Released in 2014, Big Hero 6 is the only Marvel animated movie to be made by Disney so far. The movie tells the story of Hiro Hamada, a fourteen-year-old robotics genius who lives in the futuristic city of San Fransokyo. After the death of his brother Tadashi, Hiro finds Baymax, an inflatable healthcare robot that Tadashi built after injuring his toe. Hiro and Baymax soon become superheroes, and along with Hiro's friends form the team Big Hero 6.
If you've seen the movie, you know that Big Hero 6 battles the mysterious Yokai who is revealed to be Robert Callaghan, the head of the robotics program at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Callaghan is looking for revenge on Alistair Krei the mastermind behind a teleportation experiment that ended with Callaghan's daughter vanishing. But just because you saw Big Hero 6 doesn't mean you know everything about Yokai...
10 When Baymax Scans Yokai, We Learn A Lot About Him
As a healthcare robot, Baymax is designed to scan people and quickly find anything that may be causing negative effects on their health. For example, when they first meet, Baymax scans Hiro and sees that Hiro is allergic to peanuts, which is good information to have on hand. When Baymax scans Yokai, he learns that the villain's blood type is AB- and that he weighs 173 pounds. Baymax also diagnosis Yokai as suffering from acute stress disorder and emotional instability. Baymax also finds that Yokai is at high risk for cardiovascular disease.
9 Yokai Isn't From The Comic
While the movie is based on a Marvel comic by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau, it doesn't follow the comic all that closely. For one thing, in the comic, Baymax was built by Hiro and has the brain engrams of Hiro's dead father. Also, Baymax can transform into a dragon.
Another major difference between the comic and the movie is Yokai. In the movie, he is the main villain, but in the comic, he doesn't exist, although he does look a lot like Lord Deathstrike. Lord Deathstrike isn't in the Big Hero 6 comics though. He's the brother of Lady Deathstrike and mostly fights the X-Men.
8 Yokai Is Never Called Yokai
While he's called Yokai in the marketing materials and merchandise, Callaghan never uses that name in the movie. None of the other characters ever call him Yokai either. When they do talk about Yokai before they find out his true identity, the members of Big Hero 6 usually call him the "Guy in the Kabuki Mask" or the "Man in the Mask" in the movie. Callaghan also appears in the Big Hero 6 animated series a few times, but he's never called Yokai there either. Maybe if they ever get around to making a sequel, someone will finally call him Yokai.
7 Yokai Acts Differently In The Manga Adaptation
When a movie gets adapted for a comic, there are usually some changes to how characters look, but the changes made to Yokai for the manga adaptation of Big Hero 6 is different. The movie shows Callaghan as a loving father who is dedicated to his daughter's happiness and driven over the edge when he loses her. In the manga, while he still clearly cares for his daughter Abigail, he is colder towards her. As Yokai, the manga version is a far more ruthless villain than the one we see in the movie.
6 We See Yokai's Wife In The Manga
By the time Big Hero 6 starts, Callaghan's wife is already dead. We never find out exactly when she died, but we know that Callaghan and his daughter Abigail lost her some time ago. In the manga adaptation of the movie, there is a scene that flashes back to the day Callaghan met his future wife Sarah.
The death of his wife is one of the pieces that turn Callaghan into Yokai. Losing both Sarah and Abigail is too much for Callaghan to take, and he breaks, turning into Yokai. This, in turn, leads to the death of Hiro's brother, giving birth to Big Hero 6.
5 Yokai Has A Deeper Meaning In Japanese
For those of us who don't speak Japanese, Yokai is just a cool sounding name, but if you know the language, you know that the meaning of the word tells you a lot about the character. In Japanese, Yokai is a malevolent spirit and in Big Hero 6, that is what Callaghan basically is. With the seeming death of his daughter, Callaghan had already started to become disconnected from the world around him. After his own apparent death, he becomes something of a ghost, wearing a Kabuki mask and terrorizing others.
The kanji used for the word itself means "mystery", and with his identity a secret for much of the movie, Yokai himself is a mystery.
4 The Red Markings On Yokai's Mask Represent Passion
In Kabuki, the colors chosen for a face are important. Purple represents nobility, while green is used to denote the supernatural. Black or blue paint is used to show that a character is jealous or evil. Red lines, like the ones on Yokai's mask, represent passion. It may seem like Yokai should have had black or blue paint on his mask since he's the villain, but the character is deeper than that.
Callaghan himself is not an evil man.
A renowned scientist, Callaghan worked to make the world a better place, but the loss of his daughter drove Callaghan mad, leading him to become Yokai. His story isn't one of an evil man; he is a man who can not escape his grief and seeks revenge for what was done to his family. What he does isn't right, but his intentions and his passion are understandable.
3 Callaghan Has A Military Background
While it is never stated in the movie, Yokai spent time in the military before turning his full attention to science and technology. This little bit of information, which is revealed by character designer Shiyoon Kim in The Art of Big Hero 6, would explain why Callaghan is such a capable fighter. Clearly, Yokai's military training wasn't good enough to keep him from losing a fight with a group of teens that just became superheroes a few days earlier, but it was good enough that he causes some serious problems for Big Hero 6 and Krei Tech Industries.
2 The Actor Who Voiced Yokai Almost Won An Oscar
Big Hero 6 is filled with great voice acting. Scott Adsit, who voices Baymax, is best known for playing Pete on 30 Rock. Alan Tudyk, who has lent his voice to Clayface and Joker on the Harley Quinn animated series as well as played Mr. Nobody in the first season of Doom Patrol. But none of the voice actors in the movie have had a career as renowned as James Cromwell, the voice of Yokai. Along with playing four characters across three Star Trek series, Cromwell has starred in The Green Mile, LA Confidential and Babe, for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
1 Callaghan Apparently Invented Some Pixar Technology
In the movie, Hiro brings up that one of Callaghan's inventions is the Callaghan-Catmull Spline. In reality, there is something called the Catmull-Rom Spline. Originally formulated by Edwin Catmull and Raphael Rom, this mathematical construct is used in computer modeling and animation to create a smooth connection between points or objects. Edwin Catmull just happened to be one of the heads of Disney Animation and the president of Pixar when Big Hero 6 was being made. Apparently in the world of San Fransokyo, Catmull used his degree in computer science to work on robots instead of animation.