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Shredder (sometimes The Shredder) is a fictional character in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe. He is a villainous ninjutsu master called Oroku Saki who, at one point or another in every incarnation of the TMNT franchise, has been the main enemy of Splinter and the Turtles.
Shredder's physical appearance remains fairly consistent in all incarnations of the character. As Oroku Saki, he looks like a physically-fit, middle aged Japanese man. But most frequently, he is seen in the Shredder persona, wearing a suit of armor vaguely based on samurai armor, modified to be both less encumbering yet more menacing. The armor consists of spike-covered metal plaques on his shoulders, forearms, hands, and shins; underneath it he wears a purple robe that variously appears to be simple fabric or a form of chainmail. He also wears a metal helmet with a trident-shaped ornament on top, and a metal mask that covers his face, leaving only his eyes visible.
Comic books
In the original comic books by Mirage Comics, Oroku Saki is the younger brother of Oroku Nagi. Nagi competed with Hamato Yoshi (the owner of Splinter, the Turtles' mentor) for the love of a woman named Tang Shen. But Shen loved only Yoshi, and a feud erupted between Yoshi and Nagi, which led to Yoshi killing Nagi and fleeing from Japan to New York City with Shen.
Saki, who was only a young child then, joined the Foot Clan and trained to be a fierce ninja. Over time, he rose in ranks in the Clan and was eventually put in charge of the Clan’s American branch. This allowed him to finally move to New York and avenge his brother’s death by killing Yoshi and Shen. However, Yoshi’s pet rat Splinter escaped, mutated, and spent years training the four Ninja Turtles to avenge Yoshi.
When Splinter felt the Turtles were ready, he ordered them to reveal themselves to Oroku Saki, in the Shredder armor, and challenge him to a fight. This first fight took place at night on a rooftop, and ended with Shredder dying when a bomb blew him up as he fell off the building. However, he was later recreated through a unique Foot Clan cloning technique and was finally finished off by Leonardo by decapitation.
With Shredder gone, chaos erupted in New York City among the leaderless Foot Clan. The leader of the Foot in Japan, Karai, came to New York and established a shaky truce with the Ninja Turtles to re-establish peace.
In the Image Comics series, considered non-canonical, Raphael tries to impersonate Shredder by wearing his armor. He tries to make a peace pact with the Foot Clan, but ultimately fails. Suddenly, a mysterious Lady Shredder appears to challenge Raphael. Also one of the vilians, a female ninja named Pimiko is revealed to be Shredder's daughter. Not much is known after this since the comic was discontinued, but after the comic ended Gary Carlson confirmed that Karai was Lady Shredder. In issues 3 and 4 of the new Tales of the TMNT, it is shown that a few weeks after Leonardo defeated Shredder, he was resurrected once again by a Foot mystic. However the mystic did not resurrect Shredder himself but the clone worms. The worms then went out to find a new body and chose that of a shark. The monster than attacked the Turtles who defeated it, ending the Shredder legacy once and for all. The Shredder armor appeared again later but was revealed to be Raphael, impersonating his ancient foe.
In Tales of the TMNT #22 the turtles encountered a female ninja with a Shredder gauntlet on her arm.
At the end of TMNT volume 4 #27 Leonardo encountered someone wearing Shredders armor in the Battle Nexus. It is unknown who this is because the story is still ongoing.
1987 animated series
In the 1987 animated series, Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi were both members of the Foot Clan in Japan. But after Saki framed him for attempted murder of one of the Clan’s sensei, Yoshi was forced to exile himself to New York, where he lived in the sewers with four pet turtles that were accidentally dropped down the drain.
In the following years, Saki took leadership of the Foot Clan, and took on his Shredder persona. He also met a trans-dimensional alien called Krang, and used the advanced technology at his disposal to replace the Foot ninjas with robots called the Foot Soldiers. And he secretly moved to New York, where he found Yoshi still alive, so he tried to kill him by dumping mutagen in the sewers. This causes Yoshi to mutate into Splinter, and he starts training the mutated Turtles in ninjutsu.
The cartoon series was more light-hearted than the comics, and consequently, Shredder is depicted as an evil but comically inept villain, rather than the scary and lethal ninja he was in the comic. His two henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady are incompetent and fail miserably at everything they do; they are mostly used for comic relief in the show. But even though Shredder's plans are always foiled, often by his own failings, he is still shown to have considerable skills. In fighting skills, he is often shown to surpass the Turtles and to be equalled by Splinter only. He trained the Punk Frogs in a very short period of time to be a match for the Turtles. His technical skills are also quite impressive: he designed and built a robotic body for Krang, prepared the mutagen mixture, knew how Krang's teleportation engine worked, and built numerous other advanced devices. Shredder's bid for world domination was successful once, in the episode Shredderville. Unfortunately, the stress of handling all of the world's problems at once proved too much for him.
Shredder's family is presented in three episodes. In the episode Shredder's Mom Shredder's mother Miyoko helps Shredder and Krang in an attempt to destroy the world climate. In this episode, Miyoko first learns of her son's criminal activities, and proves herself to be as villainous. But she constantly treats Shredder like a baby, until he gets fed up with it and transports her back to her retirement home. In the episode My Brother, the Bad Guy lieutenant in Tokyo. Kazuo and the Turtles try to join forces to stop one of Shredder's plans, but his fervent respect of the law clashes with the Turtles' "whatever it takes" attitude. Finally, the episode The Legend of Koji [http://www.ninjaturtles.com/cartoon/guide/cart159.htm" target="_blank" >* features Saki's distant ancestor Oroku Sancho, who lived in Japan in 1583. He is the leader of a small clan, and every bit as wicked and selfish as his descendant. When Shredder offers to help him find magical relics that would provide him with power and wealth, Sancho takes Shredder's information, then betrays him and orders his men to kill him. However, Sancho is also a coward, and when he breaks down in the face of danger, his men abandon him.
This family tree leads to a bit of controversy: is Shredder's given name Oruku and his last name Saki (as indicated by the fact his brother shares the name Saki), or is it the other way around (as indicated by the fact his ancestor's name is Oroku)? This question is never resolved on the show, but there is a potential for explanation stemming from Japanese naming conventions. Traditionally, anyone born before 1868 is referred to in the historical manner of family name first and given name second. For example, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty is known as Tokugawa Ieyasu, but if he were alive today it would be the other way around, since Tokugawa was his family name. This doesn't explain everything of course, but it allows one to write the incident off as one mistake rather than two (i.e. perhaps someone fudged the brother episode while the writer of the time travel episode was aware of the historical issues).
Counting from the first meeting between the Turtles and Shredder, Shredder spent eight years plotting ways to defeat the Turtles. In the season 8 episode Turtle Trek the Turtles destroy the engines of the Technodrome, trapping it and its inhabitants in Dimension X for good and putting an end to Shredder's plans (for most fans, Shredder's removal as a regular villain was the point where the show jumped the shark). He spent the next two years in Dimension X, until he was contacted by Dregg (The Power of Three A Turtle in Time *)," target="_blank" >but Dregg captures them again. Finally, the Turtles spoil Dregg's plan and transport Shredder and Krang back to Dimension X (Turtles to the Second Power Divide and Conquer [http://www.ninjaturtles.com/cartoon/guide/cart194.htm" target="_blank" >*, the Turtles return to the Technodrome to take Krang's exosuit, which they need to fight Dregg. Shredder is nowhere to be seen. He is assumed to still be somewhere in Dimension X.
In the 1980's Shredder toyline, Shredder is stated to have an IQ of 675 on the back of an action figure blister card. Shredder was voice-acted by James L. Avery, Sr. (credited as James Avery) in the 1987-1993 seasons, and by William Martin in the 1994-1996 seasons.
Movies
In the first movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi, living in Japan, both loved a woman named Tang Shen, but Tang Shen only loved Yoshi. Rather than fight Saki, Yoshi followed Shen's plan to leave for America. Saki followed them to New York, where he killed them both; however, Yoshi’s pet rat Splinter escaped during the fight, clawing Saki's face before doing so.
Saki then proceeded to recruit troubled teens, and teach them ninjutsu to turn them into a group of skilled thieves and assassins called the Foot Clan. As their leader, Saki took on the persona of Shredder, and became a cult leader.
As investigative reporter April O'Neil was getting too close to the Foot Clan, Shredder ordered her killed. However, the Turtles interfered, and beat several members of the Foot Clan. Shredder decided to stop the Turtles himself, which lead to the ultimate rooftop battle. During the battle, Shredder almost killed Leonardo, but Splinter intervened and revealed his past to Shredder. After realizing who Splinter is, Shredder tried to spear Splinter, but Splinter sent Shredder falling off the roof of the building and into a garbage truck.
In the second movie, The Secret of the Ooze, Shredder was revealed to have survived, and recreated his Foot Clan to get vengeance on the Turtles. Shredder acquired the mutagen that created the Turtles and used it to create his own mutants from a wolf and a snapping turtle, Tokka and Rahzar. The mutants had the intelligence of infants, but unbelievable physical strength, and Shredder acted like a father to them, twisting them to serve his purpose and destroy the Turtles. After the Turtles defeated the two mutants, Shredder used the mutagen on himself and became Super Shredder. During his fight with the Turtles, Super Shredder knocks down the support beams of a pier and it collapses on him, which kills him.
Shredder was played by James Saito in the first movie and by François Chau in the second movie, while Super Shredder was played by wrestler Kevin Nash. In all cases, the character was voice-acted by David McCharen.
The Next Mutation
Shredder is still the Turtles' sworn enemy. This time however, Venus uses her powers to make the Oroku Saki from within take control of Shredder's mind. After the Foot Clan disbands, he ends up living on the streets. Later, the Dragon Lord's rank warriors attack him to get a medallion that was in his possession. Splinter saves him and takes him to the turtles' lair to protect him. It was hinted that Shredder might possibly go back to his old ways, but the show was cancelled soon after that episode.
2003 animated series
In the 2003 animated series, Shredder was Ch'rell, a dangerous criminal of the alien Utrom race, who was in custody and being carried to a prison onboard an Utrom spaceship. However, he somehow escaped and sabotaged the ship, which crashed on Earth in feudal Japan. The Utroms found themselves marooned on primitive Earth, and Ch'rell escaped.
In order to move undetected among the Humans, the Utroms developed exosuits with their remaining technology. Ch'rell quickly stole one, and outfitted it with a Japanese armor, becoming Shredder. According to the Foot mystics however, Ch'rell stole the identity of the Shredder, as they referred to him as "the Utrom imposter". It can be assumed that Ch'rell also created the alter ego of the Oroku family and has been every incarnation of Shredder since taking the name. Once adept with the exosuit, Shredder proceeded to create the Foot Clan, in order to fight a secret war with the Utroms on Earth. He also ordered the creation of the Sword of Tengu, and then killed its makers. Shredder used the sword to bring the Tokugawa Shoguns to power.
700 years later, in the show's present, the Foot Clan has become a powerful criminal empire. Shredder leads a triple-life; he is Oroku Saki, a benevolent Japanese millionaire living in New York, but secretly he is Shredder, the battle-armored leader of the Foot Clan. Even more secretly, and known only to a privy few and hidden in his human and armor costumes, he is Ch'rell the feared Utrom criminal, fighting a war against the Utroms on Earth, while looking to escape this planet and take revenge on the Utroms by attacking their homeworld.
Sometime before the series began, Shredder, in his guise of Oroku Saki was walking a street in Japan one rainy day when he came upon an abandoned young girl, Karai. He took her in, training her in the ways of the ninja and raising her as a daughter. She eventually became his second-in-command and was left in command of the Foot Clan in Japan while he established a base in New York. Shredder seems to actually care for Karai like a daughter, telling her he is proud that he raised a daughter to lead his empire.
Hamato Yoshi was one of several human ninjutsu masters protecting the Utroms, known as Guardians. Shredder killed him in an attempt to get to the Utroms, but during the battle, Yoshi’s pet rat Splinter escaped to the sewers where he mutated after coming in contact with some Utrom mutagen, and taught ninjutsu to four mutated turtles.
The Turtles and Shredder battled several times, mostly on rooftops. At first, Shredder tried to befriend the Turtles to help him against the Utrom. They rejected his offer, leading to the first battle. In the first rooftop battle with Shredder, there was a huge fire that caused the whole building to collapse. In the second rooftop battle, Splinter manipulates Shredder into cutting down a water tower; this causes a flood of water to wash Shredder down the side of the building with the wooden tower falling on top of him.
After that, the Foot began hunting the Turtles in the sewers forcing them to the surface. They hid in April O'Neil's apartment until Shredder's elite ninjas beat Leonardo almost to death. In the resulting battle, Shredder trapped the Turtles in a closet and punctured a gas line, causing April's apartment and shop to explode.
Baxter Stockman had confirmed the Turtles' deaths. However, the Turtles, Splinter, April and Casey Jones fled to Casey's grandmother's farm to recover. The next battle, Splinter and the Turtles stormed Shredder's tower. Leonardo, still believing that Shredder was human and had somehow survived the previous battle, beheaded him with the Sword of Tengu and assumed he was dead.
When the Turtles met with Shredder again, after learning of his true nature, they adapted their battle strategy. The Turtles fought Shredder to prevent him from stopping the Utrom's escape, and Donatello electrocuted him, rendering his exosuit inoperable, but Ch'rell activated a bomb and jumped out of the suit to attack the Turtles, who fled right before the bomb caused the entire building to implode. Ch'rell was later shown recuperating in a stasis cell with the aid of his adopted daughter, Karai, in a secret medical bay equipped with Utrom technology; his exosuit was also repaired. In his next encounter with the Turtles, Shredder was carried by force by Zog, the Triceraton into a fire before the ship they were fighting on exploded. Apparently protected by his armour, he was later rescued by Karai from a helicopter.
Oroku Saki publicly became New York City's "savior" when he used his vast fortune to finance the reconstruction of the city, which was left badly damaged after an invasion by Triceratons, a Triceratops-like alien race. But secretly, he was using the reconstruction projects as cover for a salvage operation, to recover alien technology that fell to the ground after the invasion.
When Donatello was sent to a location in time and space by Drako and the Ultimate Ninja, he found himself in a futuristic Earth where Shredder had taken over. With an army of loyal robots, Utrom scientists, and a massive new exosuit dwarfing all previous models, Shredder was virtually unstoppable. In a desperate attempt to end Shredder's tyranny, Donatello led the pitiful resistance, which consisted of his time altered brothers and April O'Neal, into Shredder's personal chamber. Piloting a modified Foot Robot, Donatello went toe to toe with Shredder, but was unable to compete with the multi-limbed monstrosity. However, he was able to immobilize Shredder only a few feet away from his old subterranean vehicle, and Shredder could do nothing as the energized drill spun through his suit, killing him. Donatello's return to his own time has made these events a clear example of an alternate possible future.
Later, Shredder completed construction of a spaceship, which he planned to use to invade the Utrom homeworld. However, due to some interference from the Turtles and Agent Bishop, Shredder had to launch the ship early, leaving his army and equipment on Earth. Before he could reach the hatch, Don sprayed liquid nitrogen on his suit, freezing him in place. Splinter smashed his suit but Kairi saved him. The Turtles stowed away on the ship, and Shredder used a new, more powerful exosuit to defeat (but not kill) them. During this fight, Agent Bishop launched a missile attack to disable the ship; and when Shredder became distracted by this attack, the Turtles escaped and overloaded the ship, in order to destroy it. Fortunately, the Utroms, who had been informed of the launch by Professor Honeycutt of the Turtles, found it seconds after the energy core began to explode. They locked it in a stasis field and transported everyone off the ship and to the Utrom homeworld before the stasis field collapsed.
On the Utrom homeworld, all the occupants of the ship were participants in Ch'rell’s trial for intergalactic crimes. He was accused of starting a war that killed 1 million, of trying to steal a planet's resources and causing the death of 2.5 millions, and of trying to take over the Utrom government. He was found guilty and sentenced to eternal exile on the ice asteroid belt of Mor Tal. He was last seen on one of the thousands of asteroids around the planet.
After the exile of Ch'rell, his surrogate daughter as Oroku Saki, Karai has become the new Shredder and seeks revenge on the Turtles.
During the episode The Big Brawl, the statue of a former champion that looks a lot like Shredder can be seen in the hall of champions of the Battle Nexus. This may tie in with the fact the Ultimate Ninja was looking to challenge Shredder in the episode The Ultimate Ninja. It is also interesting to note that the members of the Ninja Tribunal wear armours with a great resemblance to that of Shredder. According to the official TMNT website, Shredder is 6'2" and weighs 240 lbs when wearing his battle armor. He is voice-acted by Scottie Ray.
Video games
As the original TMNT video games are based on the 80s cartoon, Shredder is based on his first cartoon incarnation. He always executes some strange plan to provoke the Turtles into retaliating and defeat them; these include kidnapping April O’Neil and stealing the Statue of Liberty. Shredder is usually the last boss in the games.
- Original NES game: Shredder is the final boss. He is found at the end of the Technodrome level (which is named "Assassinate Shredder", an unsually direct reference to death in an otherwise children-oriented series). He causes the Turtles to lose roughly half their energy if he touches them, and has a gun that can demutate them instantly, killing them.
- Original arcade game: Once again, Shredder is the final boss and is found at the end of the Technodrome level. This time, he is armed with a sword, and has the ability to clone himself (the exact number of clones is one more than the number of Turtles attacking him). New clones are constantly created to replace fallen ones, until the real Shredder is defeated. Shredder and his clones also have the ability to shoot lightning bolts, which demutate the Turtles they hit, killing them. Finally, when Shredder or one of his clones is close to death, his helmet falls off, a unique occurrence in the game series.
- Fall of the Foot Clan: This game was the first one not to feature Shredder as the final boss. Instead, Shredder is the boss of the second-to-last stage, which is set in a river. It is also the first game in which Shredder doesn't have the ability to demutate the Turtles. His only attack is a sword swipe. The final boss of the game, at the end of the Technodrome stage, is Krang.
- The Manhattan Project: This game is the first to feature both a battle against Shredder and a second one against a mutated Super Shredder. The first battle takes place at the end of the Technodrome level, which is the sixth of the eight levels of the game. In this battle, Shredder uses a sword to attack the Turtles. Shredder later returns as the final boss of the game, in Krang's spaceship. This time, he mutates himself into Super Shredder, much as he did in the The Secret of the Ooze, which had been released earlier the same year. Super Shredder has two super-powers, the ability to call down lightning, and the ability to shoot fireballs. These fireballs can demutate the Turtles, but unlike other games, this isn't an instant kill. It merely costs roughly half a Turtle's energy, and they re-mutate into their normal form after a few seconds.
- Back from the Sewers: A sequel to Fall of the Foot Clan, this game also features Shredder as a regular level boss and Krang as the final boss. He does not have the ability to demutate the Turtles, but he does have a wider variety of attacks than in the previous Game Boy game. They include a dive kick and a charge, and at higher difficulty levels he can kick an energy wave at the Turtles. Shredder returns later in his mutated Super Shredder form, as a sub-level boss of the final Technodrome level. However, in this incarnation, his only super-power is the ability to teleport elsewhere on the screen, including behind the Turtles in the highest difficulty setting of the game. He attacks the Turtles using a sword.
- Turtles in Time: Shredder is again the final boss of the game, and found in the Technodrome. However, this time, he is not preceded by a Technodrome level. Instead, the Turtles fight through a Starbase level in the future, then teleport to the Technodrome in the present for the final confrontation. Shredder attacks with a sword, and can fire energy attacks. In the SNES and Sega Genesis ports of the game, Shredder begins the battle by mutating himself into Super Shredder, and has the added super-powers of super-speed movement, fire ground attacks, ice air attacks, and a demutating fire ball which instantly kills a Turtle. The SNES and Genesis ports also added a Technodrome level. In the Genesis version, it is the final level of the game, and leads to the battle with Super Shredder. In the SNES port, the Technodrome level is less than midway through the game, and leads to a battle with a regular Shredder. In this battle, Shredder is in a kind of tank, from which he can fire a machine gun at the Turtles or grab them with claws. Shredder's tank cannot be hit directly; instead, the Turtles must grab Foot Soldiers and throw them at the tank to damage it.
- Radical Rescue: Unlike its two predecessors, Fall of the Foot Clan and Back from the Sewers, this game does feature Shredder as the final boss. However, this time Shredder has become Cyber Shredder, half-man and half-machine.
- Tournament Fighters: This is the only game in which Shredder is not a boss but instead a regular playable character. Furthermore, his costume is based off the Mirage comics version, and not the cartoon as in the other games. Finally, in the SNES incarnation of this game, he appears under the name CyberShredder, but there is no indication that he has become a cybernetic being as in Radical Rescue.
After a nine-year hiatus, a new series of TMNT games was initiated. These new games are based on the 2003 cartoon series, and likewise, Shredder in the games is the same as in the cartoon.
See also
External links
Animation villains | Computer and video game villains | Fictional ninja | Fictional evil geniuses | Fictional Japanese-Americans | Fictional warriors | Film villains | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) characters | Fictional mass murderers | Supervillains | Fictional samurai
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"Shredder (TMNT)"