save him from his fate of being sealed away together with Link Joker and the units having faith in him to save their world.

Connection to Planet Cray
He is shown to have PSY Qualia, which was later revealed that this power is a key to link the fighter to Planet Cray. After the Link Joker invasion, in between the events of season 3 and 4, he was able to meet the respective Quatre Knights locations, even though it was unexplained how he was able to arrive there.

Before the arrival of the Quatre Knights to the Sanctuary, some of his powers were transferred to Kourin and a card Companion Star Star-vader, Photon appears as Kourin's avatar, showing his ability to create cards like Suiko and giving Kourin the ability to use Link Joker on her own free will, despite being under Link Joker's control himself during the cardfight against Philippe Neve. He was able to turn the respective Quatre Knights's cards to talismans, which reflect their type of prisons they have. After defeating Takuto in Neon Messiah his PSY Qualia was enhanced, allowing him to bring back units from the brink of death. Also, he was able to see Brandt.

Memory Manipulation
Like Takuto, he also possesses an ability to erase or manipulate any memory of his existence to most individuals, like how the existence of the 3 clans were forgotten in the Asia Circuit Arc. Despite that, there are a few flaws as Kai was not affected by it possibly due to Blaster Blade's arrival in Kai's dream. Even Naoki, Misaki, Miwa and Kamui were able to remember him after some significant cardfights, in which Aichi even noted that it was a major mistake he made. The Sanctuary's foundation, which was formed by Aichi's will, has the ability to erase memories of an individual connected to him if they lose a cardfight, with the exception of the Knights and Kourin (due to making a pact with him to protect him and Planet Cray). His existence was brought back after the Sanctuary breaks down.

Physical Abilities
He also demonstrated his strong willpower, shown when he was able to suppress Link Joker within him for several days after the Reverse event. It was even demonstrated even further when he was able to hold and absorb his dark powers with a bit of help from Kourin before the Knights arrival and with Neve's help after waking up from Link Joker's complete control over him, either being rendered unconscious or showing noticeable signs of exhaustion, though it was stated by Gaillard that it was life threatening. He also exhibited some physical strength and was deceptively fast despite his looks, when he saves Kourin Tatsunagi from the Link Joker miasma in the nick of time and carrying her to the throne.

Trivia

 * Aichi Sendou is similar to Yugi Mutou from Yu-Gi-Oh! since they were both timid at first but became social afterwards.
 * Coincidentally, they are both the first main protagonists of their own respective series.
 * Aichi shares the same birthday date as Takaaki Kidani, CEO of Bushiroad.