Badass of the Week: Hideaki Akaiwa

[Fumesucker]

http://badassoftheweek.com/akaiwa.html

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For most of us regular folks, this is the sort of shit that would make us throw up our hands, swear loudly, and resign ourselves to a lifetime of hopeless misery.

But Hideaki Akaiwa isn't a regular guy. He's a fucking insane badass, and he wasn't going to sit back and just let his wife die alone, freezing to death in a miserable water-filled tomb. He was going after her. No matter what.

How the fuck Hideaki Akaiwa got a hold of a wetsuit and a set of SCUBA gear is one of the great mysteries of the world. I'm roughly twenty hours into Fallout 3 and I'm lucky to come across a fucking vacuum cleaner in that godforsaken post-apocalyptic wasteland, yet this guy is in the middle of a real-life earth-shaking mecha-disaster and he's coming up with oxygen tanks, waterproof suits, and rebreather systems seemingly out of thin air. I guess when you're a truly unstoppable badass, you, by definition, don't let anything stand in your way. You make shit happen, all the time, no matter what.

Regardless of how he came across this equipment (borrowing, stealing, buying, beating up a Yakuza SCUBA diving demolitions expert, etc.) Hideaki threw on his underwater survival gear, rushed into the goddamned tsunami, and dove beneath the rushing waves, determined to rescue his wife or die trying. I'm not exactly sure whether or not the dude even knew how to operate SCUBA equipment, but according to one version of his story he met his wife while he was surfing (which is awesome, by the way), so it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to say that he already had a little experience SCUBA diving under a more controlled situation. Of course, even if this dude didn't know how to work the gear I'm certain that wouldn't have stopped him either – Hideaki wasn't going to let a pair of soul-crushing natural disasters deter him from doing awesome shit and saving his family. He dove down into the water, completely submerged in the freezing cold, pitch black rushing current on all sides, and started swimming through the underwater ruins of his former hometown.

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[calimary]

1. Amazing story! A real-life hero - I'd call him "Badass of the Year"!

:toast:

[Paradoxical]

2. Holy Shit. I will buy that man a beer.

[Bunny]

3. What a guy.

It must be nice to have someone who would do that for you.

[Octafish]

4. Hideaki Akaiwa

Hero of the Week.
Hero for All Time.

Wow! Thank you for the heads-up, Fumesucker. Incredible.

[hlthe2b]

5. Damn... truly remarkable...

Truly

[loudsue]

6. Good grief!! His wife must make some badass enchiladas, or something!

;)

[DirkGently]

7. Holy cliff-hanger, Fumesucker. Might've mentioned how it turned out . . .

He quickly swam through to find his totally-freaked-out wife, alone and stranded on the upper level of their house, barely keeping her head above water. He grabbed her tight, and presumably sharing his rebreather with her, dragged her out of the wreckage to safety. She survived.

Phew. :D

Edit: And then he saved his Mom, too, apparently.

Zoiks!

[Hatchling]

9. Not only that..

He's still going out and searching for other people!

Wow!

[Nordmadr]

8. 1,000 times recommend. Make that guy into a movie! N/T

[Shiver]

10. This guy is win.

The world would be better off with more people like him.

[emmadoggy]

11. Incredible.

That's the kind of guy I'd want on my side! He sounds like a character from a blockbuster action movie.

Gutsy, courageous, and heroic. Oh yeah, and 100% BADASS!!

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[progressoid]

12. Wow!

[stevedeshazer]

13. What a dude!

+1

[Rex]

14. Amazing story.

Something to encourage everyone to have hope! There are heroes out there, trying to save every last person in need of saving. Simply amazing.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

15. Someone said "May the Force be with You" and he took it to heart.

Or he was eating his spinach.

Wonder if he still is?