Yuugo Tennouji

Yuugo Tennouji
Name
Japanese	天王寺 裕吾
Rōmaji	Tennōji Yūgo
Aliases	Handle: FB Nickname: Mister Braun
Characteristics
Gender	Male
Age	32 (Steins;Gate) 32-33 (Steins;Gate 0)
Birthdate	March 12, 1978
Height	187 cm (6'2")
Weight	86 kg (190 lbs)
Blood Type	A
Personal Status
Status	Alive
Affiliations	SERN Braun Tube Workshop (owner) Rounders (leader)
Occupations	CRT TV Salesman Leader of the Rounders
Relatives	Tsuzuri Imamiya (deceased wife) Nae Tennouji (daughter)
First Appearance
Visual Novel	Steins;Gate (Chapter 1)
Manga	<Missing Data>
Anime	Episode 01: Prologue of the Beginning and the End
Light Novel	<Missing Data>
Voice Actors
Japanese	Masaki Terasoma
English	Christopher Sabat

“	Sorry for everything, Suzu-san... really, how did I turn out this way?	”
	— Chapter 9 - Steins;Gate

Yuugo Tennouji (天王寺 裕吾, Tennōji Yūgo) is the owner of the Braun Tube Workshop, the landlord of Rintaro Okabe, the husband of Tsuzuri Imamiya and the father of Nae Tennouji.

Personality

Yuugo has a great passion for CRT Television and refuses to upgrade to any other type. This coupled with the fact he owns a CRT store has resulted in Okabe nicknaming him "Mr. Braun" after the inventor of CRTs, German physicist Ferdinand Braun and the common Japanese name for CRTs, "Braun Tubes".

While appearing as a tough and menacing man and often using this demeanor to jokingly bully Okabe, Yuugo actually has a soft spot for the lab members and cares about their well-being. His daughter Nae Tennouji is his top priority and he will go to desperate lengths to ensure her safety.

Yuugo has a bad temper, and is very easily annoyed by Okabe's mannerisms as well as his "experiments" upstairs. He would never hesitate to even hit Okabe and regularly threatens to raise the lab's rent money should the experiments continue to disturb him, though this has never actually happened.

In the presence of both his daughter and Rintaro, he would often attempt to "protect" her from Rintaro, whom he sees as a "pervert", though he was likely joking.

As Rintaro and Moeka visit him after they discover he was in cahoots with the Rounders to have the IBN5100 shipped to France. At first he never has qualms to silence them after he admits himself as FB, Moeka's superior but after Rintaro calls him out on dishonoring his close friend and mentor, Suzu Hashida's memory and revealing her to be the same Suzuha Amane from 2010 who hates SERN for creating their own dystopia in the near future. Not only he understands he will be deemed expendable for SERN, he also has a sense of honor and gratitude as he suddenly realizes his immoral decisions working under the organization then learning about Suzu's true identity and decides to commit suicide to make sure that SERN don't harm Nae and Moeka for their cause of safety.

Background

Braun as a young man in Japan.

Yuugo was an orphan living in Paris. He grew up living a rough life in the sewers.

After seeing a gellified human in the sewers he was residing in, he was recruited by SERN, which provided the money he needed to get out of the slums. After a while, SERN ordered him to go to Akihabara in Japan. It was here that he met Suzu Hashida (his neighbor) and Tsuzuri Imamiya (his future wife). After he burned down his home in order to slow down SERN, later lying that it burned down because of his smoking, Suzu let him live with her. While he wanted to do it for free, he insisted on paying rent. Later on, she sold him the building that would later host the Braun Tube Workshop and the Future Gadget Lab. After her death (either by suicide or illness) he inherits her house and continues living there. He eventually married Tsuzuri and had a daughter, Nae. In 2001, while Tsuzuri was pregnant with their second child, she was gellified by SERN in order to keep Yuugo in line.

Sometime prior to the first D-Mail, Tennouji recruited Moeka Kiryu into the Rounders and communicated with her under the code name "FB". It was only when Rintaro and Moeka discovered his identity that FB was revealed to be a man, as he introduced himself as a woman to Moeka, and used female phrasing. Yuugo explained that he took up the exterior and identity of the one the recruit needs the most, so as to gain their blind and absolute trust and use them to no ends.

Plot

For the first half of the story, Yuugo only appears as a mean landlord to Rintaro. He quickly hires Suzuha as a part-timer after she tells him that she loves CRT TVs and constantly gets on her for slacking off. After Suzuha's initial trip to 1975, Yuugo gives the lab mems a letter from Suzu that she told him to give to Okabe on that date and that she had died 10 years prior. When the lab Mems ask him how she dies, he reveals it to have been a suicide. After Okabe sends the D-mail, allowing Suzuha to go back in to without getting Amnesia, he confronts Yuugo again and asks about Suzu Hashida. Yuugo takes Okabe to his house and explains that she died of illness before giving him the divergence meter.

When Moeka gets cut off from FB, Rintaro decided to work with her to track down FB, who turned out to be none other than Yuugo himself. The three had a brief conversation before Yuugo, realizing not only his usefulness to SERN has run out and that Rintaro tells him that Suzu is actually Suzuha Amane who came from the future to stop SERN creating their dystopia and he was dishonoring her memory all those years, he draws a gun to his head and commits suicide, much to Rintaro and Moeka's horror.

In the anime, Yuugo takes his conversation with Rintaro and Moeka to a construction yard, as to keep Nae uninvolved. After revealing hios past, he fataly shoot Moeka before killing himself.

When 1% Divergence is obtained, Yuugo is seen running his shop, having apparently never worked for SERN in this attractor field; but as the story of Steins;Gate 0 unfolds, Okabe confronts him and forces him to admit that he is indeed still a Rounder. However, he is viewed as an ally this time because he wishes to protect Nae from the danger she might be in after seeing the faces of shadowy attackers.

Yuugo thus protects Kagari and Suzuha by having them work at his shop, and briefly uses his interrogator skill to help Okabe out in finding out who is after the former. It is hinted that he is far more ruthless and less redeemable, as he never encountered Suzu Hashida - since Suzuha traveled back to 2010 and not 1975. How much exactly his personality differs in this regard is unknown, however.

In the Steins Gate Worldline, Yuugo ends up hiring Moeka as a part-timer.

Current Status

• In Robotics;Notes, Mr. Braun is still alive and as doting on his daughter as ever in August 2019 in the Steins Gate world line.

Trivia

• Yuugo's call sign of FB is the acronym for "Ferdinand Braun". Yuugo himself confirmed this shortly after Rintaro discovers his identity.
• If the cosplay addon is activated in the Steins;Gate visual novel, Yuugo's new appearance resembles the character Doraemon, albeit colorued green instead of blue, and would appear as if he was bare-chested. Also brauns English drives from Mydoria's PvP skills.

Etymology

• The name Yuugo means "abundant" (裕) (yū) and "I, me" (吾) (go).
• Yuugo's surname Tennouji means "heaven/heavenly, sky, imperial" (天) (ten), "king, prince, monarch, sovereign, potentate" (王) (nō) and "temple" (寺) (ji).

Gallery

Yuugo in the anime.

Graphic from Yuugo's official birthday post in 2023.