Itaru Hashida

Itaru Hashida (橋田 至, Hashida Itaru), also known by his nickname Daru, his online handle DaSH ("Daru the Super Hacker") and Barrel Titor, is a main character in Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0. He is an experienced hacker and a hardcore otaku, a member of the Future Gadget Lab and a close friend of Rintaro Okabe who eventually becomes the husband of Yuki Amane and the father of Suzuha Amane.

Appearance
Daru is a short and overweight guy who needs glasses to see.

He always wears a dark green/olive t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans along with his signature yellow cap. In one of the anime adaptation's episodes, Daru is seen wearing a yellow Hawaiian shirt.

Personality
Daru is obsessed and extremely talented with programs and computers, capable of hacking into the mainframes of top-secret organizations and processing complex computer codes.

Like Rintaro Okabe, Daru enjoys making Future Gadgets, but he is not nearly as enthusiastic about it as Rintaro is. Daru also has a very particular naming sense for his creations, usually adding serial and version number even if unnecessary.

One of Itaru's most prominent characteristics is his obsession over moe culture, as well as his perverted tendencies, often to the annoyance of those around him. He is also a big fan of Faris.

Plot
While Rintaro Okabe and Itaru had known one another since high school, their friendship only really began from the moment they entered university. Itaru joined the Future Gadget Lab some time after Mayuri Shiina, his reasoning for doing so being that May Queen Nyan-nyan was fairly close to the lab.

While Rintaro and Mayuri were off to attend Dr Nakabachi's seminar on time travel, Itaru stayed on the lab trying to find out what was the problem with the PhoneWave, the lab's latest Future Gadget. As he experimented with it, a message from Rintaro, informing him of the murder of Kurisu Makise arrived and was sent to the past through the PhoneWave, shifting the worldline towards the Alpha Attractor Field.

Trivia

 * Daru's favorite drink is Coca Cola.
 * Itaru is one of few characters in the Science Adventure Series to have impacted the plot of every main entry in the series since his introduction.
 * He is mentioned in Chaos;Child.
 * He appears on the Twipo social media app in Robotics;Notes
 * He appears as a main character in Robotics;Notes DaSH.
 * Itaru's main personal computer appears to be a Sharp X68000. Given the computer's outdated processor architecture, it is likely a sleeper PC build.
 * Daru considers himself a "Super Hacker", though Rintaro often mispronounces this as "Super Hack", much to Daru's annoyance.

Etymology

 * The name Itaru means "of, this, climax, arrive, proceed, reach, attain, result in" (至).
 * Itaru's surname Hashida means "bridge" (橋) (hashi) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta/da).