Characters / Kengan Ashura: Kengan Association

Kengan Ashura Main Character Index
Kengan Association (Yamashita Trading Co.) | Kengan Association Fighters {Left Block | Right Block} | Purgatory | Worm | Other Groups

The Kengan Association

The main titular organization which runs underground fighting matches in order to resolve disputes between companies over contracts.

In General

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The Association deals with fights and negotiations worth millions and billions of yen, with entry and membership fees being equally as high. For big corporations, a loss, while a pain, is not a big deal. For small corporations or corporations under tough times, a loss could mean going out of business and entering a lifetime of debt.
• The Alliance: Several companies engage in alliances in order to throw their weight around and obtain greater influence within the Association. Some of them are so large that it allows companies to win by blackmailing their opponents. The three largest and most notable factions are the Four Dragons, the Three Nobles, and the Society of a Hundred.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The organization, or rather the concept of Kengan Matches has been used by Japanese corporations and in more feudal times, individual merchants, for over 300 years, having been originally started by a a very young boy Shogun who wanted to resolve the rampant assassinations, blackmailing and all-out wars between Zaibatsu's predecessors in the hopes of becoming a merchant selling to the Imperial Palace, "in a manner that is fair and square". It is known by world leaders, who come to watch certain matches.
• Bland-Name Product: Almost all of the companies, including ones that are stand-ins for businesses that aren't Japanese in real-life.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: A sliding scale of where individual members rank on this, but there are many internal politics and different alliances all vying for power within the Association. It's abundantly clear that besides some outliers, all of them frequently engage in a field that is downright corrupt at best and no better than the cruelest of mafias under a prettier moniker at their worst.
• Duels Decide Everything: Runs on this. It is an underground fighting organization run so that companies can resolve contractual and bidding disputes. The Association ranks companies on the amount of money earned by using the association.
• Exact Words:
  • Many rules for the Annihilation Tournament seem deliberately set up to allow absurd leaps of logic provided you only give them the most literal, restrained interpretations. Many fighters and executives pull off what could only be considered outright cheating or flagrant Loophole Abuse, but Metsudo simply laughs and encourages them, as long as his rules have still been followed to the letter.
  • One of the bigger cases of this is Hajime, who brought swords into the arena. His logic was that since the swords had been carved from his own bones and reimplanted into his body, they still counted as a part of it rather than a weapon (and indeed, he uses them more like arm blades than anything). When one of Metsudo's bodyguards suggests that they'll need to close that loophole after the match, Metsudo declares that the rule will remain unchanged, because he thinks it's funny.
• Fantastic Rank System: Averted. The Association has a ranking system for the total assets earned by the company through the matches. There is no ranking for the fighters themselves, so the fighters go by reputation and win-loss ratio.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • The internal politics of the Kengan Association come back to bite them in the ass in Omega when they are faced with a cross-organization tournament with Purgatory to decide which organization is merged with the other. The chairman is faced with great difficulty in recruiting strong fighters to fight in the tournament because of the different alliances in play. If he leans too heavily on allies and their fighters, the other members will cause trouble. Likewise if he goes too strongly to other alliances, it gives off the appearance of weakness, and those alliances may make power plays. This is in direct contrast to Purgatory, which is entirely controlled by Toyoda, and can choose fighters as he wills without consequence.
  • Part of this comes into play with the final roster chosen for the cross-organisation tournament. Kazuo ends up having to sideline top fighters like Cosmo and include Hayami's fighter on the roster to appease the different factions in the Association.
• Gladiator Games: Played with. Ordinarily, while it is a spectacle, the executives are not there to be entertained but to gather information and resolve disputes. Played straight with the Kengan Annihilation Tournament, a tournament to decide on the next chairman. Killing fighters are also permitted, with no legal repercussions under Metsudo's reign.
• The Handler: Most CEO's hire someone to make sure their superhuman and potentially incredibly amoral bruiser is well-fed, kept loyal and entertained in whatever way they desire, whether it be acces to esoteric Training from Hell, entire clubs worth of women or prize money a Boxer could only dream of. Otherwise, some CEO's are themselves the handler and have underlings run their company/companies to participate in the Kengan Association almost full time while scouting for and handling potential bruisers.
• Irony: The organization was originally founded to cleanly resolve merchant disputes through straightforward duels after the guilds had become mired with assassinations, blackmail, and lobbying. In the present day, the duels are still there, but so are all the problems they were originally instituted to quash albeit with said duels as integral parts.
• Milkman Conspiracy: Along with the typical bigwig businesses you'd expect to see throw their money around, competing organizations include those from more esoteric (if still substantial) corporations such as food distributors and bookstores.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty: Companies are ranked by the amount of money they earn through the Kengan Matches. They do not rank the fighters themselves, and often big companies use different fighters depending on the competition. This has lead to certain top companies using publicly known, untested fighters or fighters with small records (but earning big payoffs) with mixed results. On the other hand, certain companies are known to avert this, and use one top class, near unbeatable fighter with long records, which is indicative of their standing in the association.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: An ironclad rule taken to its most liberal application. The attitude of the Association is that if you fail to catch the opponent with anything they shouldn't have on them on initial inspection before the fight, you cannot complain or object to the usage during the fight, even when it's blatantly obvious that they are cheating. Most companies don't do this as it negatively impacts their standing within the Association, but some may do it to cripple or kill a troublesome fighter. Companies can also use other, non-fighting related methods to get a win, such as threatening other smaller companies financially to force a win.
• Organization with Unlimited Funding: Played With. The Association under Metsudo was capable of holding a massive tournament on a private island, with world leaders coming to watch and trillions of yen being transferred and negotiated between companies. However, in Omega this is actually not the case, as the Association relies on donations and contributions by its members (very rich members, but nonetheless) to run. In spite of this, they still have less money than Purgatory.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Played With in Omega. This rule was implemented by Nogi, after Ohma's death. Companies that cause the death of another fighter will be banned from the organization for a year. This forces companies to stop using one or two fighters continuously and hire out regulated fighters on a short term or one fight contract. However, the penalty only applies if a fighter is sent out with heavy injuries before the fight and dies as a result, penalizing their company, or if a fighter kills another fighter after the referee has stopped the match or the opponent forfeits, penalizing the killer's company. If it doesn't fall into these three categories, it's treated as a ring death and no penalties are given. By the time of the Berserkerbowl, nonlethality is attempted to be further reinforced by involving Purgatory's Ring Out rules, since tossing your wounded opponent nonfatally out of the ring is a lot easier and better for everyone involved than just mauling them to death.

Dainippon Bank

Metsudo Katahara

Voiced by: Hidekatsu Shibata (Japanese), Joseph Whimms (English), Alejandro Villeli (Latin American Spanish)

Age: 96 (Ashura), 98 (Omega)

The CEO of Dainippon Bank and head of the Kengan Association. He kick-starts the plot of Ashura when, on a bet with Nogi, he chooses to host the Annihilation Tournament with the award of determining his successor.

---

• Badass Army: His Bodyguards, the majority of which are orphaned kids raised and trained on Metsudo's money to become a private army of elite martial artists. Most of them are good enough to be Kengan fighters, while the elites among them such as Metsudo's left-and-righthand men are implied to be a match for even the absolute best fighters the Association has to offer.
• Benevolent Boss: He's this to his personal army, the majority were orphaned children he helped raise. He's even happily willing to accept men sent to assassinate him into his ranks and treat them no differently.
• Big Good: Despite being not especially benevolent, he's ultimately this in Ashura.
• Blood Knight: Except with gambling and scheming instead of fighting. He's willing to put his position as leader of the biggest underground organization in Japan at risk for kicks.
• Born Lucky: Survived a succesful, on-target Kamikaze run, and then rose to the Head of the Kengan Association from nothing in post-war Japan in nothing but luck and brass balls.
• Chuunibyou: Loves pro-wrestling and dramatics, and made all his Bodyguards take up codenames because in the man's own words...
  Metsudo: "It's cool, like in a spy movie."
• Cool Old Guy: He's a fun-loving party animal who also happens to be the CEO of the biggest banking firm in Japan.
• Dirty Old Man: Had Sayaka at 73 and Retsudo at 75 with two different mistresses like an absolute player.
  Mukaku: "WAIT, SON?! WHAT KIND OF STALLION IS HE?!"
  Koga: "DON'T FUCKING CHANGE THE SUBJECT TO THAT!"
• Family of Choice: The Bodyguards he commands and him are more or less this, with Metsudo having lost his whole family and hometown to firebombing during the war and the majority of his recruits are orphans raised in a loving environment with all their needs seen to and all the training facilities they could ever wish.
• A Father to His Men: The majority of the Bodyguards are orphans raised by him and they respect him, This includes Agito as he is taken in by him after being saved by the Gu ritual.
• Fiction 500: Most of the top-end Kengan members are extremely rich, but Metsudo is almost parodically so. His current fighter alone has made him over seven trillion yen in 157 matches, and even before then, the old man had a private army and a spy network. He uses Ganryu Island, the one Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro had their legendary duel on, as a private island and the location that's being used to host the Annihilation Tournament.
• Fire-Forged Friends: He initially hired Erioh purely because of circumstances. By the time they had thought their way up to the top, they were inseparable friends.
• Freudian Excuse: A variant. He didn't become any worse or evil because of it, but the reason for his love of bets and gambling, as well as testing his luck was that he miraculously managed to survive preforming a Kamikaze run AND made it back to Japan in one piece.
• Fun Personified: An extremely rich old man who likes to throw parties and has a knack for entertainment.
• The Gambling Addict: A variation. The man is obsessed with bets and staking his luck on things. It's even the entire reason the story even started.
• Hero of Another Story: His conquest of the Kengan Association could be a manga in its own right, though the prequel chapter "The Conqueror" does detail the most important parts as he recounts them to Retsudo.
• Intergenerational Friendship: He is friends with King Rama XIII and Imai Cosmo, who are both over 70 years his junior. Metsudo admits that he actively enjoys these sorts of friendship while out golfing in an omake with Kazuo (also about 40 years his junior), as they make him feel young again.
• It Amused Me:
  • He continuously inserts loopholes and specifications into the rules of the Annihilation Tournament purely because he wants to make it more interesting.
  • In the opening chapter of Omega, he feigns being too busy to entertain Ryuki's request to join Kengan Matches and sends him Yamashita's way because he wants to see how the man will react to meeting someone who looks almost identical to the deceased Ohma.
• Killing Intent: Despite not being a fighter, his presence is so intense that it's compared to an active volcano despite being well into his 90's, nearly making Kaede wet herself when he goes into Large Ham mode.
• Large Ham: He is an incredibly larger than life presence in everything he participates in.
• Nerves of Steel: In his backstory chapters, he talks down three occupying American soldiers who all have guns pointed at his head by pulling out his own revolver and still talking like he's in absolute control of the situation, causing them to panic.
  Metsudo: My country lost the war. I didn't. And I've got a suspicion the Reaper's following me. Wanna have a shootout to find out?
• Oh, Crap!: Has his first one of the story seeing Kaolan manhandle Agito in the first half of their fight, but regains his cool as Agito begins to fight back.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Old Metsudo looks like he's about to have a heart-attack and freezes up in shock at a meeting during the Berserkerbowl when Retsudo tells him that one of Worm's Mooks mentions that they are being led by someone called The Connector, recalling when he met such a man over seventy years ago alongside Erioh.
• Nominal Hero: Despite being the Big Good of Ashura, Metsudo isn't exactly a good person. Rather, he's a man whose actions are based largely on his personal amusement and his chronic gambling addiction that makes him willing to stake anything for the thrill of it. He isn't actively malicious, is very friendly, charitable and respectful to his peers in the Kengan Association, and treats his men very well, but is still a ruthless businessman who has no problem burying a rival. His rise to power came entirely from exploiting both a Yakuza group and becoming The Handler for a highly trained Professional Killer.
• Professional Gambler: Before he joined the Kengan Association.
• Self-Made Man: Metsudo was a Kamikaze pilot who had lost all his family and friends to firebombing, leaving him with nothing once the war was over. Through smart business decisions and him betting the odds on his luck, he was ultimately able to raise up and become not only the head of Japan's biggest banking firm, but the head of the Kengan Association.
• Stronger Than They Look: He's by no means in shape to fight, but Metsudo is such a spring chicken that he can dance, party, drink and do calisthetics with enough prowess to draw the envy and awe of middle-aged businessmen decades younger than himself. Being a former soldier, Kamikaze survivor and crime boss probably helps in that regard.
• Theme Naming: Excluding his top brass who operate under their real names like his personal Bodyguards and the Fang, his army of Bodyguards take their names from small towns from all around Japan.
• Victory Is Boring: He's been the head of the Kengan Association for over 50 years with no one willing to challenge him for the title, and always assuming that his fighter will come out on top. This leads him to inviting Gensai to the tournament in the hope that he will beat Agito, so that he could give up the title and become a challenger in the Kengan Association again.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: To Retsudo, especially. While Metsudo does possess the mental fortitude and dignity that allowed him to reign as the Kengan Association Chairman for 50 years, he is also a fun-loving party animal who enjoys drinking and gambling, and finds the threats against his power and even his own life rather amusing. Retsudo, being the commander of his father's Bodyguard unit, takes his duty to maintain the arena's security very seriously, and is frequently exasperated by Metsudo's apparent lack of concern to his own safety.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: He's an absolute master of this. Superhuman assassin sent to kill you? Hire him and rise to the top of the Kengan Association with him! Your private fight-dome is rigged to blow by a deranged psychopath executive who has every intention to kill you? Hire the mercenaries who set up the bombs at a better price to disarm them long before said psychopath's plan even unfolds! The only thing in the story he legitimately didn't expect was Kuroki beating Kanoh, but he's happy with that result too so it hardly counts as a slip-up.
• Yakuza: While he doesn't seem to have stuck with them, he worked with the Yakuza briefly in post-war Japan until he could acquire a Kengan Association membership tile.

Sayaka Katahara

"THE KEEEEEEEEEEEEENGAN ANNIHILATION TOURNAMEEEEENT... BEGIIIIIIIIIIINS NOW!"

Voiced By: Mana Hirata (Japanese), Christine Marie Cabanos (English), Carla Castañeda (Latin American Spanish)

Age: 22 (Ashura), 24 (Omega)

Metsudo's daughter and Retsudo's older half-sister. She is the announcer and commentator of the Kengan Annihilation Tournament.

---

• The Announcer: This is one of her main roles, and is responsible for giving the reader information about each fighter's statistics, including their win-loss ratio.
• Chaste Hero: Despite being bonafide Fanservice with a Smile, Sayaka doesn't seem to notice when guys try to hit on her unless they explicitly asks her for sex (in which case, she'll immediately reject them). When Hatsumi tries to invite her to play "grown-up games" with him, she seems to think that he's talking about an actual game. Her obliviousness towards the male attention showered upon her is part of the reason why Retsudo is so overprotective towards her.
• Clueless Dude Magnet: Many guys are attracted to her, and she'd readily befriend anyone who would approach her, but she doesn't seem to realise that the guys that follow her around might want more than just friendship from her. Her profile describes her as oblivious.
• Combat Commentator: This is another main role in the tournament. However, because she herself is not a fighter, she is unable to understand or see a lot of the techniques employed by the fighters. Jerry Tyson usually picks up the slack when it comes to understanding techniques and explaining it to the crowd (and the reader).
• Distaff Counterpart: Word of Godinvoked reveals that her design is basically a female version of Himuro, to the point that she looks exactly the same as him when she appears in Kazuo's Gender Flip dreamland. The two also have somewhat similar personalities—being rather outgoing, sociable, and is very popular among the opposite sex. The difference is that Himuro is a much more active flirt, while Sayaka is an Oblivious to Love Chaste Heroine.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: She doesn't mind walking around the house in the nude and wearing extremely revealing clothes, but doesn't seem to realize what effect this might have towards the guys around her.
• Large Ham: Given that she's the enthusiastic color commentator of the Annihilation Tournament, she's already this in spades, but Mana Hirata really went all out on making Sayaka as bombastic as humanly possible for the anime.
• Ms. Fanservice: She is always wearing Stripperific outfits, and has been hit on by many characters in the story, not least Himuro and Hatsumi.
• Nice Girl: She is an open-minded girl who has gotten on well with the numerous fighters and guest commentators including Saw Paing, Himuro and Sekibayashi. She even let Karura and Elena join her on the commentator's seat because it would make her feel less lonely. She also later makes Jerry Tyson an official second commentator for the tournament.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In Omega, after the brutal slaughter of Alan Wu, she shifts into a serious analytical demeanor while discussing the final results of the match.
• Stripperific: She enjoys wearing revealing clothes, much to Retsudo's chagrin. She also wears increasingly revealing outfits as the Annihilation Tournament progresses.

Retsudo Katahara

"You'd better prepare for the worst, pests. There's no fate worse than not getting to die."

Age: 21 (Ashura), 23 (Omega)

Metsudo's son and Sayaka's younger half-brother. He is also the captain of the Extermination Force and commander-in-chief of the Bodyguards as a whole.

---

• Affectionate Nickname: His father and sister calls him "Retsu", indicating their close relationship.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: There's very little implication that Retsudo got his position through nepotism, as Agito considers him a worthy candidate to succeed him as Fang despite holding so much reverance for the title that he joined back up with Metsudo just to teach someone misusing it a lesson, and he has no worries stepping between Raian and Ohma as they are about to start a fight to break them up. After showing what he can do with a small karambit Ohma reasserts that he is about one of the only person that could get between him and Raian unscathed.
• Big Brother Attraction: Gender-inverted. Retsudo is a closeted Siscon and seems have to incestuous thoughts towards his older half-sister Sayaka. She doesn't seem to notice that his concern for her might not be entirely platonic.
• The Captain: He's the Captain of the Extermination Taskforce and is also in charge of the Bodyguards as a whole. One of his first actions when there's a breach of security on the island is to order two other Bodyguard captains to move their squad while his own unit takes over their fight against the Black Messenger. He also has enough authority within the Association to delay the Semi-Finals by two hours to give Ohma enough time to rest after the latter fights and defeats a crazed Kiryu.
• Facial Markings: He has a facial tattoo over his eye which says "to wish upon the fist" (i.e., Kengan) in Hebrew.
• A Father to His Men: Despite being younger than his underlings, Retsudo cares for his subordinates' well-being, and rewards Ohma with a two-hour rest before his Semi-Finals begins for stopping Kiryu after the latter killed several Bodyguards members, thus avenging them. The Bodyguards respect him very much and trusts his decisions greatly.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: His face tattoo is written in Hebrew, for no other reason than that the characters look cool.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: His bangs completely obscures his right eye, which helps distinguish him as a top-class fighter among a World of Badass despite never having seen any onscreen action, as this means that he'd have to fight with his non-dominant eye. The fancy hairstyle also sets him apart from his subordinates, befitting his status as a rich young master despite his role.
• Jack of All Trades: Describes himself as such and why he doesn't intend on entering Kengan fights. He is great with barehanded and weapon form of silat, being Misasa's pupil, but he isn't specialized in either. He would never be caught lacking by a Mook, but a barehanded specialist like Rolón and Gensai or someone packing serious heat would beat him at any of his games.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Is incredibly overprotective of his older sister, telling her to cover up when she wears one of her Stripperific outfits. This is because he is a siscon.
• Pretty Boy: Has a very youthful and rather androgynous appearance, being visibly less muscular than the fighters despite being just as strong as the top-level contestant.
• Smoking Is Cool: He always seems to light up a cigarette after a fight while his opponents are left in shambles on the ground.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Compared to his party animal father, Retsudo is serious and uptight. He refuses to let down his guard and relax while he's on the clock and reprimands his father for not taking his safety seriously. Metsudo tells his son that he's too young to be acting so stiff, to Retsu's annoyance.
• Wasted Beauty: Despite being the good-looking son of one of the most successful men in Japan, and a good fighter on top of that, it appears that Retsudo's dedication to his duty as the captain of his father's bodyguards and sis-con prevents him from being as popular as he could be.
  Fusui: I forgot about your sister complex, Retsu. That kinda ruins you in a lot of ways.
• Young and in Charge: He's the commander of the Bodyguards as a whole, and is younger than most of its members.

Masamichi Omori

"Christ, this Fang is a handful. But, we've been able to resolve a few causes for concern."

The Fourth Fang of Metsudo

Age: 43 (Ashura), 45 (Omega)

One of Metsudo's personal bodyguards and the fourth person to hold onto the title of The Fang of Metsudo. Unlike a majority of the Bodyguards, which are mostly orphans raised from childhood by Metsudo, Omori was scouted from elsewhere.

---

• Badass in a Nice Suit: A given, seeing as how he is a bodyguard. While he has yet to fight on-panel, he walks away from a fight against Agito Kanoh with no more than a bruised lip and some scratches, cementing that Omori is very much the real deal.
• Badass Teacher: He teaches Kanoh about the weakness of his "Formless" martial art and gets him to improve in a short space of time.
• The Champion: Omori demolished all the competition against Metsudo's reign in an Annihilation Tournament sixteen years prior to Ashura, cementing his chairmanship until the beginning of the story.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Does this to Kanoh after his performance against Kaolan by challenging him for the right to fight in the tournament. He ends up using the fight to teach him about the weakness of his style and how to improve it.
  Omori: You are a liability. You have overwhelming power, but that makes you frail when you are cornered.
• Heroic Build: Omori is 136kgs of rippling muscle. His pecs are larger than his own head!
• Large and in Charge: Metsudo's right-hand man who towers over a vast majority of the cast at a full 206cm/6'9ft.
• Legacy Character: He is the former fourth Fang of Metsudo and the previous champion of the Annihilation Tournament.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Omori was modeled after pro wrestlers Omori Takao and Marufuji Naomichi.
• Noodle Incident: His entire fighting career. He's specifically pointed out to be scouted from outside the Bodyguards' ranks when he joined up with Metsudo and became his new Fang, but we're never told from where, or even what kind of style he uses. He also won the last Annihilation Tournament.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: His fight against Kanoh for his spot as Metsudo's fighter. We don't get to see it, but every Bodyguard present is dropping their jaws at the aftermath, with Omori being slightly bruised but ultimately no worse for wear.
• Retired Badass: Was Metsudo's former fighter, but retired from fighting Kengan Matches in place of Kanoh around eight years ago. That doesn't mean that he won't be willing to step up to replace him if he feels Kanoh hasn't got his shit together at some point. Takayama is fully convinced that Omori could substitute out Agito in a worst case scenario without any concern for Metsudo's overall chances of winning the tournament.
• Smoking Is Cool: Lights himself a fat cigar after his sparring match with Kanoh.

Minoru Takayama

"You regret it now, shithead? You picked the wrong guy to mess with."

The Closest Man to The Fang

The Seventh Fang of Metsudo

Age: 37 (Ashura), 39 (Omega)

One of Metsudo's personal bodyguards and one of the top candidates to be the sixth Fang of Metsudo.

---

• Attack! Attack! Attack!: He is a pure offensive brawler who prefers attacking without using defense. Because of his strength and high pain tolerance, this makes him very dangerous as he can brush off injuries so that he can land a decisive blow on his enemies.
• Badass Biker: He has an impressively decked out motorcycle that he gives to Agito in the epilogue of Ashura, claiming that he doesn't have the time to ride it himself.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: A given, seeing as how he is a bodyguard. He is able to sneak up behind Ohma and choke him out in seconds despite towering over him. He also defeats Gunji Kito with little effort.
• Blood Knight: All Gunji Kito gets out of Takayama, after disfiguring his left hand and hitting him full-force in the face with a baton, is a chilling Slasher Smile before Takayama redoubles his attack and beats Gunji bloody.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: From the little fighting we have seen of him, he seems to have little care about his own safety. He disarms Gunji Kito by plunging the mercenary's katana through his own hand and then kicking the sword hand into a broken, bloody mess. He doesn't even bat an eye from Kito returning the favor by kicking Takayama's impaled hand, sending one of his fingers flying along with the sword.
• Determinator: He's lost to Agito a multitude of times in his attempts to claim the title as "Fang" and even had his face torn open by him in the past, but he still refuses to give up trying to take the title from Agito, which both Metsudo and Agito respect him greatly for.
• Establishing Character Moment: The scene that first introduces him as a named character has him effortlessly sneaking up behind and choking out Ohma in a matter of seconds, showing that Ohma, or any other strong competitor in the Annihilation Tournament, is not above the mercy of the Bodyguards if they start shit behind the scenes.
• Fingore: Loses his middle finger during his fight with Gunji Kito, though he has it sewn on and reattached immediately afterwards by one of Metsudo's private doctors without as much as wince of complaint during a meeting after Toyo Electric's coup attempt.
• Glasgow Grin: He got it when Kanoh tore his face open on both sides when they were kids who had just entered training under Metsudo. While on the job, he wears a mask to cover it up. When Gunji Kito hits him in the face, the stitches tear open and make him look even more intimidating than he already was.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: His fighting style is referred to in the end-of-chapter commentaries as "Killer Brawling". He hits the problem very hard, and suddenly there's no problem anymore.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Apparently with J, the Captain of the Third Squad. The two are recruited at around the same time, and the Omakes show that the two usually hang out together during vacations.
• Hidden Depths: Humorously, his profile reveals that he's fond of fishing. Going by his comments in the final chapter of Ashura, he's also a motorcycle enthusiast, claiming Agito is undeserving of such a fine ride when he's a beginner driver.
• Hot-Blooded: He is described as having a short temper and being very aggressive which also reflects his fighting style, which is pure brawling. As he's also shown to be very reckless in a fight and has very little regard for his own well-being.
• Implacable Man: He cares little about how much damage he takes and is very reckless in a fight all while being able to continue on.
• Katanas Are Just Better: He looted Gunji's tachi off of his half-dead body, and puts it to use against Shen Wulong, though it looks comically undersized in his Giant Hands of Doom and did him zero good against Shen's Finger Poke of Doom against Takayama and the other four armed assailants.
• Masking the Deformity: To hide the Glasgow Grin he got as a child from Agito Kanoh, he wears a mask covering the lower half of his face.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Just what does Metsudo feed these kids to produce such absolute units? Takayama, while not quite the largest human in the series, is pretty much the size of a car and hits hard enough to drop a man who's made a reputation out of killing Kures in three blows.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Takayama was modeled after pro wrestlers Takayama Yoshihiro and Suzuki Minoru, the former being infamous for both his Attack! Attack! Attack! strategy and his size, and the latter for his brutality as a longtime heel wrestler.
• Super-Strength: Appears to have this, destroying Gunji Kito's hand in a single kick and completely caving in his face, leaving an imprint of his boot on the poor guy's face.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Compared to his rival/comrade Agito and what we have seen him do so far, he is a straight-up brawler with little skill or technique in his fighting style, but has enough strength to take out many of the Guardians on his own. His most notable feat being that he defeated Gunji Kito, a master swordsman who has taken out a few members of the Kure family, with only brute force by stomping his face into the ground. He also has an extremely high tolerance to pain thus making him very reckless in his brawling style as he has no defense to back up on.
• The Worf Effect: He is effortlessly floored by Shen Wulong smacking him off-handedly despite being an absolute tank of a man, showing that even durability is worthless in the face of the World's Best Warrior.

The Four Dragons (and Affiliated)

Nogi Group

Hideki Nogi

Voiced by: Joji Nakata (Japanese), Michael Pizzuto (English), Santos Alberto (Latin American Spanish)

Age: 61 (Ashura), 63 (Omega)

CEO of Nogi Group and Yamashita's boss. He introduces Yamashita into the underworld of Kengan Matches and is looking to become the next head of the Kengan Association.

---

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The tournament is this for him. Because he is the one who issued the challenge for the seat of Chairman of the Kengan Association, if he doesn't become the Chairman, all the assets of the Nogi Group will be taken by the Kengan Association and the company will be dissolved.
• The Atoner:
  • The reason he had Kazuo enter the Kengan Tournament was that his ancestor fought and died for the Nogiya family in the earliest Kengan tournament, and as such Nogi's family have sought to find a descendant of Yamashita to repay their debt.
  • In Omega, Nogi initiates reforms in the Kengan matches that reduce the chances of fighter fatalities, which is a far cry from his original ruthless mindset of viewing fighters as disposable and interchangeable pawns.
• Authority in Name Only: Despite deposing Metsudo as the chairman of the Association by Omega, he is still reliant on Metsudo's money and private army to keep things in order, and Nogi still talks to the old man as if to an authority figure. At one point, he even refers to Metsudo as Chairman, and has to be reminded that he's the Chairman now.
• Big Good: In Omega.
• The Chessmaster:
  • He is a shrewd businessman and very good at playing the political game within the Kengan Association, and has a strong fighter to back him up. He still falls short of Metsudo, though, and ultimately his fate is left to a third party: Takakaze.
  • He gets Kazuo and Rihito to set up companies and join the tournament to help "clear their debt" on the basis that they nominate him on the blue moon chance that they win, or to have them throw matches for stronger fighters. He also has the backing of his good friend Furumi, and the monstrous fighter Wakatsuki.
  • He hires a mercenary, then nominates and pays for his membership fee into the Kengan Association the same day. He then gets him to intimidate Yoshitake, whose hired muscle beats him up. Nogi now has him by the balls because attacking a Kengan Association member is an expellable offense. He still lets Hatsumi's fight against Chiba take place because he wants to make sure that the stronger fighter wins, and has better chances of winning the tournament, but Yoshitake was from that point his pawn, and there was nothing he could do about it.
  • He hired Hassad, who was an inside man into Hayami's grand plan to take over the Kengan Association by way of a coup/massacre, and leaks it to Metsudo, who then goes to great lengths to ensure that the strongest fighters, their family and friends, and the Kure Clan are attending, as well as tipping off all other members of this plan and getting them to betray Hayami. This ends up with Metsudo and all the fighters he's brought in beating down on Katsumasa's forces in unison while Nogi can sit back and watch the interlude show with a drink and cigar, dismantling Toyo Electric's plans without having to lift a finger.
• Crazy-Prepared: He hires Hanafusa as security during the meeting with the Death Dealer in case the Worm succeed in beating the security. Hanafusa just needs an excuse to release deadly virus strains so the Worm decides to accept Nogi's negotiation.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When the Worm asks for a spot in the Kengan association and for both Ryuki and Ohma to be handed over to them, Nogi tells them to get lost. Even when Shen Wulong himself walks in after having effortlessly dispatched nearly all of the bodyguards and security personnel, Nogi refuses to give in to their demands and insists that they win what they want in a Kengan Match.
• Good Is Not Nice: He's a very shrewd and calculating businessman, and not afraid to pull dubious moves to get what he wants, but it's revealed Nogi ultimately has the best intentions regarding the Kengan Association at heart.
• Heroic BSoD: Heroic is pushing it, but he absolutely has a BSOD moment when Hatsumi loses badly in a one-sided fight with the Kanoh because Kanoh changed the way he normally fights. The always calm Nogi who is always one step ahead of everyone ends up collapsing to his knees, certain that not only has he lost his biggest chance of winning the Chairmanship, but also that the Nogi Group will be dissolved.
• Oh, Crap!: Has a major one in Omega when he realizes that a Worm member was impersonating Mana when he was discussing the possibility of Ohma and Ryuki being clones with Metsudo.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He's a shrewd CEO who's hungry for power, but he's not a terrible person, and once he becomes the Kengan Association Chairman, he implements several new regulations to improve fighter safety. He immediately refuses negotiating with the Worm even most benign request of handing Ohma and Ryuki despite push from governments because he knows the Worm have a long con planned.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After being outfoxed by Metsudo and losing control of his ace-in-the-hole, Yamashita, Nogi gives up on his bid for Kengan Association Chairman - only for Takakaze, CEO of Motorhead Motors and winner of the tournament, to nominate Nogi for the seat himself.

Kaede Akiyama

• See Here

Mana Kimishima

Age: 22 (Omega)

Nogi’s new secretary as of Kengan Omega, a young talent who is still getting acclimated to the Kegan Association’s Corporate World.

---

• Fangirl: Downplayed but present, as she’s a big fan of Yamashita and the first time she sees him she views him as if he’s some legendary figure of myth.
• Foil: According to Word of God in terms of design she’s this to Kaede, being more inspired by a traditional Japanese look for a secretary in comparison to Kaede’s western secretary inspired design.
• Hidden Depths: Interestingly one of her listed hobbies is Belly Dancing, which is not something one might expect from a seemingly mild mannered secretary.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Played for drama; turns out she had "gone home on time" before every meeting Nogi has had related to Worm, for years. It isn't until the Berserkerbowl that it becomes apparent she knows nothing about Worm's Clone Angst and the organization because she hadn't actually been there, having been temporarily replaced by the Worm agent Hiruko every time.
• Male Gaze: At least one panel of her every time she shows up will show off that those belly dancing lessons definitely produced results.
• Naive New Comer: She was hired well after the Annihilation Tournament was over, so most of her views of that era of the Association are very romanticized and naive to the actual circumstances of what went down, with her viewing Yamashita as some sort of legendary mastermind instead of the bumbling pawn turned independent he really was.

Yamashita Trading Co.

• See Here

Byakuya News

Furumi Pharmaceuticals

Heihachi Furumi

Age: 61 (Ashura), 63 (Omega)

CEO of Furumi Pharmaceuticals and a lifelong friend of Wakatsuki.

---

• Acrofatic: Downplayed next to guys like Haruo, but an omake features Furumi telling Wakatsuki he's going to start working out and one of the options he's considering is breakdancing. The punchline is Wakatsuki's surprise that Furumi has picked it up enough that can pull off headspins, despite his age and being both thickly built and fairly overweight.
• All-Loving Hero: Furumi is one of the most compassionate characters in the story, as he provided medical aid to Yohei Bando, a convicted murderer because he felt it was his duty to help sick people who come for his aid. Furthermore, he was the only one in his company who treated a young Wakatsuki as a regular boy instead of a test subject, resulting in both of them developing a strong familial bond.
• Amusing Injuries: Almost all of the extra comics featuring Furumi have him getting grievously injured in some way.
• Cool Uncle: An interesting inversion. Furumi has known Wakatsuki since the latter was a kid and taught him things like playing catch and bowling, earning Wakatsuki's affection. However, due to a combination of Wakatsuki's then-poor control of his monstrous strength and his own natural clumsiness, he always ended up getting seriously injured and in the hospital. The fact that Wakatsuki, then in Elementary school, had to carry him on his shoulders caused the young boy to think Furumi was a failure in any physical activity.
• Foil: He acts as one to Kazuo Yamashita. He was the heir of a very successful company and, by extension, a future member of the Kengan Association, whereas Kazuo was an average salaryman who was thrown into the Kengan Association by Nogi. Both of them are also perceived as dangerous badasses by people who don't know them, but Furumi is willing to reveal his kind self to other people whereas Kazuo's inability to express himself properly causes people to mistake him as dangerous. Furumi and Wakatsuki have a close bond of over thirty years, so Wakatsuki let's Furumi handle his own business. Kazuo and Ohma only know each other for a year but, despite growing close as family, Ohma tends to ignore or speak over Yamashita's concerns. Overall, Furumi seems to be an example of what Kazuo would have been if he had been born into wealth or known of the Kengan matches at a younger age.
• The Handler: He's Wakatsuki's father figure and the best friend he has ever had, and acts as this for his superhuman buddy Wakatsuki as a result.
• Honor Before Reason: Downplayed. As the head of a very successful pharmaceutical company, Furumi feels obligated to provide medical attention to anybody who asks him, even if it's from a murderer, Bando, dying from a virus. However, part of the reason he helped Bando anyway was because he had faith that Sen Hatsumi would best him.
• Humble Hero: Despite being the CEO of one of the most successful companies in Japan, Furumi believes he only got so far due to having excellent employees helping him out of his mistakes and for having someone as powerful as Wakatsuki as his fighter.
• Mistaken for Badass: Downplayed as he actually knows how to run a company, unlike Kazuo Yamashita, but many people tend to portray him as more devious than he actually is. It doesn't help that, just like Kazuo Yamashita, the artist makes people who don't know him see him with pronounced shading on his facial features, making him look slightly sinister. The fact that he has one of the strongest fighters in the organisation with the most number of wins on record probably adds to this image.
• Nice Guy: He's caring and compassionate, and goes out of his way to help give Wakatsuki a normal life despite his abnormal conditions. He's also humble, attributing his success to the great people he has working under him (including Wakatsuki), rather than bragging about his own skills as a lot of other CEOs often do.
• Parental Substitute: He's practically a father figure to Wakatsuki, as he's looked after him ever since Wakatsuki was a boy.
• Underestimating Badassery: Subverted. He KNEW that Wakatsuki, even as a child, was strong enough to seriously injure him, but he still encouraged the young Wakatsuki to hit him at full strength so that the young boy could learn what his maximum power was and how to control the output. It worked far better than expected, in part because Wakatsuki summoned up the courage to throw the punch before Heihachi had gotten the punching pad ready, sending the guy across the park and straight into the hospital for a year, making him have to graduate from Med School a year later than expected due to being in recovery and unable to take his exams.

SF Cold Storage

Lihito

• See Here

Shigeru Komada

The Deva King

Age: 42 (Ashura)

A huge muscular Yakuza and Nogi's initial representative fighter. Until he was beaten by Ohma in an alley way and replaced by him. He later becomes a Vice President for Cold Storage (and one of the two only employees in general).

---

• Combat Pragmatist: He's wearing steel toed boots in his alley fight with Ohma, giving his kicks the force to crush cement. To be fair, this was a surprise brawl, not a pre-arranged match, but the fact that he wears them is likely indication of his willingness to use them.
• Hidden Depths: Proves to be a Nice Guy and a grateful hard worker when Lihito hires him for their storage firm, bringing super-high end Sake to their after-work benders because he has an Old Friend who runs a liquor store.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: In the first chapter, it's noted that that Komada's physique proves his power, and that it's extremely unlikely that a smaller, less developed person could beat him in a straight fight.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Zig-zagged. Komada more than proves his strength, but Ohma's technique makes up for the size difference and wins him the day.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Being a Yakuza bruiser isn't exactly conductive to be a nice guy, but going by later interactions with Lihito, Komada is actually a pretty normal guy when he's not on the clock. He went looking for actual legitimate work after he got fired by Nogi (but can't get a job because he has Yakuza tattoos and has the Face of a Thug), and is really grateful and hardworking when Lihito by proxy of Nogi offers him a job in a new cold storage warehouse, frequently bringing alcohol for them to share after work.
• Starter Villain: Ohma's first opponent in the story.
• Tattooed Crook: As a former Yakuza he has a tattoo of the guardian god Nio on his back. This made it hard for him to find a job after being beaten and replaced by Ohma.
• The Worf Effect: The first chapter makes a big deal about his size and stature just to show how little this means to the main character, Ohma. He is also notably weaker than Lihito, if only as a fighter, rather than raw strength, who happens to be one of the lower tier fighters of the Kengan Annihilation tournament.

Ivan Karaev

The Russian Machine Gun

Age: 33 (Ashura)

A professional Russian Kickboxer currently competing in K-1. He was assigned by Yoshitake to rough up Ohma along with Lihito, only to get beaten by the former and almost killed by the latter. After this he ends up working under Lihito as a Vice President with Komada. Gina Boyd from How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? is his niece.

---

• Cool Uncle: To his niece Gina Boyd from How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?. Despite being annoyed with reinforcing Russian stereotypes, they go along well.
• Easily Forgiven: Subverted and played straight. He was understandably pissed at Lihito when he met him again, not just for slitting his throat and costing him a job but for completely forgetting about it. Nonetheless he ended up working under him and comes to respect him for his fighting spirit.
• Groin Attack: He easily goes down with a single kick to the balls from Ohma.

Society of a Hundred

Toyo Electric Power Co.

Katsumasa Hayami

Age: 76 (Ashura), 78 (Omega)

The CEO of Toyo Electric Power Company and the man closest to seizing the chairman's seat, Katsumasa Hayami is the leader of the Society of a Hundred, the most powerful faction in the Kengan Association.

---

• Abusive Dad: To Masaki. He just wanted a second Meguro Masaki without complete madness, so he made a clone that listens to Meguro's crimes over and over in a ritual to kill his current personality. He also treats Rino just like any business rival.
• Ambition Is Evil: He desperately wants the chairman's seat, and will do anything to get it. He's willing to use threats, coercions and blackmail to get other companies do his bidding and has attempted to seize Katahara's position by illicit force at least twice. In an association full of corrupt and power-hungry business dealers, Hayami has proven himself to be the worst of both aspects.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: He uses his vast powers to corner other business owners and gives them the "choice" to submit to his demands. For example, he threatens Togawa to withdraw from the Annihiliation tournament under the threat of destroying her business; and when he has the entire stadium as his hostages, he orders the rest of the Association members to side with him, or be blown up.
• Archnemesis Dad: Is the biological father of Rino Kurayoshi and has no problem trying to take her fighter's spot. She sees him as her biological father, and nothing else.
• Asshole Victim: His death is brutal, but he deserved every single broken bone he suffered on the way.
• Big Bad Wannabe: With all his match-fixing, blackmailing, private army and having one of the strongest fighters, he initially appears to be building up to be the Big Bad. However, by the end of round 2, all of his plants are eliminated and his own (incredibly formidable) fighter is out as well after a nailbiter of a match against another contender to win the whole thing. He then plots a coup turned massacre, only to have most of his army officers killed, his crimes recorded, and is removed from the story to allow it to get back to the tournament.
• Character Death: In Omega his "son" Masaki Hayami turns on his father like his progenitor did, and kills him by crushing his skull and snapping his spine.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder:
  • He seems almost pathologically incapable of doing business transactions without betraying his allies or subordinates. For unknown reasons, he ordered Urita's father to call a hit on Akira's father, despite both of them being his underlings. Consequently, their children abandoned his faction once they inherited their companies.
  • He forced Ajiro Fisheries to work under him by threatening to take away their fisheries and replace them with his power plants. He backed down once they agreed to work for him...only for a secret informant to leak out that he was STILL going to screw them over by replacing the fisheries with a resort for his company.
  • He financially blackmailed an aging F1 racer to tie his car around Julius and drive as quickly as he could under threat of leaving the racer's family bankrupt and potentially calling a hit on them. When the racer goes along with the plan, Julius manages to make his car crash simply by flexing his muscles, which lead to the possible death or hospitalization of an innocent man who wanted to protect his family.
  • Rino, his own daughter, is so disgusted with his habit of disposing of workers who fail him, that she only sees him as a biological father and uses an opposite approach of making her defeated fighters quit as a way of defying his way of doing things. He later tried, and failed, to have one of his fighters defeat Rei to make her work under him.
  • When all of his fighters are defeated, he used his Guardians to kidnap all Association members and tried to force them to make him the new Chairman. He was even willing to blow up the stadium, which was full of important political figures and kill all of the fighters to accomplish his goal with the intent of blaming the Heavenly Wolves for the massacre despite working under him. Consequently, Julius turns against him and the Heavenly Wolves dismantle his bombs, leading to his defeat.
  • In Omega, after hearing that Erioh Kure died at the hands of Edward Wu, he immediately decides to try another coup using his guardians. Unfortunately for him, his "son" Masaki decides to stop him...permanently.
• The Chessmaster:
  • Subverted, he initially appears to be this by getting plant fighters into the tournament and through his manipulations. However, compared to Metsudo and Nogi, he can't keep up. His plans are often flawed or don't go as he expects.
  • He thought it was a great idea to attempt a coup/kill'em all scenario at a tournament that had some of the world's best fighters, mercenaries, assassins and serial killers attending, along with their extended families/friends and Metsudo's Bodyguard squad, who have the Kure Clan on speed-dial.
  • He also planned to blow up the stadium, with many CEOs and world leaders in it, and blame it all on the mercenaries and fighters he hired to do plant the bombs in the first place. At no point did it occur to him that one of those people he hired (Hassad) would also be hired by another CEO (Nogi), who would tip everyone off about the whole plan.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He ultimately gets his face planted to the ground and spine broken by Masaki. A bad way to go... not that he didn't deserve it.
• Didn't Think This Through: Cloning a monstrously powerful and insane Meguro Masaki and raising him as a son, believing that he would be able to control him, ended up biting him in the ass.
• Enemy Mine: In Omega, he ends up working with the Kengan Association against Purgatory on the basis that, should Masaki win his match, Nogi will make him the Deputy Chairman. Despite Kaede's protests, Yamashita agrees instantly, knowing the desperate nature of the situation; Masaki does win the match, but when Hayami uses the opportunity to immediately coup d'etat the Kengan Association, his son decides to kill him.
• Evil Former Friend: Was once a genuine comrade to Metsudo and the rest of the Association decades past. Something, however, caused him to change, and he turned into the corrupt and ambitious man he is today.
• Evil Genius: He has a ruthless methodology in business and choosing his fighters. Julius is roided up and trained to surpass Wakatsuki's genetics and modernised the huiseng ritual with cloning technology for good measures.
• Fatal Flaw: His arrogance and underestimating his opponents. When his initial plan to fix the tournament goes up in smoke, he plans on killing everyone there including many world leaders by having the Heavenly Wolves place bombs everywhere, setting them off, and then having them be blamed for the incident. He never considers that Metsudo would turn those in on his absolutely batshit plan against him. He is also arrogant enough that when he has all the CEOs in what he believes is checkmate, he willingly confesses everything during his Evil Gloating, which Metsudo records.
  • In Omega, his arrogance bites him in the ass one last time. He led himself to believe that he turned Meguro Masaki into an uncontrollable psycho with brain surgery, and that by cloning him and using other methods like Huisheng, while avoiding brain surgery, he would create a fighter free of the psychological issues of the original. Only in his final moments does he realize that he had nothing to do with driving Meguro Masaki and his clone Masaki insane. They already were.
• Fixing the Game: Tries to do this in the tournament by sending "assassins" to forcibly replace the fighters of other companies, so that they win, they can coerce the CEO to nominate him in, or have them throw their matches to let more powerful fighters proceed unharmed. He also uses his position as one of Japan's most influential electric companies to blackmail other companies to throw their matches, with moderate success. When this plan goes down the drain by the second round, he moves to plan B: kill everyone.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Half his face is heavily scarred from an unknown cause, implied to have been the result of his first attempt to overthrow Metsudo. In Omega it is revealed to be the result of acid being poured onto his face by Erioh Kure after trying something with Metsudo.
• Hate Sink: Hayami is straight-up evil to an almost parodical degree, taking every possible opportunity to show off just how low he's willing to sink for the sake of power within the Association. It comes back to bite him in the ass when he decides to go through with his coup, only for literally no-one to take his side; He's so despised that even retired fighters or people only vaguely related to entrants in the Annihilation Tournament join in just to beat his Guardians' asses.
• Hidden Depths: He was only willing to try his coup/massacre attempt because he had the backing of Worm.
• Jerkass: To sum up his character in one go, Hayami is a treacherous, murderous, blackmailing scumbag who would ruin hundreds of lives if it meant he became chairman. He has next to no likable traits to his name.
• Karma Houdini: For all his blatant scheming, his wealth and stranglehold on the electricity market render him too powerful to arrest. Despite trying to commit a violent coup, Omega reveals Hayami ultimately got away with just a loss of his reputation.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In Omega, after initially rejoicing at the death of Erioh, he ends up getting killed by Masaki, his "son" and clone of Meguro he was attempting to manipulate for his own purposes to help him take over the Kengan Association.
• Kick the Dog: Ruthlessly bullies smaller business allied with the Kengan Association. It doesn't matter whether it's a thriving fishing port or a beloved amusement park, Hayami will knock it down and replace it with another power plant.
• Science Is Bad: Sponsors or experiments on fighters using modern science over traditional or natural fighters. He chose Julius' roided-up body to take on Wakatsuki's genes and recreated Huiseng and cloning technology from the Wu and the Worm to make create Masaki, a second Meguro.
• The Starscream: He eventually tries to lead a coup against Katahara in a bid to take over the Kengan Association. Unfortunately for him, it turns out that both Katahara and Nogi were aware due to having moles within his faction and it was quickly foiled.
• Undignified Death: The aftermath of his death by Masaki leaves his body in very awkward position, the back of his head smashed so hard into the floor that it's cracked, with his crotch protruding almost straight upwards and his knees also bent backwards as a result. The cover-up story of it being an 'accident' only makes it more ridiculous.
• We Can Rule Together: After taking the members of the Kengan Association hostage, he offers them the choice of joining him. Needless to say, the majority of them reject his offer, and the few who're willing end up being intimidated into saying nothing.

The Guardians

Hayami's personal army, a concept copied from Metsudo's "Bodyguards". They are used in his coup attempt against Metsudo.

---

• Elite Mooks: The rankers can give challenge to most Bodyguards and fighters with use of weapon and "Advance".
• Evil Counterpart: To the Bodyguards. The Guardians wear white, are more prone to using weapons, and unlike the Bodyguards, which are there to protect Metsudo, the Guardians are used to start a coup for the leadership of the Kengan Association.
• Hidden Depths: Some of their elites, particularly Long Min and Ranjo are members of the mysterious organization "Worm". They are both killed by the "Tiger's Vessel" and Xia Ji respectively, at the end of Ashura.
• Light Is Not Good: The Guardians wear white suits and work for a Corrupt Corporate Executive willing to use acts of terrorism and homicidal plans to secure his leadership position.
• Quantity vs. Quality: They are the Quantity to the Bodyguards' Quality. They outnumber the Bodyguards by two times, coming up to a total of 1000, and while their elites are strong, compared to the other fighters in the tournament, or some of the Bodyguards, they cannot compare. They make up for it by being weapon users compared to the (mostly) unarmed Bodyguards and causing problems for fighters not trained against an unarmed opponent.

Long Min

Age: 29 (Ashura)

The second-highest ranked among Hayami's Guardians who seems extremely nonchalant about whether or not his client actually succeeds in his venture. This is because he is an agent of Worm, more specifically one of Niko's disciples.

---

• Asshole Victim: His murder is pretty brutal, but it's hard not to say he didn't deserve it.
• Badass Boast: All the more so because he says it to four elite Kengan Fighters with utter confidence in himself.
  Long Min: You sure are out of luck. Of all the people you could have ran into, it just had to be me.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Much like the rest of the Guardians he wears a white suit. He's also able to go toe-to-toe with an injured Kaolan, though he admittedly has a massive advantage in using a weapon.
• Blade on a Rope: He has a long rope attached to the handle of his dao, which gives about the same reach and firepower in a close-quarters fight as a gun, only slower than one by a bit.
• Cool Sword: He uses a curved Liuyedao, a kind of Chinese longsword, to such a level that it might as well be part of his body.
• Spectacular Spinning: His twirling of his dao on a rope turns the hallway Kaolan, Cosmo and Adam fight him in into an impenetrable hurricane of steel.
• Super Mode: Like Ohma, he is able to use the Advance, but has far more control over it. It makes him basically impossible to get close to when combined with his sword on a rope.
• The Worf Effect: Killed offscreen by Fei with his own sword stuck in his chest.

Gunji Kito

Gunji the Manslayer

Age: 36 (Ashura)

The highest-ranked among Hayami's Guardians, a Professional Killer self-styled Manslayer who killed four members of the Kure Clan in the past. He works for Hayami as a mercenary, but unlike the strongest of his cohorts, is not a member of Worm.

---

• Badass in a Nice Suit: Killed four members of the Kure Clan who are superhuman assassins and wears a nice suit like all of the Guardians.
• Cool Shades: Which accentuate his unsettling Slasher Smile.
• Covered in Scars: His face is riddled with crisscrossing thin scars.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Undoubtedly an incredibly powerful fighter, but Kito gets steamrolled in his only proper fight to solidify Takayama's credentials as Metsudo's left-hand man.
• The Dreaded: The fact that he's killed any Kure members at all, much less four, makes him a serious threat right off the bat.
• Katanas Are Just Better: He uses an incredibly sharp tachi that looks downright tiny in his hands.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Is clearly entirely in the dark about Worm's intentions for the Annihilation Tournament, given his repeated questioning of Long Min's absences and motives. He is also the only top Guardian to not use the Advance.
• Meaningful Name: His title comes from the Hitokiri (literally "Human Cutter" or "Human Slayer"), four samurai from the Bakumatsu period that worked as politically motivated assassins that carried out the will of the Emperor through ruthless and legalized murder.
• Multi-Melee Master: He fights with both a katana and a baton, but can also throw one hell of a kick.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He looks vaguely like a young Chuck Norris with his emphasized sideburns.
• No One Could Survive That!: Takayama completely destroys his face with a couple of stomps, making Gunji look thoroughly dead, but he's mentioned to have somehow survived in the end-of-chapter notes.

Ajiro Fisheries

Korinmaru Ajiro

Age: 68

The CEO of Ajiro Fisheries.

---

• Even the Guys Want Him: His crewcut and twisted headband apparently make him popular among certain kinds of people, but he doesn't swing that way.
• Run or Die: Sanemitsu tells him as such when Karo doesn't throw the fight and loses to Saw Paing, recognizing that Hayami won't take Ajiro Fisheries going back on a deal lightly.

Village of the Dawn

Sanemitsu Yoroizuka

Age: 76 (Ashura)

The mayor of Village of the Dawn and Saw Paing's adoptive father.

---

• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Like Kaolan, to Saw Paing.
  Ajiro: He's a spirited young man.
  Yoroizuka: Oh no, not at all. That's just his stupidity. Honestly... he doesn't know the meaning of self-control.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Hayami.

The Three Nobles

Togo's Faction

Iwami Heavy Industries

Tomari Togo

Voiced By: Yuu Kobayashi (Japanese), Erika Harlacher (English), Erica Edwards (Latin American Spanish)

Age: 26 (Ashura), 28 (Omega)

CEO of Iwami Heavy Industries, among the biggest industrial giants that deals in manufacturing for the ocean, air, and space. Their primary investment is in weapons development. With her skill in management and reputation as a lunatic among the business community, she's known as The Merchant of Death.

---

• Arms Dealer: She is the president of a weapons company.
• Art Evolution: She looked more unhinged and feral in earlier appearances, somewhat like a female Meguro.
• Ax-Crazy: If her general expression and appearance weren't a clue, she really does enjoy her job and the carnage she can unleash. She is utterly unfazed by a piles of corpses (of both her employees and the pirates who held them hostage) that was racked up by Muteba. And at the same time she says it serves them right; the latter because they dared to rob her.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Nothing says corrupt more than a weapons dealer who doesn't make an effort to save her workers from pirates.
• The Cynic: Togo believes in those who fight for money, not "worthless shit" like duty or compassion.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Despite what you may assume from her personality, Tomari is said to be a skilled and rational debater, and only takes drastic measures when it's in her best interests. She went from genuinely livid because of Muteba forfeiting his third match, to suddenly happy when he gave her a card offer for a free job.
  • She built a pair of artificial eyes with several different sight functions, such as infrared for Muteba, which she explicitly based on the Predator's mask, all while giving a speech on how technological innovation is an expression of creativity, and that things we now take for granted like cars and phones started out as an imaginative idea in someone's mind. It makes her come off as both Wicked Cultured and a bit of a nerd.
• Lack of Empathy: She will happily tell you that she has zero concern for her own employees that may die due to her affairs, or anyone else for that matter. Especially those who disrupt her business. As far as she's concerned, they willingly stepped into a dangerous line of work and should have expected the consequences.
• Laughably Evil: Despite being a ruthless and utterly amoral arms dealer, much of Tomari's more genuinely evil traits end up Played for Laughs and she instead ends up a very foul-mouthed, ambitious woman with an extremely bad temper.
• Ms. Fanservice: Say what you want about her, Tomari has a nice figure. Something that the artist apparently felt like mentioning in her bio.
  Daro: I wanted to show off her womanhood in the margins of her powerful character, so I accentuated the roundness of her ass.
• Pet the Dog: While she definitely doesn't care about the millions of people who die from her weapons, she exhibits a protective side of Hiyama when the latter tried to leave the women's bathroom naked in an omake, going so far as to take her hand and guide her like a disgruntled, protective older sister.
• Scary Teeth: Always drawn with pointed teeth.
• Slasher Smile: She is borderline incapable of smiling in a way that doesn't imply her desire to kill someone.
• The Social Darwinist: A view she shares with Muteba as she thinks that those without money, power or education should know their Place in society.
• Sore Loser: She developed a grudge against Rino after Rei effortlessly defeated Hong Xiao-Hu, her company's main fighter.
• Villainous Friendship: Gets along well with Muteba.
• Worth It: Though initially incredibly pissed off at Muteba for throwing the towel, she found her tantrum worth the trouble once he offered her an I.O.U in the form of a free mission.

Yurihama Fusae

Tomari Togo's secretary.

---

• The Drag-Along: Seems deeply uncomfortable about working for her boss. In an extra comic, she has to leave a party of Kengan Association secretaries early to accompany Togo to "put down some terrorists in the Middle East," and everyone else is noted as feeling like maybe they were one of the lucky ones.

Gandai

Gen Shikano

The Good Fight Making Machine

Age: 63 (Ashura)

A retired Kengan fighter who took over Gandai from one of his distant relatives.

---

• Bald Head of Toughness: Downplayed as he is currently a Retired Badass, but his baldness, complete with several lumps from previous injuries, is indicative of his past as a tough fighter. Was once given the epithet of "The Good Fight Making Machine."
• Bald of Authority: He is the bald CEO of Gandai, a smaller company under the sprawling umbrella that is the Kengan Association.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: His weird epithet comes from the legendary Best Bout Machine, Kenny Omega.
• Razor-Sharp Hand: He specialized in attacks that cut the opponent's skin back in the day, and gave Juzo Magatani a scar on his face that way.
• Retired Badass: Downplayed as Gen considers himself fairly average compared to the powerhouse that was Juzo Magatani, who he could never, ever win against. He's still no slouch, and he and Juzo joke that they're still spry enough to get out of retirement after Toyo's attempted coup.

Unaffiliated

Penasonic

Sukizo Urita

Voiced by: Kato Masayuki (Japanese), Stuart Krug (English)

Age: 30 (Ashura)

The CEO of Penasonic, the latest heir to the Urita family, a long line of businessmen.He has been CEO for at least six years, and since then the company had remained undefeated in the Kengan matches due to Sukizo's analytical ability.

---

• Childhood Friends: With Inaba since preschool, to the point where he never ordered him to pull any assassinations.
• Graceful Loser: He readily agrees to hand over Kazuo 10% his shares after Inaba's loss as part of a bet, and when he refuses (from Ohma's indirect prompting), he simply smiles at what he thinks is Kazuo's sense of honor (while Kazuo is silently crying from still being in debt and losing a massive amount of money.)
• Hidden Depths: The bonus strips show that he's good at party tricks and is allergic to pollen.
• Nice Guy: He left the Society of a Hundred after becoming a CEO to make up for his father ordering the death of Akira Nishihonji's father. On that note, his friendship with Inaba is genuine and he refuses to have him assassinate anyone. He also ends up coming to respect and admire Kazuo (for unfounded and misunderstood reasons).
• The Glasses Gotta Go: When he takes off his glasses due to it fogging, Bishie Sparkles appear around him. Considering that his design is actually based on Cillian Murphy, this is entirely justified.

Gold Pleasure Group

Rino Kurayoshi

Voiced By: Aki Toyosaki (Japanese), Reba Buhr (English)

Age: ?

Dubbed the "Queen Bee", Kurayoshi runs a popular chain of adult establishments and cabaret clubs and is respected and adored by her employees.

---

• Animal Motif: Her moniker is the "Queen Bee", and appropriately her dress has a hexagonal honey comb decal to it.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She arranges her father's death by telling Masaki about the bombs Hayami's installed in his body. Mostly because she feels bad for her "brother".
• Compelling Voice: She is capable of giving men "commands" that they will go to any lengths to do. This serves as a powerup for Rei in his fight against Gensai Kuroki by forcibly strengthening the auto-suggestion the Raishin Style uses. It could make her possibly the most dangerous person in the entire Association if she wasn't relatively morally upright.
• Dissonant Serenity: She reacts less to a man biting his mangled fingernails off than you'd expect.
• Headturning Beauty: So stunningly beautiful, cute and charming that she made Rei, who at the time was a Professional Killer with an utter Lack of Empathy, fall head over heels Love at First Sight with Rino when he saw just who he was there to kill.
• Heroic Bastard: She's Hayami's daughter, but hasn't inherited her father's complete Lack of Empathy and enormous ambition.
• Lady and Knight: Regularly spoils and comforts Mikazuchi after each battle.
• Logical Weakness: As potent as her abilities are, she states that there are limitations that affect it's effectiveness. Anyone who can't understand her, women and men not attracted to women are naturally resistant to her. She also speculates that Shen Wulong would likely be highly resistant since due to having overcome the need to procreate he likely doesn't have a sex drive.
• Ms. Fanservice: She is very appealing to look at, helping matters is her penchant for revealing outfits. This shouldn't be a surprise given she's the representative of a franchise of high-class brothels and similar establishments.
• Nice Girl: Rino is nothing but consistently amicable to those around her, even someone as vicious as Tomari Togo.
• Red Baron: The Queen Bee.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Given she's an incredibly high-end prostitute, this is natural. She doesn't even bat an eye when Cosmo accidentally pulls the top half of her Gi off at a Jiujitsu class for girls, even calling him a "cherry" for being so precious about nudity.
• Story-Breaker Power: In a world where everyone else has to settle for a Charles Atlas Superpower, she has legitimate supernatural abilities. With just a single spoken command, she can control not just a man's mind, but their entire endocrine system, regardless of their will or consent. Thankfully, she's a fundamentally decent person. She does later establish that her abilities do have limitations (IE, the target needs to understand her and be a straight man with a functional sex drive), but that's still a majority of the characters.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: She detests killing, and will go out of her way to prevent the opposite fighter from risking themselves further.
• The Power of Love: Her intimate relationship with Rei Mikazuchi gives him the strength to win fights in the blink of an eye. It is unclear how she actually sees Rei - as a partner, as a lover, or as just a particularly useful drone in the Queen Bee's service.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Hayami's scar is as repulsive-looking as he is as a person. Rino is, well...
• Underboobs: When she's in swimwear, by virtue of the design of her bikini bra being too small to cover her huge breasts.
• You Have Failed Me: Subverted. After Rei loses to Kuroki, a couple of audience members are seen chatting about how every Gold Pleasure Group fighter who loses is never seen again. It turns out that Rino uses her Compelling Voice to tell her losing fighters to quit fighting altogether so they don't accidentally die in the ring.

Wakasa Life Insurance

Shunka Hiyama

Voiced By: Mai Fuchigami (Japanese), Erika Harlacher (English)

Age: 28 (Ashura), 30 (Omega)

The CEO of Wakasa Life Insurance, inherited after her father's death six years prior to the story.

---

• Anti-Villain: She's genuinely not a bad person. Too bad she's also got an extremely unhealthy devotion to a psychotic murderer like Akoya that leads her to being a willing accomplice in his crimes.
• Broken Bird: On top of the horrific experiences she's had up to the moment she met Akoya, it's clear that she has been twisted further by the escapades of the vigilante.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Akoya fully intends on murdering her eventually, but until then she's kept alive because he deems her useful.
• Everyone Has Standards: As utterly deluded as she is, even she's horrified by the lengths Akoya will go to without her instructions.
• The Fashionista: She collects kimonos as a hobby.
• Good with Numbers: She has a perfect internal clock and is able to do calculations with superhuman speed. She uses this to calculate Akoya's opponent's respiratory patterns, and direct Akoya to use pre-practiced combos instantly when they breathe.
• The Handler: She'd love to her fancy herself this for Akoya, but when the chips are really down, she has absolutely no way of putting him back on the leash.
• Hates Being Alone: Her profile states that she dislikes solitude, and she panics whenever Akoya suggests abandoning her.
• Mission Control: She helps out Akoya by feeding him information about his enemies through a hidden mic. She also directs him to attack during the intervals when they breathe before they attack. She also helps reign in his bloodlust to prevent him from going berserk.
• Trauma Conga Line: Before the events of Kengan Asura. After her father and uncle were murdered, she inherited Wakasa Life Insurance and was on the path to prosperity - until her cousin seduced and betrayed her in a final masterstroke to take the company for himself. Akoya intervened in the name of justice, earning Hiyama's lifelong love and servitude ... but the same code of justice directs him to eliminate a criminal's entire bloodline, and so Hiyama serves him with full knowledge that someday he will exact justice upon her, too.

Nishihonji Security Services

Akira Nishihonji

Voiced by: Masaya Matsukaze (Japanese), Jake Green (English)

Age: 30 (Ashura), 32 (Omega)

---

• Big Brother Instinct: Zig-zagged as he's perfectly willing to let a young 19-year-old risk his life fighting against people that could seriously injure him and kill him. However, he's also genuinely loving and protective towards his fighter, Cosmo Imai, to the point of blackmailing Shunka Hiyama in a failed effort to save Cosmo from continuing his fight against Seishu Akoya. He later tried to replace Cosmo with Okubo to prevent Cosmo from accumulating injuries.
• Childhood Friends: He's known Urita and Inaba since childhood and attended the same school as them. Their friendship is so strong that he refuses to break it even after his father was killed due to Urita's father's actions.
• Nice Is Not Good: Openly tells Adam as much. While he might be a friendly guy, the fact that he is willing to put a kid like Cosmo in the Kengan matches is evidence that, in his own eyes, he really isn't a good person.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Averted. Even though Urita's father ordered the assassination of his father, he refused to blame his childhood friend for his father's actions.
• So Proud of You: After Cosmo's defeat, he reveals that he didn't expect him to advance as much as he did during the tournament, let alone win, as his reason for enlisting him as his fighter was to develop his potential. However, Cosmo grew up so much that he honestly believe they had a shot at winning, causing him to admit that he underestimated Cosmo and overestimated himself.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Despite the two being murderers who nearly got Cosmo killed, he shows genuine pity for Hiyama and Akoya after Cosmo beats Akoya, viewing them as people who're endlessly trapped in their ideals until their inevitable deaths.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's tall, highly intelligent and sociable, and very handsome with tanned skin.

Koyo Academy Group

Shion Soryuin

Voiced by: Yukana (Japanese), Reba Buhr (English)

Age: 35 (Ashura), 37 (Omega)

The chain-smoking board chairwoman of the Koyo Women's Academy group. She is also Sen Hatsumi's embittered ex-girlfriend.

---

• Adaptational Dye-Job: Her hair goes from blonde to red in the anime adaptation.
• Amicable Exes: Used to be in an on and off relationship with Hatsumi. In spite of some antagonism between them, it is clear that she still holds affection for him, only for it to be tossed aside by his constant flirting and womanizing. She still keeps a torn and taped up photo of them in their younger days in a photo collage on her desk.
• Berserk Button:
  • Seeing her ex, Hatsumi, flirting with younger women pisses her off. A side chapter revealed that she was willing to take him back... only to catch him flirting with a younger Kaede. This caused her to declare that Hatsumi was dead to her.
  • Her official age in her bio is listed as "She'll kill you if you ask."
• The Cameo: She appears in How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? plenty of times.
• Doting Parent: Acts to this to her sister Akemi. She has gone as far as to adjust her business and let her fly the family jet to America, just because Akemi asked her.
• The Dreaded: A comedic example for Hatsumi. He immediately tries to run away when they meet again on the S.S. Kengan. They are able to act civil around each other, provided Hatsumi isn't flirting with anyone within her sight.
• Green-Eyed Monster: As a single older woman, she gets bitter during Rino and Rei's public displays of affection. She'll deny it when she's called out, though.
• Has a Type: A trait of her family is a taste for heavily-muscled men, which was what attracted her to Hatsumi. When Ohma seizes her by the collar when he hears Kiryu is her fighter and exposes her bra, she goes as far as to comment whether he wants her, and one omake depicts her hitting on Kiozan who very much looks to be her type, being a shredded Sumo Wrestler fourteen years her junior.
• Oral Fixation: She's rarely ever seen without a cigarette in her mouth, even in the sauna. In her teens, she had either a lollipop or a Pocky stick in place.
• Practically Different Generations: Her younger sister Akemi is only a high-school student, giving the sisters an approximately 20-years age gap.
• Sexy Secretary: Board director actually, but she certainly looks the part complete with the blonde hair, business-casual suit hugging her curves and constant smoking. She was in her Gyaru Girl phase when she hooked up with Hatsumi.
• Smoking Is Cool: She's almost always seen smoking, and is one of the most aloof and dignified ladies in the series.
• The Stoic: She usually wears a detached, dead-eyed look as her default expression.
• Tsundere: Before Hatsumi even finishes asking her a question, she immediately denies the idea of ever hooking up with him again. Then he tells her he just wanted a cigarette.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy to the comparatively girly Matsuda. Soryuin is more masculine in personality than other women in general.
• Woman Scorned: By Hatsumi. Oh so much.

Tomoko Matsuda

Voiced by: Makoto Koichi (Japanese)

Age: 22 (Ashura)

The Koyo Academy's board secretary, a former student of Koyo Academy and a closet fujoshi.

---

• Cloudcuckoolander: She tends to randomly fantasize about the other fighters in a Yaoi fanfic. For example, Adam and Cosmo (who both suddenly felt a chill up their spines around the same time she was dreaming about it).
• Covert Pervert: She's a closet fujoshi, though she's just more pervert than "covert". She's bad at actually keeping her tendencies to leer at fighters in a lid.
• Guy on Guy Is Hot: Her hobby is collecting literature in her "special field". Basically, she's a Yaoi fangirl.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Even women aren't safe from her fantasies, as she starts getting ideas from seeing Soryuin and Togawa arguing in the hot spring and pressing up abasing each other.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: She really enjoys the Kengan Tournament... but not the actual fights themselves.
• Nosebleed: A female example. From seeing too many of the fighters in their swim trunks on the beach. Setsuna coming up close to see what was wrong with her didn't help. And when she later had a wetdream about Ohma and Setsuna getting it on, the resulting bloodloss got her sent to the hospital upon waking up.
• Odd Friendship: You'd hardly think a mild-mannered if extremely perverted fujoshi would get along with someone like Kiryu, but the two end up good friends.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: She discovered her love for Yaoi upon reading some fanfiction involving Mockey and Honald.
• Yaoi Fangirl: A sendup of the entire archetype.

Ginokuniya Bookstores

Ken Ohya

Voiced By: Urayama Jin (Japanese), Tony Azzolino (English)

Age: 65 (Ashura)

The friendly, middle-aged CEO of Ginokuniya Bookstores. His hard-drinking lifestyle belies his global connections and well-honed business sense.

---

• The Alcoholic: He has always seen drinking, and ends up forging a friendship with Yamashita over it. This friendship continues in the epilogue, with him coming to pick up Yamashita and take him to his new office.
• Becoming the Mask: Kenny entered the Annihilation Tournament as one of the more cynical contenders who saw it as a chance to boost their company's profile in the eyes of the public, but Kaneda's earnest desire for self-improvement fostered a genuine ambition to win in him.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Yamashita initially takes him for your average drunken slob, but there's a reason he can afford the five-billion-yen Kengan membership. By the time his fighter's match comes up, Kenny's been striking business deals left and right and has already made back his investment and then some.
• The Mole: A timely eavesdropping catches him in collusion with Hayami of Toyo Electric Power. Subverted, as Kenny rebuffed Hayami's attempts to pressure him into ousting Metsudo.
• Odd Friendship: He and Yamashita bond almost immediately, despite one being a near-penniless nobody and the other fantastically rich. They address each other as "Kazzy" and "Kenny".

Motorhead Motors

Kirimi Takakaze

Age: 59 (Ashura), 61 (Omega)

"You see, I believe dreams to be prophetic, and it just so happened in my dream, Kuroki beat Kanoh."

The CEO of Motorhead Motors who inherited the business from his father, though he has no love of the responsibility that came with it and has liven a free life. Despite entering the tournament, he has no interest in authority or power. He entered as a favor to his friend Gensai Kuroki.

---

• Cincinnatus: Despite the fact that he wins the Kengan Tournament, he has no interest in personal power, having only entered as a favor for Kuroki and instead nominates Nogi as the Kengan chairman; ruining Nogi's life and taking on such a massive responsibility when he's a wild child by nature was never his plan to begin with. Nogi is flabbergasted by this, but obviously incredibly grateful.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: The other CEO's look at him like this since he has no interest in money or political influence, and occasionally questions why he's even in the Annihilation Tournament in that case. As it turns out, Kuroki basically asked him for a favor, and Takakaze agreed because he'd never turn down the request of an old friend.
• Eagleland: A firm type 1. He has literally no malice towards anyone in the tournament, simply acting as The Handler for Kuroki, being an overall good man, and giving us some insight into Gensai's Hidden Depths because the two of them can speak like equals and Kirimi can tell when the Old Master is blatantly lying about his affection for Lihito.
• Going Native: He is a massive supporter of Native Americans, given by the fact that he can come and go on their reservations with Gensai in tow as he pleases (Practically unheard of by the modern day) and the fact that he has received the name "Yellow Hawk" with affection and pride from them.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Looks like Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead.
• Old Friend: He and Gensai are this, with Takakaze casually dropping the 5-billion yen entry fee for the Annihilation Tournament when Gensai asked him to enter the tournament with him as his fighter. In-between rounds, the two of them are often seen nursing a glass of whiskey together in one of the island's bars.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Averted. He won the Annihilation Tournament fair and square, which would have given him the opportunity to be this, since Kirimi seems like a a man of standards who prizes personal freedom and doesn't keep grudges. But, he has no ambition for power and accepting the chairmanship would literally ruin Nogi's entire company - and his life - per the rules of the Annihilation Tournament, so Kirimi politely declines and gives Nogi the title instead.
• Walking the Earth: Even though he's a CEO, he has no permanent address. He travels the world on a motorbike.

Teito University

Yukio Dazai

Age: 55 (Ashura)

Director and a former student of Teito University, the top medical school of Japan. He was friends with fellow student Yohei Bando before the latter's killing spree, and has taken up the task of carrying out his execution in the tournament in service of the Japanese Government.

---

• Katanas Are Just Better: Always carries a katana with him. He briefly threatens Heihachi Furumi with it after hearing that his brought-along medical team had saved Bando from dying of poisoning between rounds one and two.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He has the exact appearance and surname of Japanese author Osamau Dazai, and the first name of contemporary author Yukio Mishima. Like both authors, the former of which took his own life after several attempts and the latter committing hara-kiri after an attempted coup on the Imperial Palace, Yukio is resolved to kill himself to atone for Bando's crimes if he somehow survives the tournament.
• We Used to Be Friends: Was a classmate of Bando's at medical school and feels deeply responsible for not having noticed the changes in his friend.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He has not shown up in Omega yet and Bando is back in an isolated cell, so it's unclear whether he just faded from relevance within the story or went through with the claim that he'd commit suicide in atonement for Bando's crimes if he survived the Annihilation Tournament.

Kokomi Yoshizawa

Age: 26 (Ashura), 28 (Omega)

A nurse at Teito university, and Hanafusa's assistant, who's at her wits end with him. Her motto is "Always be ready to strip whenever necessary."

---

• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: When Hajime asks her if she knows a way he could relieve stress, she imagines him pinning her down and having his way with her. When she sheepishly starts stripping in reality, he declares that there's been a misunderstanding.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Though she only met Hanafusa at the start of the tournament, she quickly gets tired of his antics.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: She tries to keep Hanafusa out of trouble the best she can. And everybody else safe from his dissections.
• Hospital Hottie: An incredibly shapely and sexually forward young nurse, and blonde to boot.
• Intimate Healing: Does she really need to straddle her patients, pant sweat and moan to keep them from moving? Probably not, but no one is complaining.
• Mundane Made Awesome: She insists on doing things as sexily as possible. She sensually straddles her patients instead of holding them down and poses suggestively while Hanafusa takes her picture for her renewed hospital ID. Apparently, the hospital lets her get away with having a sexy pic on her ID card.
• Not What It Looks Like: Has a tendency to wind up in suggestive positions making seemingly-sexual comments while tending to patients or assisting Hanafusa.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl:
  • Out of the named characters, she's the one most likely to show off her body in erotic ways, even when it isn't necessary. Her only match in this department is Rino, but she's definitely the one who shows off her body the most amongst the secretaries.
  • She wears an exotic trikini that shows off her body during the beach, is perfectly willing to sleep with Hanafusa when she thought he was propositioning her, straddles her patients while sweating and making suggestive noises, and poses seductively when Hanafusa agrees to take her pictures to renew her ID card at the hospital.

Under Mount, Inc.

Masahiko Ohta

The figurehead of Under Mount, Inc. A nervous type, despite the serious financial power at his fingertips. He is often heard muttering to a mysterious contact on his cellphone.

---

• Nervous Wreck: Pretty much his major character trait, as he's usually seen sweating, worrying, or panicking, to the point where it makes you wonder if he suffers from some form of anxiety.
• Puppet King: Is little more than a proxy Kenzo uses to run his company from the shadows.

Kenzo Yamashita

Voiced by: Daisuke Hirakawa (Japanese), Kyle McCarley (English)

Kazuo's eldest son, and the true head of Under Mount, Inc.

---

• Crazy-Prepared: He has booby-trapped and reinforced his father's house in the case he someone decides to assassinate him, somehow without his father or brother ever knowing. The reinforced house is strong enough to delay an assassination attempt by the entire Kure clan until his father manages to call it off.
• Creepy Child: Freaked his father out by attempting to make artificial brains with rat neurons in his room as a teenager. It was sadly that event that led the two of them to grow distant from each other for many years.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: The real CEO of Under Mount, Inc. turns out to be the shut-in genius son of an average salaryman.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: In Omega, his unkempt hair is now tied back, showing that he's made an effort to clean himself up after reconciling with his father and becoming the public head of his company.
• Foreshadowing: His artificial brain experiments directly lead into revelations concerning the plans of Worm.
• The Man Behind the Man: Controls the business activities of Under Mount, Inc. entirely from his laptop at home, including hiring the Kure Clan and issuing orders to Ohta, his puppet and stand-in at the Kengan tournament. Plans to control the Kengan Association in this way, too. He comes out of it after his father saves him from the Kure clan.
• The Shut-In: He stays locked in his room and is seemingly just a NEET. In reality, he's the secret backer of a corporation.
• The Stoic: Kenzo, for the most part, is able to keep his cool even with dozens of Kure after his head. Knowing how Kazuo usually is, it makes you wonder where this comes from.
• Teen Genius: He was already trying to make artificial brains using rat neurons by the time he was a teenager.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Conducting research to make artificial brains isn't the most childlike thing to do.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Kazuo is an excitable salaryman. Kenzo is a stone-faced mastermind.

Hikaru Motoyama

The young secretary of Under Mount. She's a former classmate of Cosmo.

---

• Girlish Pigtails: Styles her hair in two curly bunches, presumably to show that she's the youngest of the female characters, being fresh out of highschool.
• She's Not My Girlfriend: After catching up with her classmate, Cosmo, his other friends (Wakatsuki, Sakura and Sekibayashi, who are all considerably older to double Cosmo's age) immediately teases him about his "cute girlfriend", which he denies.
• Teen Genius: Implied. She mentions sending an essay to Harvard before graduating high school, and instead of getting a letter of acceptance Hikaru was sent a degree by the University, which she took as a sign to get into the workforce instead.

Yoshitake Real Estate

Yoshiro Yoshitake

Age: 39 (Ashura), 41 (Omega)

Voiced By: Yamamoto Kanehira (Japanese)

---

• Butt-Monkey: Certainly not the most dignified of the Association. Chances are if he appears, nothing's gonna go right for him. He just can't get a win.
• Camp Gay: Looks like a stereotypical okama, and openly squees over handsome guys such as King Rama XIII and Nishihonji, while badmouthing the women.
• Dare to Be Badass: Despite being openly terrified, he's the first of the executives to reject Hayami's offer to join him when he launches his coup.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Understandably, he never gets on good terms with Nogi, but he grows to respect Yamashita over the course of the Annihilation Tournament, and even tags along with Kenny when the latter arrives to pick up Kazuo from his office.
• Hidden Depths:
  • His profile implies he's fond of video games, noting his favorite to be Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.
  • He managed to reach his status in the Kengan Association without allying with other corporations and at such a relatively young age as well.
  • He's the first of the executives to reject Hayami's offer to join his side when he launches his coup, despite being openly terrified.
• Informed Ability: When he first appears Kazuo describes him as immensely charismatic, but half the time he's a Smug Snake and the other half he's a Butt-Monkey.
• Sissy Villain: Yoshitake is even more stereotypically feminine than the actual female characters. He wears eyeliner and lipstick, makes pristine hand gestures, and when he's agitated he struts in a weird way that makes it look like he's using his inner thighs to move.

Magatanien

Juzo Magatani

The Thundering Fist

Age: 61 (Ashura)

CEO of Magatanien, a company he renamed after himself when he bought it following a glorious career as a Kengan fighter.—-

• The Big Guy: He's pretty tall and built like a brick shithouse compared to the other CEO's. A Shirtless Scene in an omake shows that's still shredded like a professional bodybuilder under that suit despite being nearly 170 kilos.
• Cool Old Guy: A jolly elderly bear of a man who took care of Kiozan and his presently-Yokozuna brothers when they were kids who still loves to party and fight.
• "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: When Nogi tells the Worm to get lost Juzo approves wholeheartedly despite the Worm just threatening murder-suicide on a global scale. When Nogi reveals his plan to make the Worm back off is to have everyone present, including Juzo and Nogi himself, killed by releasing a deadly virus, Juzo is excited.
  "Alright, you goddamn Worms! Let's finish this in Hell!!"
• Graceful Loser: Took care of Takeru and his two brothers when they were kids and makes the former his representative fighter in hopes that he'll meet his match and humble up to the ways of Sumo. Thus, he didn't really care about winning the tournament in the first place and takes Kiozan's loss to Sekibayashi in stride.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: In his youth, he looks like the spitting image of mixed martial artist and UFC Hall of Famer Don Frye.
• Retired Badass: He used to be a top-notch Kengan fighter in his younger days, known as the "Thundering Fist". He's still keeping himself in shape, and can take Kiozan's charges when he helps Kiozan warm up before his bout despite being in his sixties. Said charges were previously shown to fold a Heavyweight K-1 boxer in half and crater the poor guy in a nearby wall, yet Juzo is practically unfazed even if he's pushed backwards.
  "Nghh, now that's a good charge!!"
• Rugged Scar: Over his right eye. He has another small scar on the bridge of his nose that the CEO of Gandai gave him back when they were both active fighters.

Sakura Akiyama

Age: ?

Juzo Magatani's absent-minded secretary, and Kaede Akiyama's older sister.

---

• Big Little Brother: Gender-inverted. Sakura is Kaede's older sister, but she's shorter, quirkier and generally less mature than Kaede.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Absent-minded as she is, she's talented at her job and very observant of other fighters.
• Character Tics: She has a habit of puffing her face when she's upset.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Occasionally gets lost in her own world, and/or in in real life. Her boss and Kiozan both agree that she's an odd one.
• The Fashionista: She proudly announces that she made Kiozan an ornamental apron for his fight with Sekibayashi.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The foolish one. While as talented as her younger sister, she's an oddball.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Sakura doesn't seem particularly masculine in her appearance and mannerism, but the Omakes show that she enjoys watching baseball and other sports; and, aside from her sister, she tends to hang out with men.
• Like Brother and Sister: Her relationship with Kiozan is described as such, with Sakura taking the role of the "incompetent older sibling", and Kiozan as the "competent younger sibling". Kiozan would frequently take care of Sakura when she gets lost, and gets annoyed when she pesters him with her Cloud Cuckoo Lander tendencies.
• No Sense of Direction:
  • She's been noted to get lost easily. When Juzo asked if she was going to go say hi to Kaede, she declines on the grounds that she'd get lost on along the way (and that Juzo and Takeru would make fun of her for it later.)
    Juzo: She's so directionally challenged it's almost an art form.
  • She gets lost on the way to a party for the secretaries of the Kengan Association. Her mistake? Confusing a train station in Shibuya with one in SIBERIA!!!
• One of the Guys: During her free time, she is often seen hanging out with Wakatsuki, Sekibayashi and Cosmo.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Even she is completely flabbergasted by Kuroki managing to defeat the Fang.
• Sexy Secretary: Like her sister, Sakura is fairly attractive.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: She and Kaede are both The Stoic to a degree and competent at their jobs. However, while Kaede tries to maintain a professional image and can get easily flustered, Sakura is more open, ditzy and laidback to the point where not much can truly faze her.
• Ship Tease: With Wakatsuki, with whom she's on First-Name Basis and frequently hangs out with during breaks.
• Vague Age: Like her sister, her age is also unknown. Probably so as to not give any possible hints towards how old Kaede is.

Murder Music

Yoshiko Togawa

Age: 25

Relatively new to the Kengan Association, she's the CEO of Murder Music and youngest member of the Association.

---

• Ambiguously Brown: She has an unambiguously Japanese name, but her skin is a rich brown.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Relatively speaking. She's the youngest of the Association members who entered the Annihilation Tournament.
• I Was Just Passing Through: When she thanks Ohma and Kazuo for (unintentionally) warding off Julius and Ren, Ohma rightfully states that they didn't do anything. She immediately assumes he's pulling this trope and is telling her to think nothing of it. (And he wasn't, he and Kazuo were literally just passing through.)

Suoh Steelworks

Mihono Suoh

Age: 23 (Ashura)

A university student turned CEO of Suoh Steelworks, inheriting it after her father's death in accordance to his will. Unfortunately, her company soon took the brunt of a global financial crisis and went downhill even after it ended. She sent a fighter in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament, but he was eliminated by Lihito in the preliminaries. Desperate and in debt, she bet her remaining money on Ohma Tokita's fight against Ryo Inaba after losing bets in the last three rounds.

---

• Adapted Out: She's omitted in the anime adaptation.
• All Women Are Lustful: Considering her way of thanking Ohma giving him slip of her room number. She also didn't seem to notice the semi-naked girl (Karura) latching herself onto him. And then there was the fact that she thought the only way of making money if she lost her company would be to sell her body.
• Cosmic Plaything: Poor girl.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Though it's less that she's creepy and more because she is very, understandably stressed the hell out.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Not only does she win her bet on Ohma's match with Ryo, she winds up on a winning streak that carries her all the way through the tournament, easily making enough money to rebuild her company. In Omega, we get a brief appearance of her casually chatting with Rino before a Kengan match, which would seem to indicate that she's been doing well in the two years since the tournament.
• Victory Sex: Tries this with Ohma, slipping him her room number as thanks for winning her bet.