Travis Touchdown

The Main Protagontist of the No more Heroes franchise

Travis Touchdown (aka The Crownless King) is the main character of No More Heroes and its sequel, No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle.

He is a 27-year-old 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, California accompanied by his kitten Jeane (most likely named after his lost love). He appears to have interest in lucha libre and Japanese pro wrestling icons (like Thunder Ryu), as well as a moe driven anime series called Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly; his apartment is filled with such mentioned merchandise.

After winning a beam katana in an online auction, he is hired by a woman called Sylvia to be a hitman. When he runs out of money to buy video games he accepts a job to kill Helter-Skelter, also known as "the Drifter," which earns him rank eleven by the United Assassins Association, a governing body of assassins. Realizing that he has now made himself a target for aspiring assassins, he sets out to secure himself as number one in the UAA, also making a deal with Sylvia that if he becomes number one, they will "do it". He gets around on his motorcycle, dubbed the "Schpeltiger."

Travis Touchdown is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes.

Past History
Travis' past is somewhat explored in the game, and at times deliberately (and humorously) muddled, and filled with stereotypes. His parents were killed when he was young, apparently by his love (and though unbeknownst to him, sister) Jeane who had a traumatic and complex past, leaving Travis on his own. He had a twin brother, Henry, he never knew, who apparently grew up in Ireland. Travis has apparently had interest in being a pro wrestler at one point, and trained himself in the use of the sword via a mixture of Thunder Ryu's training, correspondence courses, and videotapes. Travis Touchdown as he appears in the Desperate Struggle trailer.

Future Events
Though it is heavily implied in the cliffhanging clash of the real ending of No More Heroes that Henry and Travis honorably kill each other, it is revealed that both Henry and Travis seem to be dissatisfied with the fight since Sylvia had interrupted it before one could kill the other.

Touchdown returns in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, set three years after Touchdown becomes the top assassin in the UAA. Desperate Struggle finds Touchdown withdrawn from the ranks of the UAA, rejoining as the fifty-first in rank after killing Skelter-Helter. While initially motivated by Christel with the promise of sex (again), after finding out that his best friend, Bishop Shidux, has been killed by hitmen hired by the 1st rank assassin Jasper Batt, Jr., he seeks revenge and rises up the ranks to kill Batt.

After the events of No More Heroes, he and Sylvia have truly gotten together, and planned to go back to Santa Destroy. Whether or not he stopped his profession as an assassin is unknown.

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

While 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, but in the first No More Heroes, killing women made him feel uncomfortable.

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.

Travis himself is not without morals; he has a certain amount of honor and respect for people he believes to be "True Warriors", as he tries to spare the assasin Ryuji in Desperate Struggle, and after experiencing the grueling and inhumane trials of Ranking Battles twice over, he became determined to take down the UAA once and for all.

Touchdown is very driven to prove himself, is shown to be highly knowledgeable and a slow learner, and can be surprisingly witty and even poetic. Touchdown 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.

His red jacket, unique swordplay, physical abilities and amoral persona are comparable to Samurai Champloo's Mugen (curiously, No More Heroes developer Grasshopper Manufacture was involved in the video game Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked).

Abilities, Powers and Combat Skills
Travis, despite being an otaku, is a very formidable assassin, having learned how to wield a sword from correspondence tapes, and is able to grapple from his own former training in Calgary to being inspired and mimicking certain moves by seeing various wrestling tapes.

After becoming acquainted with Randall Lovikov, the town drunk, Travis is taught special techniques that compliment his arsenal of combat skills.

When properly provoked, Travis can snap into a "Dark Side" mode (that in game is accessed by lining up three objects in a slot machine mini game after killing a foe). When in Dark Side, he gains superhuman strength, speed, invincibility, and powers that can affect reality, to sometimes resorting to cheating and unfair methods.

His preferred weapon are beam katanas, and can also be upgraded throughout the game, initially starting with the Blood Berry, followed by the durable Tsubaki, the heavily upgraded and empowered Tsubaki Mk-II (which comprises five rotating beams, and requires more finesse to wield), the Tsubaki Mk-III, a very showy beam katana designed from the beam Samurai sword of Travis' mentor, Thunder Ryu, the Peony, a slow, but powerful "giant beam katana' capable of expanding its blade, and the Rose Nasty, versatile dual katanas made for fast killing.

He also shows to have some resistance to firearms, one instance being when Helter-Skelter riddled Travis with bullets and rockets, culminating with absolutely no effects. This also may have been related to the robe he was wearing at the time, however. Despite this, Travis managed to survive many deadly attacks without the robe, ranging from a series of energy blasts, three consecutive close range grenade explosions, to a death blow to the chest.