Characters / Kengan Ashura: Kengan Association Fighters - Right Block

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

Saw Paing Yoroizuka - Village Of The Dawn

"LET THEM CUT YOUR FLESH, SO YOU CAN KICK THEIR ASS!"

The Howling Fighting Spirit

Voiced by: Nobuyuki Hiyama (Japanese), Erik Kimerer (English)

Age: 30

A really, really loud and passionate Burmese Lethwei fighter, and Kaolan Wongsawat's ever-persistent, self-proclaimed rival (to the boxer's exasperation).

---

• Actor Allusion: The fact that Nobuyuki Hiyama voices him in the anime brings his role as Joe Higashi to mind, due to Saw Paing being another Hot-Blooded kickboxer that practically shouts everything he says.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Thanks to his hardened skeleton, Saw Paing is able to stagger Karo with individual blows, whereas Karo was able to tank several punches without even flinching before swatting his previous opponent like a bug. The fighter in question stated he wanted to kill himself in shame when he witnessed their fight.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He's insanely over-the-top, and his youthful appearance makes his opponents frequently underestimate him. However, he's a very skilled fighter who can hit like a truck despite his (relatively) small size.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Saw Paing is the loudest, most excitable and arguably the most eagerly fight-happy combatant in the whole roster.
• Boring, but Practical: The secret of his improvement in Omega was to spend two years re-learning the basics of Lethwei to perfection.
• Character Focus: After being in the background for nearly all of Omega prior, he’s back in a big way in the Berserker Bowl Tournament Arc, established as having gotten even stronger, enough to hand Seki a mostly-offscreen loss, generally presented as one of the favorites to go the entire distance.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: He's a friendly energetic guy, and is so loud he doesn't need a microphone in a stadium that holds thousands.
  Saw Paing: I DON'T NEED A MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC!!!
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: Even with an unbreakable body Saw Paing will usually let himself take some serious hits so he can get his oppoenent close enough for an attack. Best shown in Omega where he slams his head into the floor with his and Cosmo's combined weight to break a chokehold, and then knocks out the latter with a roundhouse before the concussion can set in.
• Determinator: After learning about Toyo's aims to demolish his village, he becomes dead-set on keeping it from happening in his fight against Rei. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Is seen nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels in a deep depression after losing to Rei and seemingly dooming his hometown to be torn down. Kaolan showing how much of a gap he'd made between them and his sheer grit against the Fang causes Saw to regain his motivation.
• Foil: To Kaolan, and his opponents Karo and Rei. All three of them are The Stoic and he's as loud they come.
  Saw Paing: YEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! I'M ON FIRE!!!
  Rei: (Plugging his ears) Then just burn out.
• Genre Refugee: He wouldn't be out of place in an older, Lighter and Softer fighting manga due to his wildly passionate and idealistic personality rather than the morally grey Kengan Ashura, which has many a character with complex issues and motives.
• Hard Head: His skeleton is hard as metal, and his best move, "The Hammer of Burma", is a headbutt. He developed this from taking a hammer to the face since the age of five.
• Heroic BSoD: After losing a match and seemingly dooming the Village of the Dawn to be demolished. After seeing Kaolan's match against the Fang, he snaps out of it.
• Heroic Lineage: Lethwei seems to run in his family, with his father being a legendary Kengan Lethwei fighter active in the 70's and 80's who had a run-in with Orochi Doppo back in the day, and his older brother who was a fighter to support his village back home until his body gave up from all the fearsome fighting.
• Hidden Depths: Who knew that a man as loud and hot-blooded as Saw Paing sings soft ballads in solo karaoke? He's also a cook. And he keeps his shouting in check to concentrate.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Rei defeats him by using Saw Paing's headbutts against him twice in a row; right at the moment of impact, he struck Saw Paing's jaw with his head and his fists, reversing the force of the Howling Spirit's blow to his brain and knocking him out
• Hot-Blooded: In an action series full of fighting men, he stands out the most as he's mainly the one who screams out his fiery passion for fighting and is quite simple-minded in his own right.
• Immigrant Patriotism: He's Burmese, but loves his adopted home of the Village of the Dawn so much that he adopted a Japanese surname.
• Irony: Saw Paing, a man whose own voice is louder than a whole stadium of cheering spectators, sings soft ballads.
• Large Ham: He's louder than Sayaka on the microphone AND the cheers of the audience!
• Leeroy Jenkins: He went into the arena a day before it even started, and when his match was up he ran into the ring screaming before Sayaka was done introducing him. He went in an all out fight against Sekibayashi a day before the preliminaries of a tournament he participates in just because he wants to fight.
• Locked Out of the Loop: He was never told that he was participating in a fixed fight with Karo.
• Logical Weakness:
  • It does not come up in fights, but his reinforced skeleton can't protect him from cuts or burns. This is why he's careful when cooking.
  • A weakness that does come up in fights is that no matter how superhumanly tough his bones might be, his brain isn’t. Blows to the head that rattle his skull, and through that, his brain, are a good way to deal with him, as it’s not something his defense can exactly deal with at a certain threshold, and serves as a method to take him out without having to try and break his near unbreakable body. Likewise cutting oxygen to his brain with a choke is pretty effective.
  • Saw is obviously not immune to being choked out either, as his skeleton can't protect the carotid veins. This briefly lands him in hot water against Cosmo, and being locked in a front choke by Lihito when he was expecting even more strikes ends up leading to his defeat in the Berserker Bowl.
• Made of Iron: Most of the fighters are this, but in this case, it's part of Saw Paing's fighting style and taken to the upmost extreme. His Lethwei training had hardened his bones to the point where they've been compared to armor. His opened back isn't even considered a weak spot and hits to head are more likely to break your hand or foot then even make him budge.
• Nice Guy: He's excitable and loud as hell, but otherwise he's cool to have around, being shown to be very supportive and kind person behind his stubbornness and loud mouthed personality.
• No Indoor Voice: He is constantly yelling at the top of his voice.
• Obliviously Evil: He has no idea that his boss is in the pocket of Toyo Electric and that some of his fights were supposed to be fixed.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: His loss to Rei, and presumed failure to stop the Village of the Dawn from being demolished as a result, leaves Saw Paing so dejected that he stops yelling and gives up on himself.
• Older Than They Look: In spite of his youthful appearance, hot-blooded demeanor and one-sided rivalry with Kaolan, he is the older of the two at 30 years old.
• One-Hit Kill: While Cosmo Imai still gave him a serious one for his money, after breaking the chokehold he was stuck in, Saw knocks him out with a single Roundhouse Kick to the face, letting his 20 kilo weight advantage and hardened shinbones do the rest of the work to instantly blackout Cosmo.
• Perpetual Smiler: He's rarely seen without that huge grin on his face.
• Put on the Bus: Come Omega, Kazuo has pretty much written him off as a potential fighter for the competition between the Kengan Association and Purgatory by virtue of his employer not sending any fighters out for the Kengan matches. He does make an appearance as a spectator to the Purgatory tournament, cheering on Kaolan at the top of his lungs alongside Yoshinari.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Kaolan's Blue. Though given his personality, it wouldn't be a stretch to say he's the red to everyone's blue.
• The Rival: A self-proclaimed one to Kaolan Wongsawat after Kaolan bested him in a fight over 10 years ago.
• Simple, yet Awesome: His signature move is the "The Hammer of Burma". A headbutt. A really hard headbutt... that can make a crater in the ground beneath him. Everyone acknowledges that Rei would have been screwed if it hit him once.
• Smarter Than You Look: Despite his incredibly loud mouthed, energetic and stubborn behavior he is by no means dumb and is far more strategic a fighter than one might expect. His fight with Yoshinari Karo is ultimately decided by him being a far more experienced fighter who could adapt and change up his strategies to best defeat someone who is leagues ahead in terms of raw strength and size. His fight with Rei even has Kaolan highlight his strategic way of applying his skills to best make up for his heavy disadvantage in terms of speed.
• Super-Persistent Predator: After his defeat from their first fight (by judge), he constantly kept crossing over the border to challenge Kaolan to a fight, even when he was either having breakfast and taking a shower. And every time they did fight it always ended in a draw... because Kaolan always got sick of fighting him and forfeited halfway.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the four years between the Annihilation Tournament and the Berserker Bowl, he went through a grueling process by obsessively and exhaustingly retraining all of his moves and the basics they stem from to the point where he completely reinvents himself while simultaneously completely overhauling himself. Not a huge upgrade by Kengan standards, but it saw him soar in strength, handing out Curb Stomp Battles left and right up to and in the Berserkerbowl to strong fighters such as The Falcon, and even taking a win against Sekibayashi, after several losses to him.
• Training from Hell: An almost cartoonishly extreme example where his Lethwei training involved him being smacked in the skull at full force by a grown man with a sledge hammer repeatedly...at the age of five. The end result was, miraculously, NOT instant death, but him developing a skeleton so durable and dense they are comparable to steel in sheer strength with a skull so dense it’s capable of smashing giant shockwaves into the ground with only him suffering some skin damage.
• Use Your Head: He uses Lethwei, a Burmese martial art that makes use of headbutts. Thanks to his incredibly dense skeleton and skull however this is a much more lethal example then one might expect. As a single headbutt to the ground from him is enough to leave a crater four times his size in the ground.

Yoshinari Karo - Aijiro Fishiries

"Sorry, pops, but I'm gonna make some trouble for you. This is my first and last self-indulgence. I want you to see it through."

The Giant of the Sea of Japan

Voiced By: Atsushi Ono (Japanese)

Age: 51

A massive and powerfully built fisherman with a slew of near-legendary feats to his name, such as sinking a group of environmental activists turned terrorists and capturing their leader, saving the crew of an entire ship in the middle of a rainstorm singlehandedly, and strangling a great white shark to death. He and his CEO are forced into cooperation with Hayami against their will due to his vast financial power.

---

• Acrofatic: When he gets his land legs going. His sense of balance and coordination is as good as Keizaburo Sawada's, the resident ballet Dance Battler of the tournament, and he’s one of the largest and tallest fighters in the tournament, being as tall as Julius and over 160 kilos.
• Author Appeal: As Sandrovich admitted in the author's note for Karo's profile, he himself was on his way to move to a fishing town to join the workforce there when his editor approached him for an oppurtunity to draw what became Kengan Ashura, thus Karo was created in part from the author's love and respect for the fishing profession in wake of not getting to join it.
• Cool Old Guy: A middle-aged Gentle Giant fisherman who enjoys beer and a good scrap.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: He allows himself to be hit on the head to shake his brain and cure him of his land sickness. This temporarily makes him Acrofatic, as opposed to a straight-up flat-footed brawler with Stout Strength.
• Fantastic Fighting Style: Downplayed. His entire fighting style is essentially using the skillset he has acquired from his long career as a fisherman, such as using harpooning stances or techniques made to slaughter fish while keeping them fresh by destroying the spinal cord, which he adapts as chopping his opponent at the neck.
  • Even his fishing style borders on absurd, with flashbacks showing him fghting what appears to be a sperm whale...by himself...underwater.... using only a single harpoon on a rope...
• Fingore: He nearly mangles his left hand from punching Saw Paing square in the face. He fixes this issue by simply bawling his hand into a fist.
• I Know Madden Kombat: His fighting style is basically decades of experience in fishing and whaling translated into a land based martial art. It works incredibly well for what it’s worth when paired with his immense strength, durability and downright superhuman body movements. It is ultimately held back by him being inexperienced in fighting in general and his perpetual land sickness requiring him to take a hit to the head to release its full potential.
• Inexplicably Awesome: There's no reason given as to why he's just so strong and fast, just that he comes from a profession renowed for it's ability to keep it's balance, be strong and it's reputation for throwing hands.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite being a massive man with incredible strength, he has nigh-superhuman balance and is far faster than one would expect, letting him hold his own against high-ranking Kengan fighters. He can perfectly balance his entire 160 kilos on his big toes once he's no longer landsick.
• Made of Iron: He's introduced in the preliminaries tanking several hits from a fighter without so much as flinching before swatting him away like a bug. He coughed up some blood after that though. His fight with Saw Paing results in him taking some serious injuries without much issue, such as nearly breaking his own hand when he punched Saw Paing in the skull, a fact he didn’t even seem to notice until he looked at his hand, and him taking a kick to the skull himself like it was nothing.
• Manly Facial Hair: Has a very nice, pure white, mustache beard combo and is an incredibly strong Kengan Fighter who can give Saw Paing, a Made of Iron Boisterous Bruiser with a skeleton comparable in density to steel, a run for his money through sheer brute strength and fisherman knowledge turned into a combat sport.
• Odd Friendship: To Kaolan in the Omake sections. They never say a word to each other, but they get along quite well. This friendship sees some bleed through in the main series, as later chapters of Ashura feature him alongside Kaolan and Saw Paing in establishing shots and closeups for important spectator moments and in Omega he makes an appearance as a spectator to the Purgatory tournament, waving a flag and cheering on Kaolan during his match alongside Saw Paing. He brings a fresh tuna to carve up for the celebration after the Kengan side's victory.
• Put on the Bus: Come Omega, Yamashita pretty much writes him off instantly by virtue of not having participated in a fight since the Annihilation Tournament. Justified, as he only entered to protect his home. In Omega He does make an appearance as a spectator to the Purgatory tournament, cheering on Kaolan during his match alongside Saw Paing.
• Required Secondary Powers: Most of his fighting prowess comes as a necessary side-effect of his career as a fisherman, including monstrous strength, incredible balance, and extreme durability.
• The Stoic: A man of few words. It's not that he's unfriendly, it's that the situation he and his company are put in is extremely dire and as such he's not in the best of moods.
• Tranquil Fury: Karo understandably doesn't share Saw Paing's enthusiasm for their fight. In fact, he holds Saw Paing in silent contempt in the belief that he's aware that the match has been fixed and is just putting on a show (he isn't.)
  Karo: (Thinking) Drop the bare-faced act, you damn fixer.
• Throwing the Fight: He's ordered to do this or lose the fishery. He fights to win instead but ends up losing anyway.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He is not a martial artist, but is incredibly strong, having a trunk on par with Adam Dudley's. He does, however, put his skills as a fisherman into use by mimicking whaling and fish slaughtering techniques to target his opponents' weak spots when he can't just wallop them. Tragically, it's this inexperience at hand-to-hand combat that ultimately leads to his defeat as the bear hug he puts Saw in gives his opponent the perfect position to hit his neck with a devastating elbow, something that was impossible for him earlier in their match due to their differences in height.
• Weaksauce Weakness: He's perpetually land sick due to spending over 40 years as a fisherman, which is a massive disadvantage in a professional fighting circuit. Fortunately, he's tough enough to take a hit to the temple and stay conscious afterwards, which lets him temporarily overcome this issue.

Masami Nezu - Tochigi Destiny Land

"It's time... to end the dream."

Click ^here to see Nezu out of costume.

The Man from the Land of Dreams

Voiced By: Yusuke Hoshino (Japanese), Arturo Mercado Jr. (Latin American Spanish)

Age: 22

Formerly the third boss of the Noise Zone biker gang, Nezu is the reigning champion of Bishamon, the third-largest underground fighting ring in Japan after the Kengan Association and Purgatory, which he entered at the age of 18.

---

• Ascended Fanboy: A Tochigi Destiny Land fanatic. The temptation of becoming the mascot himself was how he was recruited for the tournament.
• Badass Biker: He was one of the leaders of a biker gang.
• Badass Longcoat: His casual wear.
• Broken Pedestal: Admits after losing that he chose to work for Tochigi Destiny Land due to a love for the park, only to rapidly lose his faith in it after learning it had become another one of Hayami's political pawns. Miki helps him get out of his funk.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Nezu literally didn't last a second against Rei.
• Delinquent Hair: A huge swirly pompadour.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: He and Miki end up getting engaged in the epilogue (and are married by Omega) after a humiliating defeat and reaffirming what truly mattered to him in life, which is why he picks Miki and his gang over continuing professional fighting.
• Expecting Someone Taller: An inversion. His ability to fit into the normal size Mockey costume makes everyone shocked by how tall he is.
• Extremity Extremist: He's mentioned to specialize in kicks and knee strikes to take advantage of his unusual height of 221cm, with even Rei complimenting how perfect his kicks are. Not that it helped him in the long run.
• Fanboy: Of Tochigi Destiny Land and Mockey in particular.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He is this with female biker gang leader and fellow mascot Miki Takemaru. They end up engaged in the epilogue, and get married in Omega.
• Informed Ability: He has an impressive kick. Beyond demonstrating this twice, the fact that he's an impressive martial artist is perhaps demonstrated less by him than any other combatant, even ones who may well be technically weaker.
• Japanese Delinquents: A giant love letter to the archetype.
• Manly Tears: After kicking his mask in half before his fight, he's seen crying and apologizing to Mockey for ruining his image.
• Meaningful Name: Of course, the guy who regularly dresses up as a cartoon mouse mascot would be named "Nezu".
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Probably by far the hardest-hit of any character by this. Being the strongest fighter in Japan's third-largest underground fighting ring isn't nothing... But clearly, if he's Bishamon's best, the talent of their league doesn't even come close to the likes of Kengan. Emphasized further in Omega, where Purgatory's Terashi is also said to be an alum of the organization, and depicted as by far the weakest and least skilled of the tournament representatives in spite of extremely helpful and unconventional abilities.
• Non-Ironic Clown: While he's on the job as Mockey.
• Retired Badass: Omega reveals he chose to retire after he got married to Miki.
• Vader Breath: Starts breathing heavily as he makes his way to the arena with his Mockey mask still on.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He's no doubt a very powerful fighter ^note With him being the champion of the third biggest underground fighting organisation, and managing to split his mask cleanly in half with a fast kick that created a gust of wind. but as he was up against Rei Mikazuchi in the first round, he really wasn't given much of a chance. The difference in speed (and the lack of knowledge of said speed) was just far too huge. He also retires from underground fight after the tournament and enjoy a married life opting him out of any Kengan fights.

Rei Mikazuchi - Gold Pleasure Group

"Non-killing is what I strive for, it is my goal, but my fist can neither take lives nor save them right now. It's half-baked. I have to change."

The Lightning God

Voiced By: Daisuke Ono (Japanese), Joe Hernandez (English)

Age: 26

The current master of the Mikazuchi Clan's Raishin Style. Initially carrying out his clan's tradition as an assassin, he has since changed his ways after falling in love with Rino Kurayoshi after what was an attempt on her life. As the affiliated fighter of the Gold Pleasure Group, he fights for Rino and to change the Raishin Style from an ansatsuken into a martial art.

---

• Achilles' Heel:
  • All his techniques require so much speed that they can't really be used in a tricky fashion and have to be executed from a charge. This isn't normally a huge issue because very few people can even keep up with his speed, but when faced with someone like Gensai Kuroki, it ends up making him too predictable and causes his downfall.
  • Another problem, but just as hard to exploit issue, he suffers from is that his style is specialized near exclusively for killing. The style as a whole reflects this by lacking in the versatility other fighters have who practice traditional fighting styles and relies heavily on super speed strikes and footwork and not much else besides some niche counters that are situational at best. Again this is a downplayed example as most people couldn’t last long enough for this issue to crop up in any meaningful way. But after his win against Saw-Paing the win feels hollow to him because of how poorly his style dealt with his opponent, citing a need to overhaul his fight style because of how long it took. His fight against Kuroki more then proved the styles limitations where once his speed was countered he couldn’t achieve much else except more of same super fast strikes and footwork. It is not helped by the fact that Rei has renounced killing so his neck-breaking speed deliberately hits in a way the person can survive, leaving an opportunity to adapt if the person is strong enough to take the hit and keep fighting.
• Ambiguous Situation: While the narration strongly implies that he willingly leaves Rino as a result of feeling unworthy of her following his defeat to Gensai, his actual fate is very unclear, as he only makes cameos afterwards and is left unmentioned in the epilogue since the others don't know where he is. Rino mentions in Omega that she refuses to let him be used as a political pawn, implying they still remain in touch, however. It is later revealed that he went to China to train under the main Wu Clan alongside Sen Hatsumi.
• Badass Adorable: Yes, really. He's a stoic, former assassin and the master of a style that lets him one shot opponents the very second the match even starts. You wouldn't assume he's "adorable" at first until you see him blankly waving at Rino while she's cheering him on or dragging her along for a ping pong game.
• Body Horror: The level of speed he's able to attain while under Rino's hypnosis literally tears his feet apart and dehydrates him to the point where he can't even produce sweat after only a brief clash with Gensai Kuroki. What Gensai does to him definitely also counts, like a fist to the solar plexus that breaks his ribs so badly that he can barely breathe, and a punch to the heart that knocks him out cold before he can even feel the pain.
• The Bus Came Back He and Sen reappear in Omega as the final match to the Kengan-Purgatory tournament begins. He's there on the request of Wu Xing to help take care of the Worm.
• Combat Pragmatist: When fighting against Hong Xiao-hu, who Feels No Pain, before the Annihilation Tournament, Rei proceeded to tear all his nails halfway off, then invert Hong's kneecaps before he can even see Rei move when he wouldn't go down to more conventional strikes.
• The Comically Serious: This man is a stoic assassin who's regarded with respect by even the Kure for his skill and technique. He keeps that stoic expression even while lying with his face in Rino's lap or cleavage. Rino's bodyguards admit they can't take whatever he says seriously when he does this.
• The Clan: The inheritor of the Mikazuchi assassination style.
• Curb Stomp Cushion:
  • The goon Hayami sent to beat and replace Rei for the tournament somehow made him take 26 seconds to get back to Rino, which is considerably more than Nezu can claim.
  • While Gensai decisively controls the entire match after Rei loses steam, his initial charge made the karate master take a knee and forces him to simply guard all his attacks for the first minute of the fight.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Rino can use her hypnosis on Rei to make him even faster, unfortunately, that level of speed damages his feet and the enormous fatigue it causes to push himself that far eventually slows him down when it wears off.
• Defrosting Ice King: Already defrosted by the time of his introduction, to a degree. He's still The Stoic in the present, but before he met Rino he was an all-around stone-cold assassin who saw little value in human life and comparable to a machine. Rino's bodyguards welcome this change.
• Enlightenment Superpowers: The final step of the Raishin Style's training is an eleven-day trial that resembles old animist rituals, making Rei feel as if he's attained a sense of oneness with all of existence, which is vital for building the auto-suggestive capabilities to unleash the human body's true potential. This autosuggestion allows him to blow right past his body's biological limiters on his muscles in a pinch, especially when it comes to speed, even if it takes a tremendous physical toll on him.
• Flash Step: The Raishin Style at its most basic.
• Fragile Speedster: A downplayed example as he as by any sane metric he wouldn’t be this from what hits be managed to take, but compared to other fighters he falls short in the defense area. He is the fastest fighter in the tournament without rival and his speed ordinarily would allow him to take out most opponents in one blow and if not dodge them without them every hitting him period. In both of his later fights against Saw-Paing and Kuroki however he threw out almost double as many attacks as they did and took comparability way more damage per attack when they landed (such as Saw cracking the Ulna in one of his arms after just two hits), making it all to obvious that once his speed is either not as a effective or actively used against him his raw durability falls short.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Hilariously, he puffs his cheeks up when Rino is tending to Lihito's injuries from a scuffle with Raian.
• Hands-Off Parenting: His master to him. Where the Inaba Clan has remained in service to one family for generations and the Kure Clan operates as a family, the Mikazuchi Clan's name, style and ownership are all left in Rei's hands, his master disappearing to leave the pupil to his own devices. It comes up later in one of the omake when Rei's old master is shown stalking him but choosing not to interfere or comment on the way Rei chooses to live. When the Guardians attack Rei's sensei beats some of them up for stealing his pupil's thunder with their interruption.
• Insistent Terminology: He's not fast as lightning, he is lightning.
• In Harmony with Nature: Supposedly where his super-speed comes from. The final step of his training involves fasting and staying awake for nine days before standing perfectly still for two more until he starts tripping balls from his brain going amok, envisioning the mountain forest he's in growing enormous eyeballs and becoming fleshy.
• In Love with the Mark: Invaded the inner offices of the Gold Pleasure Group to assassinate its owner, Rino Kurayoshi, but fell in Love at First Sight. Rei swore his undying allegiance to her protection and entered the Kengan matches at her request.
• Lady and Knight: Serves as Kurayoshi's top bodyguard and personal knight. He leaves her side for an unknown fate after losing to Gensai.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Rei doesn't make small talk or toy with his opponents. He will knock you out cold the very second the match starts.
• No Social Skills: Due to being raised in isolation, his interactions with others is not the greatest. He is, however, better then some other examples in the tournament like Raian and Akoya, where he can manage a civil conversation and comes off more awkward and mechanical then anything and is actually seen hanging out with the other fighters in the later parts of the tourney unlike the above examples who willfully ostracized themselves at every opportunity.
• One-Hit Kill: The entire philosophy around the Raishin style as an assassination martial art. Where they use their superhuman speed to take out someone before they even realized what happened with a single strike. Ultimately it’s subverted in the tournament as this only really works on Rei’s first opponent, Nezu. The following opponents he fights prove to be the exact kind of people who this wouldn’t work on. With Saw-Paing being too durable for any single blow to take him out and Kuroki being too experienced in how to deal with the Raishin style and far too skilled for the speed to be as effective and for half the fight a active hindrance then a strength.
• The Perfectionist: His win against Saw Paing left him unsatisfied, due to the latter being able to tank the Raishin Style's attacks, and resolved to do an overhaul of the technique‘s system.
• Personality Powers: Amusingly, it's shown in the various omake's starring him that he both eats his food very quickly and gets frustrated and gives up very quickly when trying to play games, just like his super speed.
• The Power of Love: Often claims that his power and motivation stem from his love for Rino.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Usually what he relies on when his One-Hit Kill moves don’t pan out. His Raishin Style: Thunderclap technique is a very interesting example as each blow he throws is a different type of strike specialized to hit a different weak point of the body, essentially designed to break an opponent from all possible avenues with a speed no one should ordinarily be able to do anything about.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Take-Mikazuchi was the Japanese god of thunder, the Mikazuchi Clan uses their extreme speed to become like lightning.
• The Rival: The Mikazuchi Clan had come into conflict with the Kure a few times throughout history. Rei himself ends up almost getting into fights with both Hollis and Raian.
• The Speedster: Rei is without question the fastest fighter in the series. He can move quicker than the eyes can follow, allowing him to take down his opponents before they can react. He can also confuse them with afterimages and overwhelm them with Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs should his charging techniques prove ineffective. However, the style has two weaknesses: he can only maintain his top speed for a split second and his charging techniques are extremely linear, making him predictable. Kuroki is able to turn his speed against him by predicting the timing of his charges and simply placing his fist in the way, letting Rei crash into it.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: As a member of the Mikazuchi Clan, assassination is a tradition and Rei himself used to think of other humans as nothing more than meat. Then he met Rino and ended the clan's tradition of killing altogether for her.
• Training from Hell: Perhaps the most brutal example in a series full of them. The Mikazuchi Clan's Raishin Style is finally mastered by first having the user spend nine days in complete isolation on a snowy mountain fasting, then another two where they have to stand completely still. The effects of this are shown in horrifying detail in flashback.
• Single-Stroke Battle: What the Raishin Style is meant to do. As an assassination technique, it is most effective at slaying a target in an instant rather than engage in a prolonged fight. While it was more than effective against Masami, he runs into trouble when fighting against Saw Piang and Gensai Kuroki, who both have more than enough defense against Rei to make their matches into actual fights.
• The Stoic: He rarely changes expression, even in the middle of snuggling Rino. Apparently he used to be even more stoic than now before he met Rino, to the point where he was compared to a machine.
• Super-Speed: Bar none the fastest fighter in the entire tournament with a family assassination style dedicated to it and legs specialized through years of training and family genetics to be incredibly fast. His speed ends up not only being insufficient against a fighter of Kuroki's caliber, but directly becomes his undoing when Kuroki uses it to multiply the impact of his counters several times over.
• The Worf Effect: He's one of the strongest fighters in the tournament, but he gets his ass utterly handed to him by Gensai Kuroki even with his power-up from Rino.
• You Killed My Father: Gensai is responsible for his father's death. A unique example in that he doesn’t care (that much), citing it as basically par for the course in the assassination business.

Lihito - SF Cold Storage

"From now on, we're doing this my way. Let's get down and dirty."

The Superman

The Ripper

Voiced by: Hayato Kaneko (Japanese), Jonah Scott (English)

Age: 26

Real name Ichiro Nakata, he was Ohma's second opponent in the Kengan matches initially on behalf of Yoshitake Real Estate. He was later made the head of a storage company by Hideki Nogi, making him the first president/fighter in the tournament's history.

In Omega, Lihito returns after training under Kuroki Gensai, and becomes one of the 13 fighters representing the Kengan Association. He is the second to fight, facing The Falcon.

---

• '80s Hair: Sports a spiky blonde mullet, which we can assume is dyed, given that he's Japanese.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Him to most women in general.
• Benevolent Boss: Lihito runs Cold Storage and according to Komada makes the workplace pleasant. He also plans to pass on the Berserkbowl fight money to his ten employees.
• Berserk Button: Calling him weak, but unfortunately, it happens a lot. He usually doesn't get any sort of retribution and the offenders get away with it.
• Bloodier and Gorier: His fight with the Falcon in Omega shows what would happen to an opponent who wasn't skilled enough to dodge or neutralize his Razor's Edge.
• Born Winner: The origin of his nickname and both his Epithets. Lihito's Razor's Edge technique was the result of something he was born with. Specifically Lihito was born with superhuman pinch grip strength, something that was inhumanly strong even when he was a child like when he tore a coin in half as a kid. His pinch strength has only gotten stronger with age and specialized training, as he can scale near vertical mountains with just his fingers to support him.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: His formal training under Gensai allows him to make far greater use of his inborn abilities.
• Bromantic Foil: He is something of one to Ohma as the much more lecherous, outgoing and Butt-Monkey like one of the two of them.
• Broken Tears: He breaks down in a hallway after his brutal loss to Kuroki, having failed in keeping his promise to Sawada to win the tournament and prove both Gensai and Raian wrong about him being a "weakling".
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Lihito is just simply not capable of remembering the people he's beaten, or even the people who's throats he slit open to save his life.
  Lihito: What've I ever done to you?
  Ivan Karaev: YOU ALMOST FUCKING KILLED ME!
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Other fighters tend to look down their noses at his unbecoming behavior and flaws as a fighter, and he's the least intelligent of his friend group that others consider the four morons. He is also tragically bad at picking up girls, like Okubo and Sen, though his attempts are so bad they make everyone uncomfortable.
  • Played more seriously in Omega, with his poor track record in Ashura resulting with very few people having faith that Lihito will be able to be of much use in the tournament. He loses to the Falcon in a close fight.
• Casanova Wannabe: He doesn't even try to be slick. If he sees a woman, he's asking her back to his room. Suffice to say they're never interested.
• The Champion: After being an Iron Butt Monkey for a majority of the series, Lihito finally comes around and smashes the Berserker Bowl as soon as he finally hits his stride in the semifinals. He walked Koga like a dog in the finals, easily feinting his Fist Eye and knocking him out cold in a matter of a minute and change, and collapses crying from the catharsis of finally bagging a massive win for himself.
• Charles Atlas Super Power: His insane grip strength is not a product of training, but in fact comes to him naturally. He's shown breaking a coin in half during elementary school flashback to his childhood.
• Combat Pragmatist: Beyond combos, Insight, and refined fundamentals, one of the more noticeable lessons that Gensai taught him was how to use any chance given to him, such as kicking sand into Mokichi's face when they're fighting on the beach.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Zig-zagged. He's a top-notch striker and has a good balance of offense and defense, but his trump card, the Razor’s Edge technique, has a few flaws, namely he needed a windup to perform it properly and couldn’t be pulled off without it. When you figure out how to negate his Razor's Edge technique, he's nothing more than a pretty good fighter. Subverted fairly quickly as he overcomes the flaws with his Razor’s Edge before the Annihilation Tournament began, but is quickly played straight during his fight with Kuroki where it becomes obvious he is too reliant on his Razor’s Edge and brute strength even when he perfects it. He is able to offset it by his natural talent and fighting instincts, but when faced with someone who is leagues more formally skilled and experienced like Kuroki he doesn’t have much of a foot to stand on.
• Chivalrous Pervert: For no other reason other than Kaede being attractive, he holds off on getting payback against Ohma in the preliminaries and even swears to protect her from harm.
  Kaede: I'm fine thank you.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He gets his ass handed to him by both Raian Kure and Gensai Kuroki. After his improvement in "Omega" he is able to deliver those to Mark Myers, Saw Paing and Koga.
• Dark Horse Victory: Doing his master proud Lihito wins the Berserker Bowl despite all odds. Even defeating Saw Paing who was on a roll ever since the tournament thanks to awakening his true potential and turning a desperate struggle in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After losing in a Kengan match to Ohma, Lihito is all for them being friends. He even befriends Gensai Kuroki after their match.
• Defensive Feint Trap: When orthodox striking proves insufficient, he lets Ohma mount him for a ground and pound so he has ample opportunity for his Razor's Edge.
• Extreme Libido: Implied. His character bio mentions that good looks are the most important thing for him in a woman, and many of his omake appearances see him (unsuccessfully) seeking female company.
• Friendly Rivalry: With Ohma. By the time they meet again after their match Lihito was ready to rip him a new one. Next thing you know he's drinking soda on a bench with him and excitedly taking him to a casino, though Lihito's thoughts during his fight with Kuroki make it clear that beating Ohma was still a goal for him.
• Gag Penis: According to Raian, his "equipment" is very impressive. Considering Raian loves to rub people’s failures and weakness into their faces and rarely ever says anything good to anyone he could be just trolling.
• Hot-Blooded: He stands out as being a very boisterous and passionate fighter, especially since he based his whole persona off of superheroes from movies and anime.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a perverted boisterous idiot who easily forgets about the fighters he beat/nearly killed, but aside from that he's a pretty cool guy to hang out with once you get to know him.
• A Lady on Each Arm: How he shows up for his Kengan match against Ohma.
• Logical Weakness: His fighting instincts are great but he is an idiot, meaning he is really vulnerable to feints and panics when he has to think more than what comes naturally.
• Magnetic Hero: Despite being handed a couple of quick losses and dismissed by most people he meets, enemies and allies alike seem to gravitate to Lihito. His antics are the glue that holds a lot of contrasting personalities together, and before the tournament even begins he's formed a startup shipping business with two men whose asses he kicked.
• Manchild: He's a fully functional adult, but much of his behavior is surprisingly childish for such a dangerous man. He introduces himself by the handle Lihito, which he considers a cool name for a "superhero", and brags that his real name is "highly classified" (it's the incredibly plain Ichiro Nakata), despite there being no need whatsoever to remain anonymous. He treats fighting like a game and easily makes friends with his opponents and rivals, becoming one of a quartet called "the four idiots" in the omake chapters. (With Kaneda, Himuro and Okubo)
• Mighty Glacier: He ends up playing this role in Omega against The Falcon's Fragile Speedster. He struggles to react to Falcon's speed and Confusion Fu, taking many hits. However one hit from his Razor's edge is able to instantly even up the fight.
• No-Respect Guy: Usually Played for Laughs. Kaede and Ohma are largely indifferent to him at best, and his own friends within the "four morons" are quick to rib on his stupidity and inability to get girls. This becomes more tragic with time, when elite fighters start handing him his ass and belittling him as weak. It becomes painfully apparent that he is among the weakest of the batch who made it to the Annihilation Tournament.
• Razor-Sharp Hand: his Razor's Edge technique. His grip strength is so powerful that he can cut off the opponent's skin and muscles by just grazing them with his fingers.
• Shared Signature Move: His No-Holds-Barred Beatdown against Saw Paing in the Berserkerbowl semifinals is enabled by a Deliberate Injury Gambit to keep momentum on his side by absorbing Saw Paing's last Hammer of Burma with his right hand, which is tough enough for Lihito to still be able to use it against Koga in the next round. Astute readers will notice this is the exact kind of thing Kuroki did against Kiryu and Agito when they proved troublesome to get an opening on.
• Smarter Than You Look: He comes across as a bit of an oaf outside of battle, and prides himself on his animalistic thinking and behavior, but in a fight he actually has solid defenses, sharp reflexes, and some clever tricks and tactics. He's described as having a natural instinct for fighting. It's also mentioned in an omake featuring the school lives of him and the other four idiots that even though he was going to the wrong high school and didn't notice that anything was wrong until Golden Week, and also was going to a high school with no standards that anybody could sign up for^note It should be noted that Japan has a vastly different culture surrounding high schools than western countries. yet he still managed to go to Teito University and graduate from there.
• Spell My Name With An S: Lihito can also be spelled with as Rihito. The former is the correct one.
• Stage Names: His real name is Ichiro Nakata, but he thinks Lihito is cooler and insists people call him this most of the time.
• Starter Villain: He's the first opponent Ohma takes on in a formal Kengan match.
• Strong and Skilled: By Omega he’s become this after training under Gensai for two years. The skill in question is a style that combines both his own martial arts techniques and the Kaiwan Style as Gensai states when explaining how his training went. This new, much more skilled fighting philosophy mixed with his already very impressive physical ability makes him leagues better of a fighter then when he first debuted in the series to a point he can beat Mokichi someone who could easily have defeated him two years ago.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Gets hit with this twice by Raian and Gensai, with both of them labeling him as a weakling who can't measure up to the stronger fighters of the tournament. His inability to prove them wrong hits him hard.
  • In particular, 90 percent of Gensai's dialogue during their match-up is a long and utterly harsh take of this trope; everything he says to Lihito boils down to "You are weak" and he goes as far as to toy with him to hammer his point down like a jackhammer.
    Gensai: You are so far beyond comical, I nearly feel pity for you. Did you seriously think that you defeat me? I simply showed you my respect by playing on your terms. Can you not even see the power gap between us? That is why you are weak. Out of my sight weakling.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He is a lesser contributor to this during the Kengan Association vs. Purgatory Tournament by virtue of his Manchild tendencies and wanting to be the first to fight.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • After his loss to Ohma, he improves his Razor's Edge technique in a remarkably short amount of time, and aside from that improves his overall technique and conditioning significantly to become a better-rounded fighter. Unfortunately, it doesn't take him very far.
  • In Omega, his training under Gensai improved his fighting to the point of completely overhauling his fighting style allowing him to defeat Mokichi with ease. And according to Ryuki's assessment, he's continuously getting stronger.
  • After his loss to Falcon during the Kengan Association vs. Purgatory tournament, Liu Dongcheng believes that Lihito could be at the level of an A-list gladiator. His teammate Naidan doesn't think so, but believes that Lihito would at least be at the top of the B-list gladiators. The Falcon also admits he could lose a rematch if both are still at their current level.
  • Then he finally has a "Eureka!" Moment where he finally finds the balance of how to combine his innate strength and traits and all his training during the Berserker Bowl, instantaneously turning the tables on Saw Paing who was slowly breaking him down and turning their match into a one-sided ass-whooping. Kuroki internally congratulates him on finally reaching what he defines as mastery.
• The Bus Came Back: After disappearing together with Gensai Kuroki after the Annihilation Tournament for over two years, Kaneda picks him up in the airport, where Lihito is ecstatic to join up with the Kengan roster for the Purgatory faceoff.
• Training from Hell: He's begun this together with Gensai at the end of the first series, where he's seen in the middle of a meditative workout next to a waterfall. Confirmed in Omega where he’s been on a two year hiatus as a Kengan Fighter to train alongside Kuroki. Training that proved to be very successful as he was able to keep up with Kuroki’s hellish training (even if just barely) and came out of the experience by learning the fundamentals of the Kaiwan Style and fusing it with his own personal fighting style.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After a very long losing streak that painted him as a Memetic Loser Butt-Monkey, Lihito finally gets his chance to shine when he manages to win the Berserker Bowl tournament, and does so in very convincing fashion.
• Übermensch: Although he follows this trope in a characteristically literal way.
• Unlocking the Talent: Lihito has great talent thanks to his immense finger strength and instincts, he doesn't have many trainer until he met Gensai to really develop his talent. Once he trains under Gensai he does better but the old master pushes him to advance beyond what he is taught to truly unlock his potential.
• Unskilled, but Strong: His fighting style is mostly self-taught, and the technique he usually falls back on is simply an application of an ability he's always had. While he does refine his Razor's Edge after losing to Ohma, he overall remains, as one opponent in the preliminaries puts it, "a moron who only knows how to use brute force".
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He's known Keizaburo Sawada since high school and they have always gotten on each other's nerves, but continue to hang out.
• The Worf Effect: He's introduced as a dangerous fighter who can take out a world-class kickboxer with ease, present Ohma with his first real challenge, and mow down an army of fighters in the preliminaries. He then gets his ass unceremoniously kicked off-screen by Raian to demonstrate how strong and crazy Raian is and prove the power of the Kure Clan's secret technique. Shortly afterwards, he loses spectacularly to Gensai in the first round, establishing the old man's skill..

Gensai Kuroki - Motorhead Motors

""Strength" is not determined by power, technique or frame. It is determined by experience."

The Devil Lance

Voiced By: Tesshō Genda (Japanese), Pete Sepenuk (English)

Age: 51

Invited to the Kengan Annihilation Tournament by Metsudo Katahara, Gensai Kuroki is a solitary middle-aged assassin and master of the Kaiwan Style of Okinawan Karate. Normally Wandering the Earth and going through excrutiating training to keep his skills sharp and body tempered, he called in a favor from his friend Takakaze, CEO of Motorhead Motors, and makes his first appearance in a fighting circuit with the tournament.

---

• Alternate Company Equivalent: Crossover with Baki the Grappler draws comparison between him and Yujiro Hanma, at least in their youthfull exploits. Both characters serve similiar role in their respective series - the man at the top that all other fighters measure against and want to surpass. Both also faced protagonist in a climactic battle and won.
• Animal Motifs: In his fight with Rei, he's portrayed as an elephant, which fits him quite well; he's wise, experienced, patient and unbelievably strong.
• Anti-Villain: He's quite polite when outside of fighting, even telling Ohma the full backstory of Niko Tokita to him right before their Finals match out of respect for him and his master. Gensai has no malicious goals in the tournament other than to find a strong opponent who can beat him.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: True to his epithet, the "Devil Lance" is essentially this. By repeatedly breaking and strengthening his fingers (as well as every other joint in his body) through decades of training, he's able to punch straight through muscle, rock and even steel with just his fingers. Even when four of his fingers on his right hand has been utterly destroyed by the Fang, he's able to stab a hole in the Fang's hand with his thumb alone.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: He makes condescending remarks towards his opponents during battle, and constantly speaks of their skill gap compared to him. However, he is otherwise very disciplined and respectful towards some opponents. And given he actually wins the Annihilation Tournament, any confidence on his part is well-earned. Outside the arena however he is rather humble, admitting the strong points of opponent he humiliated and admitting he can't win all the time when someone is surprised that he fought Donaire to a draw.
• Artistic License – Biology: While hand conditioning is a very real and very functional part of martial arts training, the extent to which Gensai practices it, to the point where he does his routines even when his hands or fingers are broken, should have left him with stumps of mangled bones instead of hands and intense osteoarthritis.
• Attack Reflector: His hands are so rough and specialized for killing techniques that he can leave Rei with cuts all over his arms by just smacking them away with normal parries. Kaolan, an out-boxer, has a suitably horrified reaction on his face among the crowd.
  This is what boxers refer to as parrying. All Kuroki did was knock [Rei]'s hand down. His steel palm, tempered by unimaginable training, changed a "simple defense" into a "powerful offense".
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Similarly to Kaneda, he's mastered the art of foresight and refined it to it's apex over his assassin career, resulting in a level of prediction that allowed him to block a bullet with a ceramic jar in a flashback where his friend, with a one-way visor and full combat gear on, had to try and shoot him while giving him no warning besides tells from body language.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The spear hand is almost universally considered one of the worst moves in Karate because it puts the user's fingers at risk of breaking even if perfectly thrown and the target areas for it (Temple, throat and diaphraghm) are all pinpoint. Gensai can completely sidestep this issue because he has trained his fingers to be just that tough, turning a potentially self-destructive strike into the equivalent of stabbing the opponent with a huge knife. At the same time, it suffers from a different impracticality in that the threat of Gensai's spear hand makes his opponents focus on breaking his fingers; This doesn't stop him either, however. He has such fine muscle control that he can forcibly bend broken fingers into shape, flat-out ignoring the pain of doing so, and because he only throws his spear-hand with his right hand, no one ever gets an opportunity to break his left which stays perfectly intact the entire tournament (Agito dislocates Gensai's left arm via an elbow hold early in their fight but the old man can re-set his elbow or shoulder joint with ease, even mid-fistfight).
• Badass Biker: His casual black attire, grizzled beard, hardened face, and association with Motorhead Motors gives off this aesthetic in spite of him not actually owning a motorcycle. The animated adaptation even gives him a classic rock Leitmotif.
• Badass Boast:
  • He has quite a few, but none feel quite as impactful as his last words to Ohma as their battle reaches its zenith.
    Gensai: I can tell that you have conviction. Martial arts without conviction is little more than violence, just as it was with Kiryu Setsuna, whom you know well. Are you ready to choose death for your conviction? Then at least allow me the honor of burying you.
  • There's also his line after he blocks Setsuna's True Rakshasa's Palm:
    Gensai: You fool. I cannot be defeated by improvisations.
• Badass Longcoat: He reappears in this in Omega, while watching Lihito's fight with the Falcon.
• Batman Gambit: One of his tried-and-true winning strategies throughout the Tournament is exploiting his opponent's most formidable attacks against them in ways they wouldn't expect. After destroying Kiryu's right palm with his Devil Lance, he lets the young man use his Rakshasa's Palm with the same hand and blocks it with his shoulder, taking drastically reduced damage and bringing Kiryu into range for a lethal combination of attacks. He baits Agito into using his Dragon Shot this same way, only to wristlock Agito's hand while he's doing it so that he destroys his own wrist.
• Badass Normal: Unlike many of the higher-tier Kengan fighters, Gensai has no genetic advantages or unusual abilities, he's not even overly large at 185cm and 96 kilos with a musclebound, but still ordinary build. He's just an Old Master who's very, very good at Karate. it's more than enough to win him the tournament.
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • Agito Kanoh's caution towards him justifiably heightens quite a bit when Gensai proves able to set his dislocated elbow back in place by just swinging his arm.
  • While he prizes a fighter's ability to master the "A-to-Z"s of combat, he is also a firm believer in the more nebulously defined state of "Beyond Z" where a martial artist can use their own unique characteristics in conjunction with refined fundamentals, comparable to the concept of Shuhari.
• Blood Knight: The only reason he's fighting in the Annihilation Tournament is in the hopes of finding someone who might finally be a match for him. Problem is, he's so incredibly strong that pretty much no one can fit that bill. Agito Kanoh proves to be more or less his equal, and he greatly enjoys their extremely violent and intense match, while his inner thoughts show that he's almost in grief over the fact that he didn't get to fight Ohma after he regains his full strength while the young man was still healthy.
• Boring Yet Practical: His fighting style is... Karate. Admittedly a regional variety that also incorporates elements of Wushu, but still, it's Karate. And his mastery of it is so great that spectators claim it makes any Karate they've ever seen look like an exercise routine. It's brutal, powerful, lightning-fast, monstrous on the defense and because his capacity for it exceeds the norm by such an unbelievable degree, there is no need to hide his cards because his enemies and spectators alike simply can't comprehend how good he is at the most fundamental parts of fighting.
  Rei Mikazuchi in his thoughts among the crowd: He's putting my immaturity to shame. Mastering a powerful technique is not nearly enough. Using the right technique at the right moment; This pinnacle of martial arts was no more than an ideal, but Kuroki Gensai has put it into practice.
• Brutal Honesty: Gensai does not mince his words. After demonstrating that he could've killed Lihito four times over in a matter of seconds doesn't get the younger man to surrender, his verbal beatdown of Lihito is just as brutal as the attacks he begins handing out.
  Gensai: You are young, you are arrogant, you are foolish, and above all, you are weak.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Gensai admits that he will never be able to copy Lihito's razor since he was not born with herculean finger strength but his crazy partial training allows his fingers to puncture through almost anything.
• Chekhov's Gunman: His initial appearance and unassuming epithet might make you think he's just an old man with a Jobber wipe on his back to get slaughtered by the protagonists or antagonists, but he ends up being one of the most important characters to the entire story.
• Cool Old Guy: He ties with Karo and Bando as the oldest fighter in the tournament, and is the oldest to have combat experience. He also hangs out in jazz clubs and he is happy to teach Lihito to become stronger.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In his first fight, he beats Lihito without even trying, then goes on to defeat some of the most lethal foes in the tournament, Kiryu and Rei. Averted when he has a relatively even, but ultimately victorious fight against Agito, but then played straight again in the finals where Gensai, despite heavy injuries, demolishes an even more injured Ohma despite the latter's best efforts and several close calls.
  • In Omega a wounded Falcon challenges Gensai to a fight after winning against Lihito. Gensai effortlessly beats him with one chop to the neck.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Half of Rolón Donaire's claim to fame is managing to go even with this guy while Gensai was in his thirties. The other half comes from his admittedly insane 422-0 record in Purgatory.
• Dark Horse Victory: He doesn't have any rivalry with other competitors or stakes in the corporate warfare going in the background,he defeats all his opponents including Ohma's rivals and Ohma himself.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: He is the first fighter to ever defeat Agito Kanoh, "The Fang Of Metsudo" after 160 matches.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: In a downright shocking twist of events, Kuroki No sells Ohma ultimate technique, an Advance-powered Demonsbane, by shoving his already completely messed up right arm in the way of the punch and finishing Ohma off with an overhead swing of his left arm. This obviously breaks what's already not broken in said arm, but the sheer ingenuity of the gambit cuts off any options Ohma might have had at winning, knocks him out and earns Gensai the championship.
• Did Not See That Coming: Having fought the masters of the styles they use, he's initially confident that he'll be able to easily defeat Rei and Kiryu, only to be taken by surprise with the new techniques and tactics unique to them.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Kaiwan Style's most iconic technique, The Devil Lance, is incredibly difficult to master as one would have to constantly and painfully condition their fingers on hard surfaces, iron sand and so on in order to shape them into Razor Sharp Hands in order to pierce through their opponent.
• The Dreaded:
  • Arguably the biggest one in the tournament. The results of the bracket lottery indicated that the participants were avoiding having to fight him. Lihito's friends, while still cheering him on, agreed that he was screwed as soon as he entered the ring, and afterwards Okubo expressed doubt that any of the other fighters would stand a chance against Gensai.
  • His stoicism and the sheer pressure and confidence he exudes is so intense that it leaves the entire crowd and the commentators of the Annihilation Tournament in Stunned Silence while Gensai is waiting for his opponent in the third round. The beating he hands Rei is so thorough that Gensai appears as an overwhelming demonic silhouette in Rei's mind.
  No one made a sound. They were all overwhelmed by that man.
• Establishing Character Moment: In his first appearance and with especially compared to the Art Evolution the series went through later, he looks like an unwashed hobo with a scruffy beard drinking straight out of a whiskey bottle; every sign of a textbook fighting manga Jobber... until Metsudo's Bodyguards go to investigate a sound on one of the shipdecks and find eight sets of five finger-sized holes in the hull, with Gensai walking away, his hands steaming with power still. And that's when it all began...
  Bodyguards 1 and 2: "What the hell, are those..." "Holes?" "Do steel plates usually get holes in them?" "Not that I know of..." "It could've been corroded or weakened somehow." "Whatever it is, let's just seal it back up."
• "Eureka!" Moment: He completely mastered "Motionlessness", his Karate school's term for Foresight^note Karate divides these into Go-No-Sen, Sen-No-Sen, and Sen-Sen-No-Sen, which to save you from a Karate Deepdive on the internet, essentially means "Avoid and counter when opponent attacks", "Attack and counter at the same time as your opponent", and "read opponent's inception of intent to counter him as he's decided to attack, but hasn't gotten to yet.". Go-No-Sen is just a normal Counter-Attack, Sen-No-Sen is a Counter-Attack the moment your opponent is about to attack as well and Sen-Sen-No-Sen is basically the latter polished to such a point that your Counter-Attack is already being thrown the moment your opponent has decided to attack, which is more or less only going to happen by a lucky accident instead of timing. by having a friend of his from the US Army base in Okinawa to wear an obscuring visor to hide his face so that Gensai could not perceive when his friend would fire the gun that way and then proceeded to read said friends' finer motions in order to block a shot to the head with a ceramic vase full of sand. His friend was genuinely horrified for a moment, as he thought he'd killed Gensai. Gensai, on the other hand, thought it was slower than he expected.
  That was the moment he mastered the secret.
• Extremity Extremist: If Gensai throws a kick, there's a 90% chance it'll be a low kick or a leg sweep. He almost exclusively fights with his fists, but this seems to be a very deliberate decision to make his opponents drop their guard towards certain parts of his moveset. After an absolute slugfest against Kanoh where Gensai only uses his hands to attack, the decisive blow becomes Gensai delivering a high kick to Agito's face.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • He almost always starts on the defensive and grows more aggressive throughout a fight as he figures out his opponent's ins and outs. This allows Kiryu to relentlessly wail on him for minutes on end when Kiryu would have been screwed if Gensai had gone on the offensive at the start.
  • Another one is underestimating his foes. As he often starts out thinking less of his opponents until they do something completely unpredictable which ends up surprising him and throwing him off guard.
• Final Boss: He fights his way through the right side of the bracket, even defeating the Fang, and ends up as Ohma's opponent in the finals. He ends up being a Hopeless Boss Fight.
• Fingore:
  • He seems physically unable to win a fight without breaking his fingers. By the time he wins the tournament, he has broken every finger on his right hand up to three separate times, on top of his entire arm looking like a bloody dishrag from taking the brunt of Ohma's Demonsbane. Interestingly he also plays this to his advantage by almost exclusively using his right hand for his Spear Hand after Kiryu first breaks some of the fingers on it throughout the rest of the tournament, ensuring his left hand is still perfectly intact.
  • He indirectly inflicts this on Ohma in the finals by Ohma breaking his hand from punching Gensai's forehead.
• Foreshadowing: His ability is actually hinted at before the tournament even begins during the bracket lottery. When Lihito is the last to choose a spot on the bracket, Kuroki's spot is the only one open, implying that everyone who knew better was trying to duck out of facing him even while their fighters were in tip-top shape.
• Genius Bruiser: He always makes sure to watch the fights of his opponents further up the bracket to get a feel for their abilities, as he does get surprised by bizarre techniques when he least expects it but due to his massive wealth of experience he often times recognizes what these abilities offers to the table. Such as Sen Hatsumi's use of the limiting line in his dodging.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Utterly averted. There's not even a hint of that like some of the other fighters, that Gensai was blessed with some godly talent from birth. His prowess simply comes from a lifetime of dedication to an unreasonably tough training regime and the implications of a long career as an assassin strong enough to grow old, nothing more, nothing less.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: His first on-panel appearance has him unkempt and shabbily dressed, but he achieves a more dignified appearance after he grooms himself and puts on his usual martial arts attire for the tournament.
• Hero Killer: He knocks Lihito out of the tournament in the first round, and Ohma's rival in the second. He also defeats Ohma, which indirectly leads to his death when he forces him to use the Advance one last time.
• Hidden Depths: Despite Wandering the Earth, he has several close-knit friends, one of which is the CEO of Motorhead Motors, but he still feels lonely because he's grown so strong that he has no one left to fight but himself, explaining why he doesn't mind teaching Lihito and Rei a lesson and why he's partly relieved Kiryu survived the battle with him; he's left with no option but to try and give lessons to the younger fighters so that they might one day beat him.
• Hitman with a Heart: While he is a professional assassin, he only kills those who can either effectively fight back against him, or are so utterly deplorable that they deserve to die. Even in the Annihilation Tournament, he generally doesn't want to kill his opponents, either viewing them as too weak or too honorable to warrant death.
• Humble Hero: While he can be an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy to those who piss him off, he's also well-aware of his own limitations and fully acknowledges his equals. When it's revealed that Donaire fought him to a draw in the past, he essentially shrugs and admits that not even he can always win. His own standards are so high he sees himself as too green by the end of "Ashura" and is not ashamed to admit when someone might be able to beat him or Lihito's Razor being beyond what his Devil Lance could accomplish.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: He pulls his punches right before he would hit Lihito at first to try and communicate how out of his league the kid is, and when that doesn't work starts hitting him with a bit more power. Once he gets tired of Lihito's flailing at him, Gensai proceeds to go for real and stabs two holes in him and sends him flying with a front kick. He also deliberately doesn't finish Rei off when he's on the floor to let the young man who was pretty much harmless to Gensai at that point work out his mental blocks that were holding him back as a martial artist before Gensai knocks him out.
• I Know You Know I Know: His Pre-Initiative is essentially a weaponized version of this. His incredible array of experience means that he often knows exactly how his opponents will react, and how they expect him to react, allowing him to outmaneuver them over the course of a fight. While he might take some hits while figuring his opponents out, he will make every opportunity afforded to him count in the long run, as seen when he deliberately targets Agito's left arm throughout the fight to make him bet ultimately bet it all on a Dragon Shot with his right, which Gensai proceeded to counter and then take complete control of the fight's endgame.
• It's Personal: He was a good friend of Genzan Taira. Encountering his killer and only student Kiryu does not make him happy to say the least.
• Implacable Man: He's so unbothered by injuries that the other fighters in the tournament start to believe he doesn't feel pain at all, but as he reveals to Ohma after crushing Agito Kanoh, it's more a matter of self-discipline than it is him being impregnable. Regardless, he truly comes off as utterly unstoppable in that he keeps using his right hand despite breaking the fingers on it several times over. By the finals he can only just barely shape his right hand into a crude fist, grab with it and use the arm for circular blocking and still puts it to devastating use.
• Invincible Villain: He battles his way through the right block of the tournament, taking out powerhouses like Kiryu and Rei mostly untouched, though he is pushed into a corner against the Fang of Metsudo due to both being on an equal playing field but wins in the end. He beats Ohma handily in the finals with all the young fighter's gambits falling apart at the seams, in part because of his exhaustion and injuries but also because the difference between the two in terms of skill and experience is too vast to bridge. In the Baki crossover chapter, Metsudo compares a young Kuroki to Yujiro Hanma.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Very much downplayed. He's very blunt to most people and dismisses conversations to those who are being kind to him. He also talks down or condescend opponents he considers beneath him, such as during his fight with Lihito. However, he does not needlessly harm people so long as there is no particular reason for antagonism (such as with Kiryu), and even agrees to mentor Lihito after the tournament.
• Just Toying with Them: He begins his fight with Lihito casually intercepting his attacks and tossing him around, simply to show that he could have easily killed him several times over if he wanted to. Then he makes it seem as if Lihito is fighting him evenly and getting the upper hand, before stabbing him with his Devil Lance and beating him down.
  Gensai: Did you seriously think that you could defeat me? I was simply showing you my respect by playing with you on your terms.
• Lonely at the Top: We see this in the epilogue after winning the tournament, still training and considering himself "too green" and still too far from where he wants to be.
• Made of Iron:
  • He shrugs off Kiryu breaking his fingers with ease simply because he already does his murderous hand training routine even with broken hands or fingers. Agito Kanoh, whose strikes are so powerful that other fighters compare them to being struck with a giant weapon, describes punching Gensai in his Sanchin kata as if Gensai was made of granite.
  • He's almost as beat up as his opponent by the time the finals roll around thanks to his titanic battle in the previous round, yet it doesn't slow him down one bit.
• Major Injury Underreaction: To the same level as Sekibayashi but less boastful about it, he gets his arms and fingers twisted and dislocated yet will not even show discontentment over it. He admits to Ohma he does feel enormous pain and isn't sure either of them will survive their finals match after the gauntlet he went through but he has the willpower to put it on the back-burner.
• Manly Facial Hair: It's enormous and looks almost like a lion's mane, giving him an immediately intimidating appearance.
• Master of All: He's mastered his Okinawan Karate to such an extent that he's nothing less than this. On the defensive, he's an unbreakable wall of muscle and power and on the offensive, he strikes with such precision and skill that his blows match even Agito.
• Meaningful Name: "黒木", or Gensai, is the Japanese term for lumber that has been stripped of it's bark and properly prepared for construction, alluding to his Training from Hell via conditioning of the extremeties in Okinawan Karate. "玄斎", or Kuroki, means "Black Purification", with the latter kanji specifically used for the meals given to abstaining monks by Buddhist Priests.
• Mighty Glacier: He's by no means slow, but his fighting style has little mobility. It revolves around staying on the defense until the opponent is worn thin, then striking them down with his unbelievably powerful blows. In his fight with Rei, he's portrayed as an elephant, and Rei also envisions him as an impregnable fortress that only risks harm to his opponent the more they try to attack him. Jerry freaks out when he realizes Gensai has parried all of Kiryu's attacks without taking a step with his back leg as that level of defense is above most elite Kengan fighters.
• Mythical Motifs: A high priest of a Buddhist temple Gensai is visiting to train in describes the infallible Karateka as an avatar of a Wisdom King, wrathful manifestations of the Buddhas that strike down evil. The specific one of the five Wisdom Kings that fits Gensai is likely Vajrayaksa, whose name means The Devourer of Demons/Ashura.
• Noble Demon:
  • While ruthless in combat to an extreme, he's amicable off the battlefield and doesn't even seem to mind Lihito hounding him around after Gensai beat him to learn his tricks.
  • He also clarifies in Omega he only kills villains with no right to live or fighters worth fighting with your life on the line.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Once Gensai's defensive style has worn his opponent out and he has them figured out, he goes from simply defending himself perfectly to delivering a shockingly brutal thrashing. While all his opponents survive fighting him, the sheer amount of punishment he puts onto Kanoh and Ohma would make any normal person wish they were dead.
• Not So Invincible After All: Gensai is seen by most as the as the ideal of martial arts, able to use the right technique at the right time. He doesn't see it that way and ends the tournament finding himself too green for the damage he took and is uncertain if he could win against Agito again.
• Not So Stoic: Gensai is generally extremely composed and never utters a sound in a fight where he has to take his opponent seriously. This makes him erupting into a full-on lion-faced roar◊ against Agito Kanoh one of the most absolutely terrifying moments in the entire story.
• Old Master: He's a reclusive, stoic old man who learned martial arts in an isolated hut in Okinawa from another reclusive old man. At 51 he's the oldest participant in the Tournament by a matter of months, and his incredible Karate skills make him a complete terror. Even the retirement-age masters of other assassination martial arts in the crowd are shown cold-sweating at his prowess.
• One-Hit Kill: The Devil Lance got that name for a reason; Gensai's spearhand is as lethal and far more versatile than if the man was waving around a huge knife in each hand. Gensai makes an effort to not kill those that don't deserve it, but that translates to stabbing everything but the brain and heart so the doctors can treat the injuries. Kaolan mentions that this ace in the hole more than compensates for Gensai's lack of reach against larger opponents and practically nullifies even a strong musclebound opponent's defenses through sheer piercing power.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Broken fingers are a martial artist's undoing normally, as the hands are used for nearly everything. Gensai has broken his fingers so many times during his training that not only is he basically unaffected by the pain, but he has developed such levels of fine muscle control that he can forcibly contract his broken fingers into a fist anyway. They don't quite function as well as before, but it's still a massive upgrade over broken fingers spelling certain defeat.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: As Gensai puts it, if you spurred his wrath, you were either a Worthy Opponent or disgusting enough to warrant death.
• Pet the Dog: While he verbally and physically destroys Lihito in their match he trains and silently praises Lihito's progress in "Omega".
• Pressure Point: The Kaiwan Style's training involves a full crash course on meridians, acupuncture points and Qigong, giving Gensai an encyclopedic knowledge of how to take someone apart with his Devil Lances. Examples of the more exotic uses of this include stabbing through Lihito's wrist and above his heart without making him instantly bleed out and diffusing a massive amount of the power in Agito's left arm by stabbing him in the shoulder and later through his palm.
• Professional Killer: One of several assassins participating in the tournament. Unlike the other assassins however, Gensai claims that he refuses to use his fists against the weak, implying he only accepts contracts against people who can fight back.
• Razor-Sharp Hand: Gensai's hands are so refined by Training from Hell that he can cause open, bleeding wounds with nothing but palm-to-skin contact and pierce concrete and steel plating with his fingertips. Applications of this include flaying a man's arms by parrying him, nearly severing Agito's shoulder from his arm in a single good hit, and chopping Ohma's left shoulderblade cleanly in half with one strike.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: His Straight Punch, Six Strikes technique, consisting of 6 nearly simultaneous blows down the median plane of the opponent's body.
• Reconstruction: Gensai pretty much shows what happens when you're an Old Master in a story and take it to it's logical conclusion. While everyone else has goals and motivations besides fighting, fighting seems to be his sole motivation, still trying to improve himself in his twilight years. As such, thanks to his Training from Hell and his vast experience as a fighter and an assassin making him a skillful fighter with very lethal fingers powerful enough to pierce flesh. He only joined the Annihilation Tournament in the hopes of finding someone even close to his level to fight. While Gensai is last seen training and still considering himself green, he ends up taking Lihito as his student and enjoyed both of his fights with Ohma and Agito.
• The Stoic: He's a very stone-faced individual, with few exceptions.
• Seen It All: Kuroki is a veteran fighter who has dedicated his entire life to his craft and is, understandably, incredibly well versed in nearly every avenue of martial arts and is sometimes surprised by something a fighter might throw at him. This reflects well in his fights throughout the tournament as the majority of his opponents he comes up against are actually practitioners of styles he’s personally experienced with in one way or another. Kuroki having been friends and actively swapped techniques with Kiryu’s and Ohma’s masters makes most of their arsenals near-useless against him, and he's already experienced the Super-Speed of the Raishin Style when he killed Rei’s father on the job, though Rino's pheromone doping does make Rei enough of a threat that Kuroki still has to take him seriously.
• Stone Wall: Despite being an assassin, Kuroki rarely even moves in the Kengan matches and usually lets his opponents come to him. His flawless defense is compared to an impregnable fortress. There are fighters that outclass him in strength and speed, but he simply overwhelms them with his own incredible firepower and raw skill, allowing him to do things like keep pace with someone who quite literally moves faster than the human eye can follow and effortlessly diffuse Kiryu's barrage of lethal moves without taking a step.
  Jerry Tyson: It's impossible. Nobody can beat that man.
• Stop Hitting Yourself: How he defeats Rei Mikazuchi. Knowing that Rei can only approach him with a charge, Gensai simply starts placing his fist or elbow in the direction Rei is coming from with perfect timing, multiplying the damage of the attack several times over and cracking the poor guy's entire ribcage in two hits.
• Strong and Skilled: His diligent training allows to physically match fighters half his age and beat them with the decades he has perfecting his art over them. Despite being firmly a heavyweight himself, Gensai's attacks hurt like someone twice his size's due to his sheer mastery of his own body and how to systematically dismantle another man with his bare hands. His Devil Lance also gives him an attack that can go through most unharmed guard no matter the size difference.
• Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: His fingers can carve concrete like clay, and punch through metal. He's shown carving a statue taller than himself out of a random wall as a warmup, and times Rei's top speed by just casually pushing a finger through a concrete wall in the stands without any windup. This isn't just for superficial stunts either; Gensai shows such adept control of his body and individual muscles that he can fight as if in near-perfect condition with broken bones, and can set dislocations with ease in the middle of a brutal deathmatch.
• Taught by Experience: Even moreso than his incredible skill or intense training, arguably his most terrifying feature is his sheer breadth of experience. Through decades of training and work as a bodyguard, he has been exposed to an astounding variety of martial arts styles, and has developed countermeasures for each of them.
• Tempting Fate: At the start of his fight with Rei he thinks he got him figured it out and set a perfect counter. A second after he mocks him for being slower than his dad, who Gensai killed, he is forced to take a knee for the first time in the tournament because of Rei's blow.
• Training from Hell: Essentially the Kaiwan Style's training is Okinawan Karate training dialed up to twenty-one. In addition to the development of intentional movement and Kata practice (the latter of which any Karateka in real life will tell you is already hellish), practitioners are expected to strike straw mats, iron sand, boulders and a number of other tough objects for a majority of their day, until and after their hands are a broken bloody mess. Every single day Gensai has done this for decades, turning what was once fragile fingers into near-indestructible weapons and making his joints almost impossible to break instantly.
• Tranquil Fury: Upon connecting the dots that Setsuna Kiryu is the one responsible for the death of his friend Genzan Taira, he spends his fight against the boy in a barely contained rage.
  Gensai: Know your place, boy.
• Use Your Head: His headbutts are so strong that one can almost feel the concussions he probably inflicts with them. His forehead causes Ohma to breaks several of his fingers punching it.
• Villainous Underdog: Somewhat. The tournament is the first time he's appeared in the Kengan matches and while he had a reputation even before then, no-one expected he'd end up winning.
• Wicked Cultured: His preferred thing to do when he's not training, fighting or on the job seems to be hanging out in jazz clubs with a friend and some booze. He also shows a surprising artistic side with his ability to carve statues with his bare hands.
• World's Best Warrior: The unexpected and undisputed champion of the Annihilation Tournament, defeating: Lihito, Kiryu, Rei, Agito and Ohma.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • He openly acknowledges Agito Kanoh as an equal before defeating him in the semifinals.
  • More tragically, he bemoans that he didn't get to meet Ohma while he was healthy, instead of fighting him as a mangled half-corpse who can barely put up a fight. When he strikes the final blow against Ohma, he looks genuinely sad instead of satisfied.

Ren Nikaido - Byakuya News

"What was I fighting?!"

The Watchman

Voiced By: Chiharu Sawashiro (Japanese), Erik Kimerer (English), Tommy Rojas (Latin American Spanish)

Age: 24

The young leader of the Taiwanese-Japanese mercenary group "The Heavenly Wolves" and the current master of the Heavenly Wolf Fist of Chinese Wushu. He and his cohorts are instrumental in Hayami's plans to take over the Kengan Association. By Omega, they've instead joined Metsudo's Bodyguards.

---

• Bruce Lee Clone: Pretty much all of his attacks are Fa Jin strikes, the principle behind the one-inch punch, and has a habit of yelling in Chinese when he attacks.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Delivers one off-screen to Hisayasu Takemoto to gain his spot in the tournament, and is later delivered one himself by Setsuna Kiryu.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Occasionally throws in a bit of Chinese.
• Hand Blast: The first step of his Qilong technique is a variant from the norm. In this case, he compresses air into his hands by gripping them tightly. Then he quickly opens his hands and the compressed air is released as a sound blast that causes anyone within a 1.5-meter range to stop moving instinctively for a few seconds.
• Heel–Face Turn: After learning that Hayami was planning to use him and his men as the Fall Guy for his terrorist attack, he quickly betrays him and disables the bombs he was ordered to set up. Come Omega, he's now working as part of Metsudo's Bodyguards.
• Hidden Depths: Surprisingly, Ren gets along well with animals.
• I Know Kung Fu: Wushu for military and group engagements, apparently, but he's got it all, from the flying kicks, one-inch punches and an obscure technique involving instanteneous hypnosis that Jerry Tyson had heard was impossible even in a pre-arranged demonstration.
• Klingon Promotion: How he got into the tournament. See Curb-Stomp Battle above.
• Mr. Fanservice: He has an atrocious sense of fashion, leading him to design impractical and scandalous-looking outfits for himself, which his cohorts are too loyal to criticize him for. The audience wasn't complaining either when he steps into the arena.
• Narcissist: Usually parodied. Julius accuses him of being this in an omake. When Ren denies this, Julius and Meguro put a mirror in front of him, causing Ren to stop in fascination with himself.
• Odd Friendship: Despite Meguro being a psychotic, animalistic killer, he's shown to get along with him in omake just fine. In the aftermath of the tournament, it's shown he built a grave for him, and is seen leaving flowers.
• Precision F-Strike: He shouts Cao Ni Ma at Kiryu in frustration when the fight stops going his way. It's a Chinese phrase for “fuck your mom.”
• Pretty Boy: He's flamboyant, slender and prettier than the rest of the roster. His fight against the similarly pretty Setsuna is dubbed as the battle of pretty boys as a result.
• Private Military Contractors: The current leader of the elite Heavenly Wolves.
• Purple Is Powerful: Both his clothes and hair have dark shades of purple, and Jerry Tyson considered him to be leagues above himself in Chinese martial arts. Unfortunately, he wasn't powerful enough for his match.
• Stripperific: He constantly dresses in extremely skimpy and revealing clothing to the point where it's a Running Gag in the various omake to have him either dress up in the most tacky outfits or the most absurdly skimpy ones. This has caused Meguro Masaki to label him as a pervert.
• Underestimating Badassery: He had already studied what he believed to be Kiryu's fighting style before the match and was confident in an easy victory. It didn't even take a minute to realize he still had no idea what he was in for.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: His almost embarrassing performance against Kiryu was actually remarkably close once the reader later learns how Kiryu's techniques work. Kiryu's Fallen Demon that let him toy with Ren only activates when Kiryu is in a critical situation, implying that Ren's Qilong damaged him a lot more than he let on.
• Villainous BSoD: After his loss to Kiryu, he's left in shock and starts frantically asking what he just fought.
• The Worf Effect: He's a genuinely strong fighter, but he had the extremely bad luck of being paired against a maniac like Kiryu. Nikaido didn't even stand a chance.

Setsuna Kiryu - Koyo Academy Group

"I beg you, please end me this time, Ohma."

The Beautiful Beast

Voiced by: Daisuke Namikawa (Japanese), Todd Haberkorn (English)

Age: 26

A mysterious fighter tied to Ohma's past who enters the tournament with the intention of fighting him to the death. He murdered his master Genzan Taira, the same man Ohma sought to defeat in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament for killing Niko Tokita. Out of a sick romantic fixation on him, he informed Ohma of this directly before the tournament to steer his intentions of vengeance towards him.

He is the only known living practitioner of the Koei Style of classical Jiujitsu, a lost branch of the art that ended with Genzan Taira's death when Kiryu mastered the remaining pre-existing techniques in record time. Due to his masters' untimely death at his own hands, there are only two techniques. The first is Blink, where the user moves quickly enough to seemingly disappear from sight right as the opponent is subconsciously blinking, the second is Rakshasa's Palm, a twisting palm strike; Genzan's originally only had 180 degrees of rotation to these palm strikes, but Kiryu's 360 degree spin of his wrist and elbow makes it a lethal, if very predictable move capable of twisting flesh, joints and organs.

---

• Abusive Parents: Kiryu was conceived by his father for the sole purpose of providing him with healthy organs to cure his illness. His mother was a prostitute that birthed him for money and then started to abuse him physically and emotionally.
• Achilles' Heel: While his attacks are incredibly strong and his other moves allow him to quickly retake the offensive, his defense is fairly lacking. Once Gensai actually goes on the offensive against him, he folds like a house of cards.
• Affably Evil: When fighting he's utterly ruthless and sadistic and will maim anyone who somehow offends Ohma based on his own twisted logic. But outside of that, he is genuinely civil and cordial, especially with Matsuda.
• Ambiguous Situation: He was taken into custody after being defeated by Ohma, but then escaped in the aftermath of the tournament. His whereabouts are unknown until well into Omega.
• Artistic License – Biology: Even by the series standards, some of the applications of Rakshasa's Palm are pretty questionable; Moreover, channeling such a huge impact through the wrist and elbow joints by rotating them with such a drastic twist should have left Kiryu with intense arthritis and wear on his joint capsules. Especially when he uses it to survive Gensai piercing his chest by moving his heart out of the way.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His version of the Rakshasa's Palm which he twists 360 degrees rather than his master's 180 degree Rakshasa's Palm is incredibly powerful, but has a few serious flaws. Not only does it have a very distinctive motion that makes it hard to hide, but it requires either a huge windup or gripping a non-moving opponent, which makes it easier to dodge than a normal punch or palm strike. According to Gensai, it's become specialized to the point where it's only practical when used alongside Blink.
  • Tightening one's muscles in response to the impact also considerably lessens the damage, the reason the attack is so destructive is because when combined with Blink, an unknowing target can be caught utterly off-guard by it, but a skilled and patient enough fighter, whether it be Gensai, Ohma or Koga can see them coming and respond without coming at major risk. A single Wounded Gazelle Gambit from each practically nullified the Rakshasa's Palm's effectiveness.
• Ax-Crazy: Kiryu is mentally unstable due to a combination of an extremely abusive childhood, a powerful self-loathing that causes him to think himself as a sinful person, and an obsession of being brutally killed by Ohma to attain salvation. Combine that with the usage of the Falling Demon, which causes brain damage, and you get a batshit crazy fighter.
• Berserk Button:
  • Kiryu sees himself as a sacrifice meant for Ohma and sees Ohma as a god that would bring him salvation. Consequently, someone unintentionally getting just a few drops of someone's else's blood on Ohma sends him into a homicidal frenzy.
  • Niko Tokita's very existence is one to him. He's enraged that his tutelage of Ohma humanized the latter, thus 'defiling' him in Kiryu's eyes. He sees and hallucinates Niko as a literal demon who corrupts people, and is enraged whenever Ohma opts to use the Niko Style over the Advance.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Ohma is his "God", and every action Setsuna makes is tied to his views of him. He sees death as salvation not only for himself but for others as well, as seen when Ren indirectly mentions Meguro's death. While Setsuna is genuinely polite outside of fighting, also admitting to Shion that he had come to care for her and Matsuda, he's also very much willing to throw the lives his "loved ones" away if it means attaining "salvation" at Ohma's hands.
• Body Horror: His Rakshasa's Palm is capable of twisting flesh, organs and even whole limbs. When he did this to Nikaido's right shoulder, he was unable to use move it but was able still to use the arm below.
• Broken Ace: Kiryu had the intelligence and charisma to go from a child prostitute to a highly intelligent and wealthy individual, even turning his criminal lover into his own manager/loyal underling, and master both the Niko Style and the Koei Style at 16. He's also filled with self-loathing and wants to die by Ohma's hand to achieve salvation. His usage of Fallen Demon literally causes brain damage that makes him hallucinate and aggravate his insanity.
• The Bus Came Back: In chapter 93 of Omega he makes his first appearance since Ashura
• The Cameo: Sort of. While only seen as a silhouette, he's alluded to in How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? by Toshio Ozu, who apparently survived getting his neck twisted 180-degrees.
• Combat Breakdown: His restaurant duel with the Other Niko Tokita has Kiryu gamble on compromising his semi-circular canals. He's struck with a counter hit, reducing the former master and student to duking it out with desperate, simple blows.
• Combat Sadomasochist: He wants the salvation of Ohma brutally killing him and he seems to enjoy hurting others himself.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Niko Style Hidden Technique: Fallen Demon proves to be this and is right up there with the Advance in how bad it’s drawbacks are if not worse. When activated it forces Kiryu in state of Tachypsychia, a neurological condition that, essentially, alters his perception of everything to be much slower then it actually is which allows him to react to and counter his opponents moves more effectively. It is a lot more dangerous then it sounds when you take into account how deadly the Koei style is by default. The drawbacks come in that he can’t actually trigger it consciously, as it only flairs up when he’s in critical condition and therefore not something he can activate on his own. The worst of it though is that each time he uses it he suffers progressively worse and worse neurological strain, something that results in him suffering serious brain damage (in addition to his already messed up sense of morality and reality) that causes him to suffer horrible hallucinations of Niko Tokita everywhere he looks and being people he sees.
• Death Seeker: Death is the same as salvation to him, and he sees Ohma as a god who can deliver just that. Though by the time of Omega he's just generally tired of living but is only continuing on to avenge himself on the Worm and to pass down the Koei Style as penance for betraying his master.
• Deceptive Disciple: Killed his master after mastering his techniques.
• Depraved Homosexual: He used to work as a male prostitute and had an older lover that worked as a bodyguard for him... before he killed him. His entire worldview is built around a ceaseless obsession with Ohma, complete with him popping a stiffie ranting his head off in delirium about how Ohma "ruined himself" by not turning into a horrific animal in a human shape. This only gets worse with time; despite Ohma attempting to relief some of the duress on Kiryu's nervous system with a Niko Style Pressure Point attack, Kiryu goes right back to his old ways and starts grooming Ryuki Gaoh for defeating his mancrush Ohma.
• The Dreaded: Shion agreed to hire him to be her representative fighter not simply because he was strong, but because she felt that saying no would be a bad idea. Kazuo felt unsettled by just seeing him right before his first match started and Ren ends up terrified of him after the end of their fight. Even Kuroki admits that he wouldn't be able to go easy on him.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Kiryu is pale-skinned, has long dark hair and is a terrifying man.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Kiryu is a twisted individual who sees every other fighter that isn't Ohma fit to be brutally crushed and maimed for all he cares. So it says something when even he admits to himself that he's disgusted by Raian's sadism.
• Evil Knockoff: Creates a finger-based variant of the Rakshasa's Palm near the end of his fight with Gensai akin to the man's signature Devil Lance.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: He is considered extremely beautiful to many onlookers, particularly females from the Kengan Association. However, he is also a cruel, sadistic, and insane murderer whenever he fights other opponents.
• Flash Step: How his "Blink" technique appears to his opponents.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Ohma himself acknowledges that Kiryu was manipulated by the other Niko, which ruined his life. However, Ohma also makes it clear that Kiryu's actions are unforgivable and his past doesn't justify all his actions against him or Niko.
• Gathering Steam: He can't consciously activate Fallen Demon, it just turns on by itself after he's been fighting for a while, and being injured makes it more likely to activate. This, in addition to his tendency to learn and improve as he fights, means that the longer a fight goes on, the more powerful he becomes. In his fight with Gensai, he gradually from having his attacks effortlessly parried to the point that Gensai doesn't even need to take a single step, to fighting the karate master on near-equal footing and requiring Gensai to use a very risky Wounded Gazelle Gambit to land the finishing blow.
• The Gift: He has an incredible talent for martial arts. When they were teenagers, he became stronger than Ohma despite having trained for half as long as him or less. In his fight with Gensai, the pressure of the fight pushes him to develop several new techniques mid-fight, including one which combines the Niko and Koei styles.
• Glass Cannon: He's quite fast and has some ridiculously damaging attacks, but his relatively slim build and lack of mastery over the Niko Style means he's not as good at Indestructible as Ohma.
• Incompletely Trained: He claims to have "mastered" the Niko Style, but it becomes clear that he wasn't taught all of its techniques by the "real" Niko as made evident by his lack of knowledge of any of its "ultimate" techniques or Demonsbane.
• Karmic Death: Or just defeat. Kiryu's entire goal was to die for his “sins” at the hands of his destroyer god, Ohma. Specifically while he was using the Advance, as he sees the Niko Style as a form of corruption by the “devil” Niko Tokita. Knowing this, Ohma defeats him non-lethally using the Niko Style, and only the Niko Style, in the name of the man Kiryu hates so much. And states that he'll still be using the Advance on his own terms.
• Klingon Promotion: He entered Koyo Academy's Kengan applicant exam without officially signing in and brutally curb-stomped Toshio Ozu to get Soryuin's attention and approval.
• Hate at First Sight: The very sight of Niko teasing Ohma in a training session inspired murderous rage within him.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Kiryu is obsessed with Ohma's hidden feral nature to the point that thinking about it gives him a Raging Stiffie. He even Sleeps in the Nude while straddling a plush doll with Ohma's likeness.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He has very long hair and is quite good looking to the female gaze. By the time of Omega he has it rather short, without losing any of the bishie
• Loving a Shadow: His obsession with Ohma is less towards Ohma himself and more the projected image he has of him as an all-killing god who Kiryu can use to satisfy his persecution complex. His reason for helping in Niko's death amounts to him turning Ohma into something other than that.
• Major Injury Underreaction: His reaction after Gensai stabs him in the heart? Get up, and walk out of the arena. In fairness, he had moved his actual heart out of the way as it happened.
• The Mentally Disturbed: Aside from easily being provoked into fits of extreme violence, he's shown to be genuinely severely mentally ill, and suffers from a severe, extreme self-loathing as well as multiple delusions and a disconnection from reality.
• Nightmare Face: Gets them a lot, especially during his fight with Ohma.
• Noodle Incident: Somehow figured out the true nature of Shen Wulong, with his vague allusions to it in his journal giving Kazuo enough clues to do the same.
• Odd Friendship: With Shion and more pointedly Matsuda, who he is deeply amicable towards. He outright tells them while saying goodbye to them that they're among the few people he ever really loved, and during his mental breakdown mentions wanting to get them off the island to "protect" them from "Niko".
• One-Hit Kill: One clean hit from Rakshasa's Palm could mean a painful grotesque death.
• Pet the Dog: After Kiryu gets rendered comatose by his defeat at the hands of "the other" Niko, Ohma, Kazuo, and Ryuki go through a personal notebook that Kiryu kept during his crusade against the Worm. While most of his writings are the illegible scribbles and unnerving drawings of a deeply disturbed individual, there is one panel where he gives genuine praise to Ryuki for learning Kiryu's Koei Style so quickly:
  Kiryu: Ryuki is growing stronger by the day. He's mastered the basics of the Koei Style faster than I ever did. HE POSSESSES A BRILLIANT TALENT. I'D BE SO HAPPY IF THE KOEI STYLE - (at this point, the writing devolves into illegible scribbling.)
• Pretty Boy: He's called the "Beautiful Beast" for a reason. His match with Ren Nikaido was even called a showdown of the pretty boys.
• Reluctant Psycho: He's not a bad person by nature, just thoroughly broken by an incredibly harsh life to the point that he's thrown away most morals out of desperation to get Ohma to kill him "properly". In his stable moments he's an entirely pleasant person to be around and even comes to genuinely care about his employers in the short time he knows them.
• The Rival: To Ohma. Their entire reason for entering the tournament is to get to each other, albeit for different reasons. Ironically, they never meet in the tournament, and their fight outside of it is a complete washout in Ohma's favor.
• Sanity Slippage: While he was hardly stable beforehand, the brain damage caused by overusing Fallen Demon causes him to utterly lose it, randomly killing a total six people he hallucinated were Niko taunting him. By the end of his fight with Ohma, he's become little more than a rambling lunatic.
• Sensei for Scoundrels: Has shown a willingness to teach martial arts in Omega, but unlike Ohma or either of the Nikos he trained under, Kiryu has a very laidback teaching style that concentrates on refining and strengthening existing skills and only tutoring them on new techniques if asked.
• Slasher Smile: A very common expression he flashes whenever he fights and a good indicator that he’s uses the Fallen Demon technique. As his smile gets more and more murderous as he uses it to a point he seems more demonic then human.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Not a ghost, and at best he's only feminine looking when you ignore his physique. That said the story frequently gives him the appearance of a stringy-haired demon who's face is shrouded in shadow, with glowing eyes and a Slasher Smile.
• Terror Hero: By Omega he made an alliance with Gaoh and Akoya to save the wrold from Worm. The three most kill happy fighters are on a killing spree.
• Tragic Villain: Despite doing some very bad things, Kiryu is at the end of the day a severely damaged man whose obsession with Ohma spouts from his severe persecution complex brought on by terrible life circumstances. Even Ohma admits to feeling little more than pity for him by the end.
• Villainous Breakdown: At the end of his fight with Ohma, he begins incoherently screaming when Ohma refuses to use Advance on him and instead uses the Niko Style to beat him.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: He only ever uses Rakshasa's Palm, which, to be fair, is extremely effective. He later figures out variations of the Palm with different limbs but he never tries other attacks. This serves as a foil to Ohma and his wide variety of moves.
• Yandere: To Ohma, big time. He beat the crap out of one of Metsudo's guards for accidentally getting somebody else's blood on Ohma. In fact, Ren Nikaido pissed him off by cutting Setsuna's face, on the grounds that he was a "sacrifice" for Ohma.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Mingling of the Fox and Tiger, a move which combines the Koei Style's Rakshasa's Palm with the Niko Style's Swimming Swallow, which he invents during his fight with Gensai. The irregular and ever-changing angles of attack from Swimming Swallow negate the Rakshasa's Palm's predictability, while the Rakshasa's Palm's immense twisting power vastly improves Swimming Swallow's damage output.

Takayuki Chiba - Yoshitake Real Estate

"I can box like Kaolan, wrestle like Sekibayashi, and ground grapple like Imai Cosmo. Do you get it yet? Your opponent is not Takayubi Chiba. It is a chimera of two dozen fighters."

The Faceless Man

Voiced By: Takanori Hoshino (Japanese), Todd Haberkorn (English)

Age: 37

An "Actor", people from the criminal underworld who are masters of impersonation for a variety of purposes, whether it be fraud, theft, scams and in Chiba's case, fight scenes for movies. Through thorough study and rehearsal, he's able to perfectly imitate the moves of other martial artists.

---

• Curb Stomp Cushion: He actually managed to give Hatsumi some trouble for most of their 26-second fight. The problem was that he just had to mimic the wrong fighting style.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: The entire first part of his fight is him explaining how his ability works. Naturally, he gets his ass kicked in less than a minute. 26 seconds, to be precise.
• Fatal Flaw: Overconfidence. His power is a genuine menace, but he ends up overestimating himself by using an Aikido technique against Sen, a well-established Aikido master, and subsequently gets destroyed when it is easily countered.
• Foreshadowing: His occupation as an actor of the underworld. They are described as people who are able to seamlessly imitate and impersonate other people, so much so that even their target's closest acquaintances would have difficulty telling the difference. By Omega, it is revealed that the Worm have infiltrated the Kengan Association by using lower-ranking members to impersonate people that work for Kengan-associated companies. The performances of these impersonators are so good, only Ryuki Gaoh has consistently managed to notice.
• Flat Character: Due to his lack of screen-time, he never really gets to establish much personality.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Forfeits his rematch with Ryuki during the Berserker Bowl preliminaries, as he was still feeling the last fight and knew he wouldn't stand a chance.
• Master Actor: An actor of the underworld. He's basically a professional impersonator who also happens to be very ripped.
• Master of None: He can copy any martial arts no matter how custom made including Kanoh's Formless style, and even fuse them together with enough practice. The downside however is that he isn't specifically big and since it's more acting than fighting on instincts he is not as fast or focused than the top fighter. Sen turns the table the moment he sees through Chiba's aikido pin and Ryuki breaks his Formless/silat combo by blindsiding him.
• Mundane Made Awesome: His ability to copy other's fighting styles by acting is represented by him shapeshifting into the characters he's imitating (Kaolan and Okubo) during his introduction, although he isn't actually doing so aside from imitating their fighting style, voices, and mannerisms.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: His physical appearance is based on Christian Bale, with his pointy haircut referencing the actor's tenure as Batman for The Dark Knight Trilogy. He's also based on the Japanese actors and martial artists Sonny Chiba and Sanada Hiroyuki.
• Out of Focus: The biggest victim of this in the series. While even the less important fighters have a fight to develop themselves and/or make appearances outside of the ring, Chiba doesn't. His one fight against Hatsumi is one of the shortest in the series (lasting only 26 seconds in-story), and afterwards, his only appearance is as one of the spectators in the final day of the tournament. He does get a bit of focus in Omega during the preliminaries of the Berserkbowl, but even then he remains one of the less developed fighter.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: While his copying may not be instantaneous or flawless, it's still an impressive technique. The fact he can even mimic something as unique as Agito's Formless style and even combine it with Rolón's Silat in a way that actually works is a huge testament to both his acting and his own prowess as a fighter (since he seems to not be trained formally). However, his lack of fighters instincts combined with his overestimation of his own ultimately limited physical power means he lags behind many other fighters in the series; He can move like Rolón or Agito, but he can't MOVE like the two of them can.
• Power Copying: His forte, but it takes hours of study and practice to pull off, and he can't copy people's physical strength, muscle memory or unique traits, only their techniques.
• Secret Identity: Takayuki Chiba is obviously not his real name; during his introduction in the Annihilation Tournament, the announcer admitted that they had found literally no information at all on Chiba's identity, and even after he becomes a regular character, he keeps his face obscured by a cap and shades in public and basically uses the Chiba identity as his Kayfabe when he's talking to Kengan contacts of his like Ohma or Nezu.
• Unreliable Expositor: He lies to his opponent about his powers to gain a psychological advantage before combat, telling them he can copy techniques by watching them once. This makes him appear as a larger-than-life character and a monstrously powerful fighter, when he... really isn't, but the psychological edge can mean everything in a fight and the things he already has copied makes it seem as if he's telling the truth.

Sen Hatsumi - Nogi Group

"Did you think you were the only one who read my moves?"

The Floating Cloud

Voiced by: Ryuzo Hasuike (Japanese), Christopher Corey Smith (English), Jose Luis Rivera (Latin American Spanish)

Age: 41

Nogi Group's affiliated fighter. A relaxed and incredibly unreliable womanizer, who makes his debut into the story with a record of 39 wins and 15 losses; 9 by oversleeping, 4 from bailing and 2 from forgetting there was a match on. Despite this, he is an incredibly powerful fighter when at his best who has even defeated the dreaded Wakatsuki. He is a master of Aikido, or more specifically Hatsumi-style Aikido passed down through his familial lineage.

---

• Amicable Exes: Used to be in an on and off relationship with Shion Soryuin. In spite of some antagonism between them, he gets on well with her, with it being clear that she still has lingering feelings for him, at least until he starts flirting with a younger woman. She shows great concern when he loses to the Fang, running down to the arena to tend to him.
• Batman Gambit: Attempted and failed during his fight with Agito. He planned on using Agito's arrogance and his tendency to try and beat his opponent with their own style against him by allowing him to get in close so he could use his Aikido. However, after the asskicking Agito received from Kaolan and some pointers from Omori, he radically changed his style to one that is more analytical, forcing Sen to take risks to get in close to him. It doesn't pan out well for him, with him losing spectacularly in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's one of the friendliest, most easygoing fighters in the entire series, and he has no interest in killing his opponents. However, he was a leading candidate for the Fang Of Metsudo, and when he's at the top of his game, he is nearly unstoppable, even handing a defeat to Wakatsuki.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He barely has any passion for the Kengan matches and would rather flirt with every woman he sees and laze around, which has lead to him screwing over his employers over and over again by oversleeping, bailing, and just plain forgetting there was going to be a match in the first place, and he hates practicing as well, but when he gets serious, he gets serious.
• Brilliant, but Lazy:
  • He's an extremely moody person and also hates practicing, which affects his fighting ability in unpredictable ways. On a bad day, he might lose to your average bruiser; in peak condition, he previously defeated the nigh-invincible Wakatsuki. He was scouted as a candidate for the Fifth Fang of Metsudo, but got bored and skipped out after a week - leaving the spot open for Agito Kanoh.
  • His fighting style shows elements of this, focusing on avoiding exchanging blows, securing a joint lock and finishing his opponent quickly. It requires a high level of skill and finishes fights quickly with minimal physical effort.
  • He is also a much more strategic fighter than he looks, both his fights with Kaneda and Bando shows he can outgambit some of the smartest fighter just in time.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's a shameless womanizer who's so lazy that he's prone to screwing over his employers simply by not being attentive. He's also a master Aikido user whose responsible for giving Wakatsuki one of his two defeats prior to the start of the series.
• The Casanova: Played with, with him crossing into Casanova Wannabe. He is always seen flirting or trying to pick up women, even before the start of his first match in the tournament, he's pulling out the moves with Sayaka. He is however never seen doing it successfully, usually because Shion intervenes.
• Combat Pragmatist: Combined with Confusion Fu, Hatsumi favors Aikido-style joint locks for breaking limbs with minimal effort. He also has no problem gouging the eye of a vastly stronger and dangerous opponent or using a throw which would be fatal to ordinary people, though he doesn't like killing opponents.
• Confusion Fu: His Hatsumi-style Aikido combined with self-taught moves makes him unpredictable. Whether it is eye gouging or avoiding hits by millimeters or running circles around his opponent, no two fights play out the same way with him.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Delivers one to Takayuki Chiba, beating him in 26 seconds. Is on the receiving end of one from Agito Kanoh, having his techniques nullified and being unable to injure him, performing far worse than Kanoh's previous opponents.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Despite what his record in the Kengan matches might suggest, he's never actually lost a fight he participated in. He's also one of the many characters who wish to defeat the undefeated Fang of Metsudo.
• Determinator: Even after having his best technique countered and with things looking bleak, he holds onto Agito's waist, reacting to his weight shift and still looking for a throw opportunity. It takes him being hit by Agito's special attack again to get him into a position where he can be knocked out.
• Dirty Coward: Played for Laughs. During the attempted coup by Hayami in the Annihilation Tournament, all of the bodyguards and fighters in the tournament fought bravely against his guardians...except for Hatsumi, as he outright refuses to join the fight and his response to getting spotted by a massive group of guardians is to run away from them with a stoic expression on his face, not wanting to get involved at all.
• Ephebophile: He and Shion had their first date when she was still in high school. He was in his twenties.
• Fingore: Ends up getting his finger horribly mangled after he fails to use one of his striking techniques on Agito Kanoh.
• Identical Stranger: He looks and acts a lot like the deceased Niko Tokita. Ohma admits this is in large part why he treated Hatsumi with hostility, not wanting to interact with a lookalike of his late master.
• Nonchalant Dodge: At his peak condition he can do this, moving millimeters to dodge his opponent's attacks. He does it so well that it looks like he's being hit, when in fact he takes no damage. This is because he knows the "limiting line" of his opponents attack where the attack stops right down to the millimeter and dodging it then.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty: One look at his fight record would indicate that he is a mediocre fighter at best with 39 wins and 15 losses. Turns out his losses are all from him not showing up to the fight: 9 from oversleeping, 4 from bailing and 2 from forgetting where the match took place, while his wins include a win against Wakatsuki. He ups his wins to 41, but also takes his first true loss in the tournament in Ashura when Kanoh one-sidedly beats his ass.
• Oh, Crap!: After his front flip gambit worked against Bando he remains shook at how close he was to have his skull shatterred.
• One Degree of Separation: As it turns out, his grandfather, Goichiro Hatsumi, the founder of Hatsumi-style Aikido, is a good friend of Erioh Kure and Joji Narushima. He uses that connection to get in touch with Wu Xing and the Wu Clan in China and train with them and swap techniques with both the Wu Clan and Rei Mikazuchi, which is what lead to his disappearance for most of Omega.
• Put on a Bus: He's disappeared a year since Ashura, last seen heading to China with Himuro being unable to track him from there. It's because he is training with the main branch of the Wu Clan alongside Rei Mikazuchi, a clan of assassins related to the Kure Clan, who don't want to be found.
• Signature Move: His Gathering Clouds: Triple Strike; three rapid blows to vital points on the face^note Between the eyes, below the nose above the lip, and below the lip just above the chin, which are some of the softest and most vulnerable parts of the skull. with a raised knuckle punch from point-blank range such as in a grapple, potentially knocking the opponent out instantly. He tried this on the Fang, but was countered and had his finger broken by a Classical Jiujitsu fingerhold.
• The Bus Came Back He and Rei reappear in Omega as the final match to the Kengan-Purgatory tournament begins. He's there on the request of Wu Xing to help take care of the Worm.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: A downplayed version. Despite having defeated Bando with a technique that would have snapped a normal human's neck and the latter expecting Hatsumi to finish him while he's on the ground and unable to move, Hatsumi makes it clear that he's not interested in flat-out murder.
• Weak, but Skilled: Downplayed, as he's not that weak, being able to break bones with an Aikido pin. Compared to the other fighters, however, he is otherwise of a fairly average build and while very strong to the point where he can do one-finger pushups, he has no unique superhumans traits to him. He makes up for it with his impressive skills in Hatsumi-style Aikido and distancing, finishing his fights in seconds after securing a joint lock, including against an opponent with Abnormal Limb Rotation Range.
• The Worf Effect: After two impressive wins and being hyped as a candidate for the title of "Fang of Metsudo", he loses badly against Agito Kanoh, barely scratching him to show Kanoh's improvements and that he has started to focus on winning.
• You Remind Me of X: Ohma does not get along well with him. Even after the issue of Sen replacing him as Nogi's fighter was resolved, Ohma still openly admits that he dislikes him. Eventually, Ohma admits that this is because Sen reminds him of Niko, right down to his personality and looks. In the final rounds, Ohma gets over it enough that he helps Hatsumi train for his fight with Agito.

Hajime Hanafusa - Teito University

"Oh? That's quite insulting. I am a doctor, you know. I am fully capable of diagnosing my own mental state. Objectively speaking, I'm far from normal!"

The Dissector

Voiced By: Akira Ishida (Japanese), Erik Kimerer (English)

Age: Secret <3

An extremely skilled surgeon who doubles as an assassin serving the Japanese government. He's participating in the tournament entirely to be rid of Yohei Bando, but his presence as a pseudo-ringside doctor ends up being lifesaving for several of the major characters.

---

• Absent-Minded Professor: He doesn't seem to get that people don't want themselves or others to be dissected by him.
• Almighty Janitor: Many fighters severely injured during the Annihilation Tournament are placed under his care. After several patients have been treated by him, a comedic extra chapter reveals that he isn't even the official doctor on staff.
  Official Kengan Nurse: Doctor... it looks like he's still squatting here. Is that okay?
  Official Kengan Doctor: ...It's alright. He's better than me, anyway.
• Ax-Crazy: When Bando pokes fun at his questionable mental state, Hanafusa freely admits that he is batshit crazy by any normal objective measure. Word of God explains that he has the same "madness" that Meguro is afflicted with, but is able to keep his in check with logic and rationality.^note Word of God also remembers to state that reason =/= conscience, hinting at Hanafusa's potential propensity for darker endeavors. The result is that Hanafusa appears to be a rather creepy though outwardly amicable individual with some very disturbing interests and tendencies.
• Black Comedy: Is praised for his bedside manners repeatedly, even though he often requests to dissect people with exceptional physiques or weird conditions. He also takes the piss with elderly patients, but those seem to appreciate his humor for what it is.
  Hanafusa: "Hello old man, I thought your number would be up by now."
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Has surgically altered his femurs to be shaped like blades of bone that pop out of his palms at will.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's a weirdo and a creep who has an obsession with dissecting anybody whose body he finds interesting out of a twisted curiousity, but he's also a damn good doctor, as all of his modifications were installed by himself and he also ends up saving the lives of multiple fighters during the Kengan Annihilation Tournament.
• Character Catchphrase: "I am a doctor, you know."
• Combat Pragmatist: Despite knowing Lingshu Chin Na, Hanafusa asserts that he's not a martial artist and that it's just a means to an end for him. When he starts using weapons he built into himself and a deadly virus within his blood it becomes clear that he meant he can and will use anything he can get his hands on.
• Creepy Good: He's not necessarily a good person, but he's not actively malevolent compared to other Ax-Crazy fighters. He's a competent and faithful doctor to the injured fighters of the tournament (putting aside his desire to dissect them, which is really just Played for Laughs anyway) and they're okay with him coming along for fun.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Combined with Creepy Blue Eyes, making him look rather unsettling when he's not Played for Laughs.
• Cyborg: Hanafusa has built-in a number of augmentations and weapons into his body, including bone blades in his arms, high-pressure gas in his heels, and a mechanical device that keeps his heart beating even in the event that he's supposed to die. Word of God says that he has other alterations that weren't demonstrated in-story. He is also the only character in the series to never be drawn sweating during fight scenes.
• Deadly Doctor: He's a surgeon who uses his medical knowledge to augment his body to unnatural extremes.
• Feels No Pain: Differing from Masaki Meguro, who just translates pain to pleasure, Hanafusa surgically modified his own brain to completely block out the sensation of pain, meaning that he can only be taken down by either crippling or killing him.
• Foreshadowing: His medical prowess within the field of neurosurgery in particular, managing to surgically remove an otherwise thought fatal brain tumor in The Dissector and his Feels No Pain modification to his own brain, comes up several times later on in relation to Terashi and The Worm's tinkering with the brain structure for biological Super Mode material.
• Fragile Speedster: Seems to be the case at the beginning of his fight with Bando, but this trope is ultimately subverted when its revealed that Hajime can't feel pain, making him a lot more durable by virtue of his ability to flat-out ignore most injuries.
• Friend to All Children: In The Dissector side story, he brings the children in the hospital he's been dispatched to outside for a wheelchair race.
• Hero of Another Story: His backstory side chapter gives a lengthy view into a different side of the criminal underworld than is otherwise shown throughout both Ashura and Omega.
• Humanoid Abomination: Pretty much turned himself into one, something Bando lampshades and says he shares in common with him.
• Mad Doctor: Despite being a very accomplished medical professional, Hanafusa has absolutely no qualms with operating and surgically altering his own and others' bodies and has a jarring interest in dissecting the bodies of interesting specimens (something which is almost always Played for Laughs). If it weren't for the fact that he is portrayed such an amicable fellow, his apparent lack of ethics and morals would raise red flags.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Thanks to his inability to feel pain, he can calmly react to having two fingers broken and take two swords to the torso like nothing as long as they miss his vitals.
• Non-Action Guy: Played With. He's actually quite dangerous with his combination of Chinese acupressure techniques and body modifications, but he has absolutely zero interest in fighting, having only entered the tournament as part of the government's plans to have Bando killed.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Gets his neck snapped, but the surgeries he performed on himself keep him alive until someones' friendly enough to pop his head back into place, after which he acts like nothing happened. He does admit that if Bando had snapped a few more of his vertebrae he'd be in trouble, and he's still shaky-handed for a while after getting back up.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: All of the organic and implanted weapons he brings in count as cheating, but because they were never caught in the pre-fight inspection, he can get away with it. (Also because the weapons are technically now a part of his body.)
• Not So Stoic: He actually falls out of his seat in shock when he sees Bando walk into the arena his next fight, having survived the virus that Hanafusa injected into him.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: His self-modifications would require a staggering range of expertise downright impossible for a single doctor to gain in a single lifetime. Then again, his age is simply a "Secret <3", implying he's been alive much longer than you think. You're free to imagine the implications of the fact that these augmentations are deemed fit for use by the Japanese government, and has probably gone through thorough testing first.
• Perpetual Smiler: His default expression has such a smile. Though, he does drop it when he's particularly baffled, such as finding a spare heart left for him just as Ohma was in the middle of expiring.
• Poisonous Person: Well, Disease-Filled but the same concept. His blood is laced with a deadly virus. Had he been allowed by the government, he would have infected the entire island with a plague just to get things over with.
• Pressure Point: His martial arts, Lingshu Chin Na, strikes acupuncture points.
• Professional Killer: His main job. A government-sponsored one at that.
• Self Made Super Powers: Hajime is a Combat Medic who modified his body to have wolverine-style claws, pressurized gas in his heel to massively increase the speed and power of a flying kick, immunity to pain, a device to prevent his heart from stopping, and several other things.
• Ship Tease: Constantly with Kokomi, to the point that multiple times characters tell them to just go out already.
• Story-Breaker Power: Hanafusa is not the best fighter, even with his modified hidden weapons. That being said, he has access to a lethal airborne virus that can kill people on a massive scale, as seen in a side chapter where he disposed of a zealot group. He singlehandedly could have killed all of the Guardians with this virus if it weren't for the risk of collateral damage and could practically kill any character in the series if it weren't for the government limiting his use of the airborne virus. This makes him Nogi's trump card against Shen and the Worm as he is completely willing to release all the viruses on his body and kill the whole arena. Shen suppose he can survive it but his entourage are dead for certain.
  Hanafusa: "I could use the virus that my 'higher ups' forbade me from using. That would kill everyone on the island though."
• Super Doc:
  • To an almost parodical degree and acknowledged as such in-story. Snapped necks, brain tumors, broken hands, nerve damage, internal damage? Doesn't matter, Hanafusa will have you spry and in tip-top shape in a matter of days.
  • He's able to perform surgery on himself due to completely cutting off his own sense of pain.
  • He treats the fighters injured in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament but isn't even on the payroll. He simply made himself at home in the medical office and the actual doctor on staff allowed it because he knows he's the more experienced one.
• Vague Age: His age is listed as being a secret in his profile, and he looks like a lithe young man but has FAR too much medical experience and knowledge for somebody of his age to realistically have, especially since he's managed to implant multiple weapons into himself and seems to be a Master of All when it comes to medicine.
• Weak, but Skilled: His Lingshu Chin Na doesn't quite pack a punch like the Kure-style or the Niko Style, but because it strikes acupuncture points it even manages to pressure giants like Bando with it.

Yohei Bando - Juoh Communications

“David killed Goliath with a sling. What do you have?”

The Bloody Tusk

Voiced By: Kusumi Naomi (Japanese), Keith Silverstein (English)

Age: 51

A medical student specializing in neuroscience who shook the nation of Japan thirty years ago by raiding Yakuza hideouts. After killing 17 Yakuza, 2 police officers and injuring another 9 people, he willingly surrendered and was sentenced to death. Three decades and 45 Ministers of Justice later, Bando is miraculously still alive due to his unique constitution. As a last-ditch effort to finally kill him, the Japanese government allowed Bando to be rented out to the CEO of Juoh Communications in hopes of him dying in the Annihilation Tournament.

---

• Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: His key trait that makes him so hard to kill is that all his joints have 140 degrees of lateral movement and he has complete control over it. For a reference standpoint, everything except the knee is usually able to bend 25-100 degrees. It allows him to survive 45 executions by hanging, Hajime Hanafusa's attack to his spine, and Sen Hatsumi driving his head directly into the ground.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the manga, he was scouted as a legitimate competitor for the tournament. In the anime, even his sponsor is in on the scheme to get him killed in a fight.
• Ambiguously Evil: Despite his reputation as an infamous murderer, it should be noted that Bando's victim count consists of mostly Yakuza. After killing two officers and injuring four, he willingly turned himself in. He openly admits that he was reluctant to killing Hanafusa (mistaking him for a kid) and claims that the only reason he opts to kill his opponents is because he doesn't know any other way to beat them.
• Affably Evil: Bando is rather civil despite his reputation. He also admits that he enjoyed fighting Hatsumi on some level and wanted to fight him again (though the feeling wasn't mutual since, well, Hatsumi would have died if he got hit once).
• Bald of Evil: He has a balding spot on his head, though despite his reputation as a murderer it's debatable how evil he actually is.
• Body Horror: His obscene flexibility has him contort in various ways that look like he doesn't have any bones at all.
• Born Winner: He has little to no experience with hand-to-hand combat and no formal training, but his anomalous build and the (seemingly) natural condition of his joints still makes him one of the most lethal fighters in the Annhilation Tournament.
• Cool Old Guy: His previous crimes and lack of hesitation about using lethal force aside, Bando is both cordial and intelligent, never showing disrespect to the other fighters and genuinely acting in a way that you'd never think he'd have the kind of past he does. He even breaks out of his restraints to save Iwan Karaev and Komada during Toyo's coup... by making the Guardians attacking them's heads explode.
• David vs. Goliath: As Hanafusa lampshades, both of Bando's opponents are the David to his Goliath since he could kill both of them in one good hit. Hanafusa narrowly survives his loss, while Hatsumi manages to carry out the original story and win.
• Dented Iron: He takes some of the worst wounds in the tournament. Over a dozen pressure point hits, sliced by a hidden sword which left a permanent scar on his face, gets infected with a lethal disease and cured in one day, gets his eye gouged and is tough enough to not be blinded, his arm is shattered in 2 places and he is slammed on his head by a throw that was meant to kill him. He survives all of this in 2 days, and is still spry enough to put some of Hayami's Guardians under during the coup.
• The Dreaded: Knowing his reputation, the spectators felt uneasy about the idea of him fighting. Even Ohma labels Bando as “creepy”.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He doesn't mock his opponents, admits that he doesn't take enjoyment in killing what looks like a kid (Hanafusa), and informs him that he simply doesn't know any other way to beat his opponents other than killing them.
• Feels No Pain: Bando has an insanely high pain tolerance, shrugging off dozens of pressure point strikes from Hanafusa and Hatsumi attempting to gouge his left eye. It's not entirely clear whether it comes from his joints' motion range allowing him to divert the hits, or if he's just that tough.
• Foreshadowing: Several hints and interactions of some of the more antagonistic characters seem to imply that his previous killings and medical career had some sort of relation to "Worm", the organization who has an interest in Ohma. Omega reveals that Bando's research had to do with transferring one's mind to another body, which Worm anonymously funded in return for any information he'd acquire in the process related to the brain.
• Genius Bruiser: While he has no real fighting skill to speak of, Bando has proven to be perceptive other fighter's physical conditions due to his experience as a medical student, such as Haruo's "awakening" and Hanafusa's inability to feel pain. He was also able to deduce what martial art Hanafusa was using against him, and that Hatsumi was keeping his distance from him to feel out the range of his "Whips". His only real problem is that he's not used to applying his knowledge in a one-on-one fistfight, but even when Shangahi'd into the Annihilation Tournaent on short notice, he's able to quickly adapt even though he is defeated in the second round.
• Humanoid Abomination: He lampshades this himself while showing off his flexibility to Hanafusa and the crowd. In med school he was just an unusually tall and lanky guy, but a 150-kilo man who can twist his spine backwards while talking to you in a stoic and bored voice is bound to freak off anyone. Ohma even calls him creepy.
• Improbable Weapon User: By dislocating his shoulder and elbow joints, he can use his arms like whips to strike at a distance. His "whips" are strong enough to destroy concrete and kill a man with one blow. His victims during his murder spree had absolutely no defensive wounds on them, implying they were taken by surprise, even when Bando attacked his victims head-on with his whips.
• Logical Weakness: His joint rotation and dislocation are surreal but he is still flesh and bone, meaning his arm can be shatter if the bone is grabbed directly and his whips causes swelling pain in his shoulder so he refrain from using it in his first fight.
• Made of Iron: See that list under Dented Iron? He walked almost all of that off without help, the lethal disease being the only one requiring serious medical attention. He fights the day after contracting it without any hindrance to his performance.
• Mighty Glacier: Compared to other Unskilled, but Strong fighters, he is glacial. He is never seen running in any of his fights, simply walking to his opponents or using his "whips" whilst standing still. His "whips" however are fast as shit, requiring Hatsumi to never stop running the entire fight to avoid being hit.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Based off of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal.
• One-Hit Kill: His whips are treated as instant death, having killed many yakuza with them, and is one of the deadliest move in the tournament.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: When he was put behind bars, Bando was just as tall as he is now, but fairly scrawny-looking. By the time of the Annihilation Tournament, Bando is a 147kg muscle-beast, with Bando's only explanation being that he bulked up "a little bit" since his youth.
• Self-Deprecation: He refers to himself as a "piece of shit, just like you" when he fights a Religious Bruiser death row inmate who calls Bando a heathen... right before Bando splatters the guy's head all over the walls.
• Serial Killer: One of the two most notorious in Japan, having killed 17 yakuzas and 2 police officers before being arrested. His introduction has him dispose of the other.
• Slipped the Ropes: He manages to free himself from his handcuffs in his introduction. He does it off-screen, but it is implied he used his Abnormal Limb Rotation Range to do so.
• The Stoic: It's even harder to get a rise out of him than any of the other stoic characters.
• Super-Speed: He’s incredibly slow in terms of mobility but the speed at which he can pull off his joint rotations and “whip” technique are where his super speed comes into play. Numerous near fatal attacks he takes in his two fights are avoided thanks to him reacting fast enough to adjust his body to take the blows or dodge them (which is incredibly impressive as both Hajime and Hatsumi specialize in surprise lethality and speed respectively). His “whips” are the “truly” superhuman speed moves though and are comparable to Rei’s own general super speed. When he first uses it in the tournament next to no one who watched him do it during his fight against Hatsumi could even tell what he was actually doing for most of the fight, the move being so fast it looked like the ground he was hitting was suddenly exploding by some remote detonation or hidden weapon he was using.
• Super-Strength: The reason why he's so deadly; Bando can blow people's skull caps off with his bare hands.
• The Man They Couldn't Hang: He survived 45 executions by hanging over the course of 25 years due to his Abnormal Limb Rotation Range. Because of this, and the fact that hanging is the only legal way to execute prisoners in Japan, the government decides to get creative and allow Bando to participate in Kengan matches hoping one of the fighters kills him. This failed too.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Bando is something of a Mad Scientist, but even he knew that it was best to walk away after his commission from the Worm was done rather than pry further into the machinations of the group.
• Touch of Death: He is able to end fights with one attack, with both his opponents avoiding him and using hit and run attacks. Once he gets his hands on Hanafusa, he breaks his neck with ease and would have gutted Hatsumi with one hit from his arm-whips.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He's not a martial artist, but is strong enough to easily shatter a man's skull and destroy concrete with his "whips". In both of his fights, one clean hit was/would be all that was needed to kill his opponent.

Kaolan Wongsawat - Yato Trading Co.

"You want to box with me? If this is a joke, it's not funny."

The Thai God of War

Voiced by: Kenjiro Tsuda (Japanese), Christopher Corey Smith (English)

Age: 28

The undefeated unified heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and the personal bodyguard of King Rama XIII. Scouted by the previous king of Thailand at the tender age of 5 for his talent at Muay Thai, he's spent every day since honing himself to be the king's "sword". In Omega, he is chosen to be one of the 13 fighters representing the Kengan Association. He is the first to fight against Carlos Medel.

---

• The Ace: In terms of boxing and a plain stand-up fight, he is considered the absolute master of both. It takes a special kind of person for the Fang of Metsudo, a man who masters basically any martial art he tries and has made a career of beating others with their own styles, to get completely outclassed in a striking match and having a majority of his attempts at forcing a grappling dogfight countered, making him feel actual fear for his life.
  • Come Omega his status as this is reaffirmed in his fight with Carlos who is also considered The Ace of striking and boxing on the Purgatory side. Kaolan, once he got over the initial shock of Carlos’ incredible striking speed, adjusted quickly and countered just about everything Carlos threw at him and proved to be the superior combatant in both striking and boxing despite his opponent's best efforts. Carlos only wins by forcing a double ring out, with him taking critical injuries that left him out cold afterwards to pull it off, while Kaolan suffered a couple of slightly bruised bones and a nosebleed and just went back to his sides fighting pit no worse for wear.
• Achilles' Heel: God Glow, his new technique in Omega, creates one in that by forcing him to commit everything into a devastating straight right punch, his footing is immediately compromised in the aftermath. So much so that even a bantamweight could flip him over.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • He's a monster of a technical boxer and as such basically knows how to counter everything in boxing, which he exploits against the Fang by moving in such a way that the Fang has to use boxing moves against him, since all his other possible options would put him in an even worse spot, allowing Kaolan to gain the upper hand at first.
  Himuro, flabbergasted in the crowd: "I know I just saw it happen before my eyes, but how could anyone do that intentionally?"
  • His technical prowess and analysis skills are displayed again in his fight with Carlos Medel, the only person to be pound-for-pound ranked higher than Kaolan in boxing. After initially being overwhelmed by Carlos' speed and foresight, he is able to predict how Carlos will move based on his boxing style, nullifying his speed and foresight and forcing him to use other non-boxing techniques to avoid taking too many blows.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy:
  • His confidence in his own abilities is very well-earned. Up until his fight with Kaneda, he had been disappointed by the line up of fighters in the tournament. He wrote off Chiba as an amateur who could only copy other's skills, Haruo as an oaf with only his size going for him, Hajime as a weakling who relied on weapons, and Inaba as a colorful oddity. He considered Kaneda to be average until he became impressed by his analytical ability and fighting spirit.
  • His pride comes to bite him in his fight against Carlos Medel. He becomes certain that he's figured out all of Medel's tricks and goes on the offensive to finish the fight. This allows Medel to lure him to the edge of the arena and drag him out of the ring, with Kaolan's inexperience with Purgatory's rules leading to him instinctively putting out his hand to stop his fall, and losing by Ring Out. Kaolan himself cites his pride as the reason that happened, seeing an undersized opponent who would be half dead from a dozen of his attacks cornered and thinking of the fight as won already.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: He's one of the most softspoken fighters in the series. He's also an absolute juggernaut of striking that can beat even the Fang Of Metsudo himself within an inch of his life.
• Birds of a Feather: In the 4komas he becomes friends with Karo, who is similarly quiet and withdrawn.
• Boxing Battler: He is the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. His actual forte, however, is Muay Thai. He's at his absolute peak if he combines the movements and options of Muay Thai with his boxing blows, allowing him to convincingly give the Fang of Metsudo a very intense challenge.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Quite literally at that. He was completely and utterly unmatched in his home sport of Muay Thai, so he picked up boxing just to cover a gap in his skillset as a bodyguard and ended up the heavyweight champion of four major boxing leagues after just three years. There's some Truth in Television to it as well, as Nak Muay have historically done very well when transitioning into boxing or kickboxing, with some success in MMA as well.
• Breakout Character: Kaolan performs notably well in popularity polls, consistently ranking above more central protagonists with fans. The fact that he's a stoic, monstrous badass who's one of the more sympathetic fighters certainly helps.
• Career-Ending Injury: Subverted. It was initially left up in the air if the broken hand he suffers in his fight with Agito would permanently end his boxing career, but by the epilogue, he made a safe recovery.
• Combat Pragmatist: Once Kaolan pulls out all the stops, there's no mercy on his part. He almost slices Agito's throat open with an elbow, with the Fang narrowly moving out of the way enough to just make it a shallow cut.
• The Comically Serious: He is this when dealing with the antics of the How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? crew.
• Crack Defeat: His loss against Carlos Mendel during the first Kengan match against Purgatory was due to the latter tricking him to get a ring out. Otherwise, Kaolan had been wrecking his opponent while barely taking any damage himself.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Defied. He deliberately picked up boxing to make up for Muay Thai's lack of emphasis on punches^note Punches are barely worth any points in Muay Thai to begin with, and major advancements in use of the clinch render punch-heavy styles practically worthless in both professional and amateur bouts. to avert this.
• Determinator: While he's not exactly the toughest fighter physically, he's got the willpower to spare, which he demonstrates by powering through a clean punch to the jaw and a broken hand just to try and beat Kanoh. Kanoh was so utterly demoralized by Kaolan's grit that he basically shuts down mentally.
• Disappointed in You: He expresses his utter disappointment in Saw Paing after the latter loses to Rei Mikazuchi, calling him a spineless coward for giving up after just one (really close) loss. It, along with Kaolan's stellar performance against the Fang, ends up reigniting Saw Paing's will to fight.
• The Dreaded: He's the best boxer and Muay Thai fighter in the world by a country mile and thus one of the favorites to win the Kengan Annihilation tournament right off the bat. Even Sekibayashi, one of the absolute best fighters in the Association before the tournament, describes him as an 'honest-to-goodness monster'. He ends up dropping out in the second round, but the Fang acknowledges that Kaolan's loss was essentially just bad luck due to Agito accidentally blocking Kaolan's fist with his elbow, shattering it. Agito shamefully admits to himself the endgame of his fight with Kaolan made him terrified of not just losing, but dying.
• Expy: According to the authors, Broly was among one of the character's inspirations appearance-wise.
• Fragile Speedster: While by any sane metric he's a Lightning Bruiser, compared to other heavyweights Kaolan is this. He has a small frame for a heavyweight to the point where he's actually under legal weight for the weightclass at his usual 91kg^note That said, Kaolan would only have to put on two kilos to be within the legal limit, something easy to accomplish by just bulking up a little for when he's boxing professionally. and his style of boxing is built to compensate for this, involving tight and precise movements, aggressive control of the fight's momentum and unorthodox parrying techniques such as shoulder rolls. He doesn't go for single knockout blows, instead overwhelming his opponents with incredibly rapid barrages of attacks.
• Friendship Denial: All the time with Saw Paing. Even though it's clear from his chapter in the prequel manga Kengan Ashura Zero, that he has a lot of respect for him and in the omakes, they cook together and are seen to text frequently.
• Graceful Loser: He's completely unaffected by the usual terror that strikes people that survive a fight with the Fang, saying that he'll just have to get stronger for next time.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Kaneda actually calls him out on this, telling him that it's insulting to his opponents to hold back, at which point Kaolan admits that he had been overtaken by arrogance and gets serious. It turns out he was still holding back, as he has a different approach to combat depending on if he considers it a "match", such as against Kaneda, or if he considers it a "fight to the death", such as his battle with the Fang.
• Irony: Despite coming from a country where a tolerance for such is infamous, Kaolan is not very good with spicy food.
• It Only Works Once: During his fight with Carlos Medel Carlos aims for the hand Kaolan broke fighting Agito. It doesn't work as Kaolan took a page from Saw Paing's book and made his fist unbreakable through partial training.
• Jack of All Stats: When compared to his opponents, Kaolan stands out at the most well-rounded of them all. While he is exceeded by Kaneda, Agito, and Medel in foresight, strength, and speed respectively, he is skilled enough in all areas to either defeat them or push them to their absolute limits.
• Living Legend: Unlike most Kengan fighters who have lost a lot of their prestige because they joined the underground circuit, Kaolan is still an icon in Thailand and public martial artist will openly praise him. It helps that he doubles as the bodyguard of the king.
  • Tellingly, he's considered a legend even amongst Kengan fighters before he even competes, with both Agito and Wakatsuki acknowledging him as an extremely dangerous fighter.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Only got involved with the Kengan Matches because his king told him to when he was amused by the Yato Trading CEO's sheer balls to ask for Kaolan in the Annihilation Tournament in return for expanding further into Thailand. He's also very patriotic, and always sings the national anthem of Thailand when he goes out for karaoke.
• Mythical Motifs: Notably has a Garuda depicting in the style of the classic Phra Khrut Pha on his boxing shorts, the emblem of Thailand and crest of the royal family adopted by Rama VI in 1911.
• No-Sell: His loss being due to a lucky parry and size difference instead of Kanoh surpassing him with his Formless stops the usual dread that come from losing to the Fang to get to Kaolan. In Omega he also trained his right fist to the point it can't be injured anymore.
• Not So Stoic: His usual bored eyes widen whenever he's really shocked by something.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • He initially has this reaction during the first exchange with Carlos Medel after Carlos easily slipped his "Flash" and made his nose bleed without being able to react to it. He quickly snaps out of it when he realises that he didn't react because the strike was not a knockout blow, but one designed to burst his blood vessels and affect him psychologically.
  • He has this again after Carlos flips him out of the ring by luring him to the edge and taking his God Glow head on, using the momentum from the blow to ring him out and win.
• Patriotic Fervor: Kaolan fights in the tournament, not for money, or enjoyment, but for the glory of Thailand and his King Rama XIII. He also sings the Thai anthem in karaoke and uses his fame to promote tourism in his country.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: His jab is known as "The Flash" because it's actually just that stupidly fast. He's able to throw about 13 punches in a single breath with gloves on, and he can go much faster than that without them.
• Real Men Cook: Both him and Saw Paing are excellent cooks, as seen in the slice-of-life omakes.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the stoic Blue to Saw Paing's hyperactive Red.
• Sacrificial Lion: He's the first of the Kengan Association fighters to battle Purgatory in Omega's tournament, and the outcome of that duel stresses how the new rules presented by the competition can sneak up on even the most seasoned of pugilists.
• Slasher Smile: Busts one out that makes even The Fang pause when he gets serious.
• Signature Move: The Flash, a quick series of jabs thrown within a single breath, it does not have power but it will give Kaolan control of the fight.
• Soldier vs. Warrior: Unlike most opponents he faces, especially Agito, he doesn't care much about fighting itself, instead viewing it as simply another part of the job of defending his country and his king.
• Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: Between Ashura and Omega he underwent Training from Hell to build up his broken right hand, taking inspiration from Saw Paing Yoroizuka's Lethwei to make his right hand unbreakable. His God Fist can now smash boulders with ease.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He goes first without consulting his team during the Kengan Association vs. Purgatory Tournament, though this is Subverted, as he did this to stop the infighting in his team and was the first to actually call attention to this likely being the biggest problem the team would have in the first place before the competition even started. His loss to Carlos Medel by ring out after a dominant performance manages to rally the rest of the team to avenge his loss, pulling most of the team together.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Gapao Rice (Chicken, ginger and basil-Fried Rice with a sunny-side egg on top). He's seen cooking and posting an enormous portion of it in one omake with Saw Paing.
• The Stoic: While he's very expressive in his calmness, he rarely changes expression from his usual bored, dead-eyed look. This is best seen when everyone is being informed that Ohma is alive, as his expression is completely unchanged.
• Training from Hell: After Ashura he underwent partial training on his right hand that Kanoh severely broke, punching boulders, concrete and a metal makiwara until he fainted from pain and exhaustion, only to get up and do it all over again. This torturous training built up his right hand into an unbreakable God Fist after one year, strong enough to make Carlos be on the hurting end when he wheel-kick's Kaolan's right hand.
• World's Best Warrior: He's the title champion of all four major boxing leagues and the only matches in his entire life he hasn't won by T/KO were against Saw Paing. Sandrovich made him in part with the express purpose to defy the usual trope of boxers being enormous jobbers in fighting manga, as he reasonably argues in the end-of-chapter author's notes that there's absolutely no way a heavyweight boxing champion would be a pushover. He is the first opponent to beat Kanoh's Formless by being such an accomplished boxer the Fang can't recopy his style but better.
  • Purely in boxing, he proves his mettle against Carlos Medel. Despite Medel being ranked higher pound-for-pound and Kaolan losing due to a ring-out, he beats Medel to the point he cannot move while suffering only superficial injuries himself.
• Worthy Opponent: Calls Kaneda one at the end of their fight, and is openly impressed that he can do so well against him even though he is physically inferior to him. His backstory chapter reveals that his one wish is to find and fight a truly worthy opponent to the death.
• Younger Than They Look: In spite of his appearance, stoic demeanor, relationship with the hot-blooded Saw Paing, he is the younger of the two at 28 years old.

Suekichi Kaneda - Ginokuniya Bookstores

“What's wrong with the weak aiming to be the strongest?!!”

The Giant Killer

Voiced by: Koji Yusa (Japanese), Erik Kimerer (English)

Age: 27

A polite, unassuming shogi player, he challenged Ryo Himuro to a fight for his position as Ginokuniya Bookstore's fighter for the tournament, defeating him, breaking his arm and taking his spot.

He is a practitioner of the Kujin Style, a classical Japanese martial art specialized for battlefield combat; meaning it places heavy emphasis on taking the opponent down as quickly as possible with the assumption that they‘re wearing armor and using weapons. While seemingly unsuited against the unarmed martial arts of the other fighters, Kaneda makes it work with the incredible ability to read his opponents moves called “Foresight”.

---

• Always Someone Better: His foresight is good but not as complete as Kuroki or Medel, who can read their opponent's intent to strike with ridiculous precision. It helps that they have over a decade of experience over him.
• Ambiguously Gay: He doesn't get excited about girls, unlike his three friends (Lihito, Himuro, and Okubo), while making compliments about Himuro's good looks. Himuro wonders if he "swings that way".
• Awesomeness by Analysis: He has a talent for reading his enemies, which translates into him being able to predict their actions once he sees them fight.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His foresight requires him to analyze his opponent’s style, which typically results in him taking a beating in the early phases of a fight. If he succeeds, then he can turn a fight around and pull out a win with just a few moves. However, it’s incredibly impractical for a tournament setting, because he carries the injuries he received in his previous matches into each subsequent one. This is a problem that’s only compounded by his relative frailty, thanks to his condition at birth. He entered into his match against Kaolan pretty seriously battered from his fight against Himuro, to the point that he had a handbag full of painkillers just to cope with it. Even after developping his planning skills to the point he can trick fighters to move how he wants them to it still relies on studying the fighters beforehand and also getting a beating if he improved before the fight.
• Badass Normal: He is not anywhere near the level of the other Kengan fighters physically – Himuro notes that he had to make use of a trade show of painkillers even before the Annihilation Tournament begins. However, he's courageous and insightful enough to earn the respect of one of the best fighters in the Association.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's polite and formally spoken, even during a fight. This may or may not throw his opponents off when he lands a punch before they even realize it.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: In a side chapter, Kaneda misses his high school reunion to participate in the Kengan matches. Of all his classmates, only the star athletes remember him well: despite his weak constitution, he outdid each of them at their own sports with nothing but wits and foresight.
• Big Man on Campus: Not to a wide extent. Some of his classmates only just remember him as being bad at physical classes. But he was known to be one of the "Four Lords of Jimino High" along with three pro athletes, all of whom consider him to be this trope since he beat them at their respective sports (baseball, soccer, and boxing), and beat up the toughest kid at their school.
• The Cameo:
  • Makes a brief appearance in How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?, winning a shogi match against its protagonist, Sakura Hibiki.
  • He appears in later chapters to explain the Silverman's gym increased membership to Satomi.
• Closet Geek: Gives a fairly detailed history of Marvellous Seki's wrestling career, which Ryo and Okubo comment on. He just tells them to shut up.
• Combat Pragmatism: He fights really dirty, going for eye gouge, heart stab and foot stomping, befitting a martial art for battlefield combat.
• Crippling Overspecialization: It's noted that one of the reasons he has trouble is his fighting style - Kujin, an ancient martial art designed for battlefield combat, and therefore based around the assumption that the two fighters are wearing armor and have weapons. Because of this, it has very few techniques based on the barefisted fighting required in Kengan ^note since the Kujin Style assumes that in most situations where you can punch or kick an opponent, you'd be better off stabbing them, and many of its own techniques are fairly useless ^note what point is disarming an unarmed opponent?, leaving Kaneda with some fairly massive gaps in his skillset. Kaolan in particular showed just how limited Kujin was, as it had no real answer to his overwhelming raw power and stamina.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: While he did impress Kaolan with his reflexes and was briefly able to pull him in a few holds, Kaneda was ultimately unable to put a scratch on him.
• Curb-Stomp Cushion: While defeating Kaolan was obviously never going to happen, thanks to his analysis of Kaolan's moves beforehand, he was able to last ten moves against Kaolan - a guy known as the God of War - going all out, which is extremely impressive for such a weak fighter. Most of the other fighters in the tournament probably wouldn't have lasted even that long.
• Dare to Be Badass: His entire motivation in a nutshell. Despite his natural weakness from birth, he always possessed a desire for strength. When Kaolan turns his back on him assured of his defeat, Kaneda recognized that the boxer was holding back, got back up and demanded that the boxer fight him seriously. He yells this at him when Kaolan protests out of respect:
  Kaneda: WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WEAK SEEKING TO BE THE STRONGEST!!??
• Defeat Means Friendship: He took Himuro's spot in the tournament, but there were no hard feelings afterwards. He himself ends up taking the receiving end of defeat from Kaolan and ends up hanging out with him afterwards.
• Delicate and Sickly: Kaneda has been plagued by illnesses since the day of his birth, having almost died twice and undergone four surgeries by the time he got to school.
• Determinator: He's been physically weaker than the average person since birth, is lucky to even be alive, and had little chance at winning the tournament. He knows this, and it won't stop him.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Does this against Kaolan Wongsawat during their bout, seeing that Kaolan was holding back against him out of respect and an unwillingness to seriously hurt him. Moved by Kaneda's pride, Kaolan goes all out against him and defeats Suekichi in ten moves afterwards.
• Eyes Always Shut: Evident in his design. He's never opened them.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Played fairly tragically. He spent all his life working to overcome his physical infirmity, developed highly advanced Awesomeness by Analysis methods, and completely mastered his martial art despite its gaps. His opponent? Kaolan, who is called "the Thai God of War" for a reason and has been The Ace his whole life. It doesn't matter how hard you work, if your opponent has worked just as hard but with a much stronger start and a much more effective fighting style.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: He easily wins countless games of Shogi on the SS Kengan, wiping the floor with a series of passengers and racking up a solid purse of winnings. Word of God says Shogi isn't even his strong suit, as Mahjongg is his game of choice.
• Identical Stranger: To Rin Kushida. Other characters often mistake them for siblings despite seemingly having only just met. They don't see it however, even when looking at a picture.
  Himuro: Hey Kaede, don't those two look alike to you?
  Kaede: Oh, you thought so too?
• Irony: Played for Laughs in the 4-Koma. Despite wearing a traditional kimono and looking the most obviously oriental out of his friends, his tastes (in food) are more Western than the rest.
• Nice Guy: He's consistently polite, and he actually regretted attacking Himuro for his spot.
• Only Sane Man: Of the four stooges... if you could even call him that. In fact, when you compare him to Lihito, Okubo and Himuro's antics you get the impression that Kaneda's only a "stooge" by association with them.
• Smart People Play Chess: Shogi in his case, even though Mahjong is apparently his real forté.
• Took a Level in Badass: Downplayed, by the time of Omega he's still struggling with fights with several more losses after the Tournament but has improved enough to have made several consecutive wins as of late. He is shown to have developed his foresight so he can unconsciously force his opponent into using a move that he built a counter to.
• Weak, but Skilled: Is the physically frailest active fighter in the series, having suffered from sickness since birth, but his ability to read people and his iron will make up for it and allow him to pull off wins when by all measures he really shouldn't stand a chance. In Omega he can trap Ohma in an armbar but doesn't have the strength to hold him down.

Naoya Okubo - Muji TV

“You better prepare to get that ass beat if you look down on a real martial artist.”

The King of Combat

Voiced by: Katsuyuki Konishi (Japanese), Jake Green (English)

Age: 32

The heavyweight champion of the Mixed Martial Arts promotion 'Ultimate Fight', where he reigns undefeated at 26-0. Before he began his MMA career, Naoya was a national wrestling champion and a member of the national boxing team.In Omega, he is chosen to be one of the 13 fighters representing the Kengan Association in their tournament against Purgatory, and fights in the eleventh match against Terashi.

---

• Adaptation Name Change: Downplayed. Okubo's name is spelt with an additional "h", in a similar vein to "Ohma", in the Netflix Adaptation.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His "Golden Eight Seconds", for eight seconds Okubo holds his breath and let his combat reflexes go all out. The drawbacks however is that he is going to need a moment to catch his breath right after and also the intensity of the fight can put strain on his lungs and heart faster than expected. The fatigue from using it against Jun Sekibayashi left him wide open for a Shining Wizard, a move he otherwise could've easily avoided.
• Badass Boast: He frequently compares the Fang to a monster or a video game boss to be overcome by him, “the strongest human”. This one, in particular, is just before he enters his match.
  Okubo: Mighty sorry, Wakatsuki, but I'm gonna be taking the Fang's head.
  Wakatsuki: Okubo Naoya. I have one warning to give you. Don't think of the Fang as a human. He's more of a powerful and violent disaster.
  Okubo: Oh? So in other words, he's like a monster? This is going to be good. Well, time to go slay that monster.
• Badass Normal: Okubo stands out as being one of the most “normal” fighters featured in the series. He lacks any superhuman abilities, martial art styles, modifications or techniques to his name. He is just an MMA heavyweight champion with a great physical build and two decades of experience. Okubo is badass because he is the ‘peak’ of normal martial arts who may lack anything special but he is so good at the normal aspects of fighting he’s a top tier fighter that can even give the Fang Of Metsudo a good fight.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He's very eccentric and a member of the "Four Idiots", but is still an MMA legend who's able to hold his ground against some of the strongest fighters in the series.
• Boring, but Practical: Unlike virtually every other fighter in the tournament, he has no truly superhuman abilities, no ancient martial art, and no secret techniques. He is simply good at all aspects of combat. His "finishing move" is an ordinary soccer kick to the head.
• Boxing Battler: Downplayed. While he's happy to grapple, Okubo is a superb boxer, using it as his preferred striking style with such skill that even Gaolang and Medel, literally the two greatest boxers alive, noting how dangerous he is. Terashi believes that nobody will be able to outpace his kinetic vision...only for Okubo to easily pound his face in with pinpoint-accurate jabs.
• The Cameo: He appears on tv in chapter 107 of How Heavy Are The Dumbbells You Lift.
• Captain Patriotic: When the Kengan Association fighters make their entrance during the tournament with Purgatory in Omega, Okubo is dressed as one of his region's most famous cultural icons, Kuidaore Taro.
  • On a similar note, one of the major reasons for him becoming a fighter was to disprove the notion that Japan can't produce World-class heavyweights.
• Closet Geek: Despite seeming to be the archetypal Lovable Jock, he also references anime and tokusatsu at various points (even right before a fight!), and is confident enough in his Shogi skills to gamble money on it, though he can't beat Kaneda.
• Combat Commentator: Explains a lot about grappling to his friends, and the audience, throughout the tournament.
• Combat Pragmatist: Despite his boisterous persona, Okubo doesn't mess around in a fight. He nearly always strikes first, and his finishing move is a simple soccer-kick that would flat-out kill the vast majority of regular humans.
• Confusion Fu: Like Mokichi his blend of martial arts make him hard to predict, as he can go from wrestling to boxing in the same charge.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He is known to be one of the "Four Stooges" with Lihito, Himuro, and Kaneda, in part because he's almost as lecherous as the former two. He's also not only considered to be the strongest out of them by Ohma by a large margin, but Akoya, Rei, and Gensai also consider him to be formidable. And he proves it by putting up a good fight against the dreaded Fang of Metsudo himself.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Delivers a few against Guardians and one on Terashi after figuring out his abilities.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: An extremely realistic version. His is a Soccer Kick to the head, which, as Truth in Television will show you, will very easily break a man's neck. The only reason why Kanoh Agito survives it is because he's a tank that can barely even be described as a human being in terms of toughness.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • He seems to hold this philosophy in general by leaving Trash Talk and any malice two fighters might have for one another in the ring, getting chummy with Agito even after he soccer kicked the Fang in the head in their fight (which could have killed a lesser man instantly) and Agito nearly cracking his temple in retaliation. He also befriends Terashi over their shared love for Osakan media even after all Terashi's Trash Talk in their fight and promises to get him into martial arts training if he's ever in Okubo's neighborhood.
  • In a sense with Kaneda after losing several games of Shogi against the young man. Specifically, they start hanging out because Okubo takes to following him around to harass him for quitting while he was ahead, rather than staying at the board until Okubo could beat him (and win some of his money back).
• Determinator: After his loss to Agito Kanoh, he plans on improving himself so that he can eventually overcome him, unlike many of the others who lost their will to fight after losing to the Fang.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: He's a bit miffed that no one's paying attention to him being dressed as Kuidaore Taro.
• Foreshadowing: He claims that "monsters" like Agito are always felled by a human champion in the end. While he doesn't wind up being that champion, it's fellow Badass Normal Kuroki Gensai who manages to defeat the Fang.
• Genius Ditz: He's goofy and not too bright in everyday life (being a member of the "Four Idiots"), but his wide array of experience make him a highly intelligent and perceptive fighter. He often explains grappling techniques to his friends, and quickly deduces the nature of Terashi's fighting style, even though it shouldn't be possible for normal humans.
• Heroic BSoD: He, like the majority of fighters who lost to Agito, gets one waking up from a brutal knockout. Though he gets over it easily.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He gets increasingly agitated during his fight against Jun Sekibayashi, which reached a boiling point when he tires himself out and gets hit by Jun's Shining Wizard. Okubo powers through it and went on to furiously tackle Jun, which only gave him the perfect setup for a knockout DDT.
• Hot-Blooded: In the Kengan vs Purgatory Tournament, he is much more rash and especially has far more outbursts.
• The Idiot from Osaka: Subverted. He has most of the traits of one, but he's far from stupid.
• Jack of All Stats: Is very proficient in grappling, striking, throws and submission holds, but is not a specialist in any field or truly superhuman like some other competitors. This is what makes him a strong fighter; Because he's proficient in all areas of fighting, he can use a synthesis of techniques and transition from one area of fighting to another so that he is constantly out of sync with his opponent. If they want to grapple, strike, keep their distance or so on, he is skilled enough to fight in a way that consistently throws off his opponent's intent without ever exiting his own field of competence. He is fast enough in transitioning into different areas of fighting this way that even the Fang can't initially keep up with it.
• Lovable Jock: As a star athlete and world-famous MMA fighter, Okubo has all the trappings of a typical jock. However, he's also a Nice Guy and a Closet Geek, which leads to him easily forming a number of friendships over the series.
• Made of Iron: Takes a botched powerbomb from Sekibayashi and manages to continue fighting. Near the end of their fight Jun hits Okubo with a Shining wizard, which only seemed to piss him off, but Jun finally knocks him out with a DDT.
• Monster Clown: Played with, and mostly averted. He spends most of Omega dressed as Kuidaore Taro, a legendary entertainer and clown from Osaka, yet is still very much his Nice Guy self. That said, he gives Terashi, one of the most feared assassins in the world, the beating of his life without ever changing out of the clown suit.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • His finishing move is a soccer kick (a kick aimed at the head of an opponent whose lying on the floor) with enough power behind it to launch Kanoh Agito across the arena.
  • His entire fighting style is arguably this, as it consists of completely normal and down-to-earth techniques given the same fanfare as the larger-than-life and fantastic techniques that the other characters use, a-la Terryman from Kinnikuman.
• Nice Guy: He's friendly to anyone he meets, including Agito Kanoh the day after being knocked unconscious by him.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Partially based on real-life "King of Combat" and founder of Universal Wrestling Federation, Akira Maeda, and Super Lightweight professional boxer "The Rocky of Naniwa" Akai Hidekazu. Him being a heavyweight with a Master of All MMA fighting style and a massive undefeated streak is most reminiscent of Fedor Emilianenko.
• Odd Friendship: Is great at making these, he's just that nice. This includes being friendly with Agito Kanoh right after he had his head nearly caved in by the guy.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: He relishes and finds it interesting Agito got back up from his Soccer Kick and says you don't get to fight a guy like him every day... only for Agito to immediately begin beating his ass and succintly defeating Okubo soon after.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Several fighters note that Okubo is extremely skilled and could have made it quite far in the tournament...if he hadn't been matched up with Agito in the very first round. Nishihonji even tries to substitute him in Cosmo's place, which could have made him Ohma's third opponent if Cosmo didn't use the rules of their backstage spar against him to defend his spot as a fighter. In the Purgatory faceoff he lives up to his reputation by easily picking apart Terashi's fighting style by trial-and-error before putting him in a vicious Guillotine Choke.
• Oh, Crap!: Gives the entire arena including a flabbergasted Ohma front row seats to Open Mouth Insert Footing Agito by socking him with the mother of all right hooks, suplexing him twice over and booting him in the head so hard the commentators initially thought he had killed the Fang for a moment. He himself has one when Agito gets back up and starts near-perfectly predicting all his moves, giving us an early hint of Agito's Pre-Initiative skills.
• Punched Across the Room: Launches Agito across the arena with a nasty and fully wound up Soccer Kick to the head, right after smoothly transitioning out of suplexing him to the floor first. He also does this to one of Toyo's Guardians while keeping the guy in a headlock and lazily punching at him with the other hand as he's talking to Himuro.
• Simple, yet Awesome: His fighting style is centered around the basics of MMA, practiced to perfection. It's not flashy, but it's more than enough to push even Agito Kanoh to his limits.
  "Bears? Lions? No, I don't fight those things. That's the field of stunt performers, not actual martial artists. I don't really care whether not I can beat a bear. All we martial artists need to know is how to defeat other humans."
  • Also extends to his finishing moves, a Guillotine Choke (an extremely common and useful move in real-life MMA) and a soccer kick to the head (a straightforward Dangerous Forbidden Technique that would kill any normal human being.)
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: He manages to give Agito Kanoh one HELL of a fight before being taken down. In any other fighting manga, you'd expect him to go down within a few hits to demonstrate how powerful Agito is, but Okubo is a heavyweight champion for a reason and he proves it by managing to last so long against the Fang of Metsudo.
  Cosmo: Neither of them are breaking down! This isn't anything like a first-round bout at all!
  • He also nearly rips Terashi's head off with a Guillotine choke, showing exactly what would happen if an amateur tried groundfighting with an MMA champion.
• The Worf Effect: One of the hardest subversions in the entire series, to the point that it's sort of an inversion. The buildup to the fight makes it seem like he'll get mulched by Agito just to show how unstoppable the guy is, but Okubo ends up doing better than anyone expected, opening up a serious can of whoop-ass on the Fang even though he ultimately loses.
• Worthy Opponent: Even though Agito defeats him, he has nothing but praise for Okubo, genuinely thanking him for helping him improve as a fighter.
• Wrestler in All of Us: He was the national high school wrestling champion in his senior year and placed in the top four in middle school before that. Even after quitting wrestling to move onto other fighting sports, he never skipped a single day of wrestling practice, which came in handy when he moved to MMA. Sure enough, he's shown to be one of the best grapplers in the tournament, even giving the Fang a run for his money.

Agito Kanoh - Dainippon Bank

"We thought we told you. We would use all of "us"."

The Fifth Fang of Metsudo

AG

Voiced By: Akio Ōtsuka (Japanese), Kyle Hebert (English), Gerardo Reyero (Latin American Spanish)

Age: Unknown (Late 30's)

The representative fighter for Dainippon Bank, the emperor of the Kengan Matches and the fifth person to hold the title of The Fang of Metsudo. Agito is considered to be the greatest fighter the Kengan matches has ever known and has a reputation akin to a war god, with a legendary and unprecedented 157-0 match record.

He volunteers as one of the 13 representative fighters of the Kengan Association's match against the Purgatory and is the sixth to fight against Lu Tian.

---

• The Ace: With his incredible martial skills, a perfect physique and the longest streak of victories in the Association's history, he's the invictus fighter of the series. As revealed in Omega, he is considered to be the strongest of eight Fangs of Metsudo to date and still in the running for World's Best Warrior despite his legendary streak of victories being stopped by Gensai Kuroki two years before. In the Purgatory vs Kengan tournament, he destroys his opponent the moment he really gets switched on after a back-and-forth match.
• Achilles' Heel:
  • His "Formless" martial art allows him to rapidly adapt to his opponent's fighting style, build one to counteract, and then steal their techniques for his own use. Sounds flawless at first, but it also means he has to consider dozens if not hundreds of counteractions to every single one of his opponent's moves, meaning his reaction time takes a huge hit. For reference: it takes six times longer to decide what to do using formless than it takes Agito to connect with a straight right using normal intuition. Omori eventually challenges Agito to a fight behind the scenes just to teach him how to work around this issue, rendering it a non-problem except against cream of the crop fighters like Kuroki and Lu Tian.
  • He reveals another weakness in his "Formless" technique in Omega during his fight with Lu Tian. He is only able to keep his "Formless" technique razor sharp for five minutes nonstop before breaking down and leaving openings. This is because Agito was saved from the Gu ritual and not formally trained in using "Formless", unlike Lu Tian, who survived and was trained, and is able to remain sharp past five minutes. It took until Omega to reveal this flaw because Agito rarely face someone that can win a battle attrition against him.
  • His Dragon Shot is undodgeable because of the short distance between him and the point of impact. It also means Agito can't stop it if his opponent has enough foresight to parry or redirect the hit before it lands. A hard flaw to exploit since the impact is still intense enough to injure someone but not outside Kuroki's training regiment.
• Adaptational Badass: In the manga, he kicks a distracted Ohma in the face once and fails to knock him out. In the anime, Ohma snaps out of the distraction before Kanoh kicks him and the hit is blocked, but Ohma is still knocked out.
• Adaptive Ability: He constantly reinvents his fighting style and strategy specifically to beat his current opponent, and then uses what he learns from them in future fights as well. He's not quite an Instant Expert at this, but he's so strong and skilled already that he can still beat almost anyone at their own forte.
• Animal Motifs: The dragon. He's stoic and detached from the world but absolutely terrifying when stirred by a worthy opponent. Agito is even the fighter for the richest man in the Association, just like a dragon hoarding wealth. Even in the fighting league of absolute killers that is the japanese martial arts underground, he is considered to be the undisputed king. Metsudo describes him as a big fish in a small pond, and by Omega he has outgrown the Kengan Association entirely, just like the carp swimming up the river to become a dragon. Fittingly, he crushes Lu Tian, the Centipede, underfoot with his Dragon Shot, cementing himself as a Living Legend of martial arts.
• Ax-Crazy: The Gu Ritual he was subjected to caused him to become a violently loose cannon when he first came under Metsudo's care, tearing Takayama's face open in sparring as well as piling on insults and mockery after mangling Wakatsuki's ankle irreparably. Over time he's lost much of his edge but it still comes out when he gets particularly excited in a fight as a psychological defense mechanism. After his fight Gensai in their brutal semifinals match, Agito seems to have finally taken the steps to fully integrate his Split Personality, allowing him to essentially Lag Cancel between Formless and his repertoire of martial arts techniques.
• Badass Biker: Takayama gives him his motorbike as a goodbye present when Agito is about to leave in the epilogue. By Omega, he's fully embraced the lifestyle, and is even sporting a leather jacket.
• Badass Boast:
  • Agito gave one of these, before and after fighting Wakatsuki, that basically became a trauma for the otherwise nigh-invincible Wild Tiger.
  "Why don't you show us you have fangs at all, "Tiger"?"
  "You are too dull, tiger cub."
  • He dishes out a legendary one to Lu Tian after the latter uses Removal, perfectly cementing that he has overcome his shortcomings both as a fighter and as a person.
  Agito: "So you've surrendered to the beast within. But no beast can defeat me."
• Badass Creed: His thoroughly cements just how much more of a Blood Knight Agito is compared to everyone else.
  Agito: "Pugno ergo sum!"^note "I fight, therefore I am", a spin on René Descartes' now-famous "Cogito, ergo sum", 'I think therefore I am'.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Only when he's on the clock as a bodyguard. Otherwise, he wears more sensible athletic gear for fights when he can.
• Baritone of Strength: He has a very deep and intimidating voice, reflecting his terrifying outward appearance, his ferocity in battle and his status as the strongest Kengan fighter.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Kanoh likes to best his opponents in their fighting style. When fighting Naoya Okubo, he fought him using grappling and MMA. When fighting Kaolan Wongsawat, he initially fought him using Kaolan's same boxing style, changing styles only when he was pushed.
• The Berserker: His "Formless" is an extremely unusual martial art, with Kanoh's bloodlust seemingly running amok making wildly unpredictable, yet extremely refined attacks and defensive movements, which is more than enough for Kanoh to steamroll all of his competition before the Annihilation Tournament. He later learns to control this state and switch in and out of it at will, making him far more dangerous.
• Berserk Button:
  • Anything related to the other Niko Tokita and the Gu Ritual. After Ohma's fight with Raian, Agito is visibly fuming with anger and questions if Ohma Niko's style came from the Other Niko Tokita. It isn't until the finals that he discovered that Ohma's Niko Style is different from the Niko Style he has been taught by The Other Niko Tokita, at which point he stops having animosity towards Ohma. When Lu Tian walks onto the stage and Shows off his own life monitor ring from the Gu Ritual, Agito immediately jumps at the chance to fight him despite the fact that he was being reserved for a critical fight. When he sees the Other Niko Tokita on the monitor screen, Agito gets pissed off to the point he crushes part of the lounge's railing.
• Blood Knight: He's easily one the most bloodthirsty and fight-loving characters in the series, barring the actually insane characters. He loves fighting so much that whenever he encounters an opponent he highly expects to be powerful he is hell-bent on beating them with their own style.
• Body Horror: Gensai completely destroys all eight carpal bones in Agito's wrist by using a wristlock on it the instant he uses his Dragon Shot. His hand is shown to be bent completely backwards at a nauseating angle, with all the bones connecting his fingerbones to his femur having turned to dust, and it flops around awkwardly whenever he moves.
• Boring, but Practical: How his "Martial Arts" style is, despite it not being as unique as Formless it enables Agito to fight without the overabduance of moves that would significantly reduce Agito's ability to act. This combined with Agito's own proficiency in combat, being able to use Pre-Initiative means that only the absolute best of fighters can beat him.
• Break the Badass: He inflicts this. The majority of fighters who lost to him had given up on fighting, having lost their fighting spirit or rather had their “fangs” broken by him.
• Broken Win/Loss Streak: He's practically undefeated when he steps up to defend Metsudo's position as the Kengan Association chairman in the Annihilation Tournament. He experiences his first loss against Gensai, who would win the tournament.
• But Not Too Foreign: In Omega he reveals that he was an orphan in mainland China before being being placed in the Gu ritual and then rescued by Metsudo, making him ethnically Chinese, but raised and educated as Japanese by Metsudo.
• Character Development:
  • He begins the story as a stoic Smug Super, confident in his own abilities and willing to show off. He views the matches as "fun", and tries to enjoy his time with his opponents. He receives a crash-course in dignity and practicality during his fight against Kaolan, who gives him a better challenge than what he initially thought and forces Agito to take him seriously. As the fights continue, he gains more and more respect for his opponents and mostly loses his ego. When Gensai defeats him, he is ultimately humbled by the loss and decides to travel the world, seeking to discover himself. Indicated by how he stops referring to himself as "We" and uses "I" instead.
  • When he returns in Omega, he's immediately far friendlier and kinder than before. He speaks to Ryo with dignity and respect, and even makes a small joke at his expense. It seems time away from brutal fighting has had a major effect on him, which is something Ryo points out.
• The Comically Serious: Due to the way he was brought up, he's able to ask the question "what martial arts does this final boss use" without a hint of irony and the same scowling expression he usually has.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Despite his nigh-unstoppable reputation, he's never shown outright demolishing an opponent with no effort, and every fighter he faces makes him struggle at one point or another, which only makes his winning spree all the more incredible considering the level of his opponents. When he does finally face defeat, it's to an opponent he gives an absolute run for his money, with Gensai doubting his ability to beat Agito again in Omega.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He and many others were sealed underground in a twisted parody of a Gu ritual by The Other Niko and Worm, and had to kill everyone else there to survive^note not just because all fifty students in such a vault are instructed to kill one another, but because they were only sealed in with enough food, air and water for someone to just barely scrape by until the vault was reopened, resulting in his bestial and schizophrenic nature. Fortunately, Metsudo dug him out before he perished and then gave him a good education as well as the psychological aid he needed to mostly overcome his bloodlust.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: He doesn't literally explode, but Gensai's final blow against him is stylistically depicted as if a grenade went off in Agito's face. His forehead is visibly dented inwards, cracked and bleeding heavily in the aftermath, and he's left with a permanent scar vaguely resembling an explosion.
• Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: An unusually late example of this, but this is ultimately the point of his entry into the tournament by Metsudo. Despite Kanoh's incredible combat prowess, his mental instability and trauma are holding him back from being both a developed person and the warrior he could be. As a result, Metsudo entered him into the tournament so he could fight strong individuals and work through his traumatic Dark and Troubled Past at the same time. This seems to have worked, and by Omega he's become far more empathetic and personable.
• Determinator: To the point where Agito acts less like a person when he's cornered and more like an eerily skilled rabid animal who will power through any kind of injury for the sake of winning a fight. His body can still fight as sharp as usual even when Kanoh has lost consciousness as seen against Kaolan where a concussion caused him to black out with none but Kanoh the wiser.
  Even with his brain concussed, even with his right arm destroyed, the Emperor would not die. The "Fang of Metsudo" would not stop. Kanoh Agito would not falter... But...
• Discard and Draw: He ditches his "Formless" halfway through the tournament after sparring with Omori, instead overwhelming Sen with orthodox, but extremely compact and strong moves, focusing on reading the opponent's next move and not trying to copy their style. Subverted in the fourth round against Gensai, however, where Kanoh fuses his masterful skills and foresight with his wild and animalistic copycat style, letting him fight with the benefits of both and the downsides of neither.
• The Dreaded: Agito is the greatest fighter the Kengan matches has seen in decades, if not centuries, and thus has quite the reputation about him. Crowds devolve into cult of personality with cheers because they can't even conceive of him losing, and fighters either give him a wide berth or respect him.
• Drink-Based Characterization: Since he can't handle carbonation, Agito seems to have developed a taste for mixed drinks, with his favorites being Kahlua with milk or Cassis with orange. Okubo jokingly compares them to something a college kid might drink.
• Foil: To Ohma, as both of them grew up in destitute conditions as orphans who both met and were trained by Niko Tokita, both of them are all but stated to have been fighting since they could stand up straight and have endured a severe amount of trauma but whereas Ohma turned out relatively normal with only a few mental hangups, Agito suffers from a variety of mental illnesses from battling his inner demons due to taking on even more traumatic training than Ohma did; this resulted in his schizophrenic nature whenever he fights and his multiple discomforts while he's off-duty. They both have a Hidden Heart of Gold despite their intimidating appearances and have great respect for their managers, even forming a father-son type of bond with the both of them, but when they enter a fight they become extremely ferocious and sport a Slasher Smile while attacking their opponents like hyperdextrous and skilled rabid animals.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: His combat outfit is an elaborate plastic one-piece that shows off his immense musculature. According to the artist, it's based on the LZR Racer series of competitive swimsuits.
• Genius Bruiser: Despite liking to play with his food and being a ball of violent carnage when he gets going, Kanoh is extremely good at employing clever tactics and feints to give him the upper hand when pure physique and violence falls short. When he acts as a Combat Commentator on the sidelines, he approaches near Word of God levels of finality as well due to his encyclopedic knowledge of martial arts.
• The Gift: Him "breaking your fangs" has nothing to do some kind of intentional terror tactic on his part (though he is terrifying when he really gets going). It's simply that his Adaptive Ability is so unfair that many fighters quit after fighting against it from having their own martial arts and techniques turned against them, seeing their own hard work and talent as worthless in comparison.
• Hidden Depths: While his reputation as The Dreaded and his role as the representative fighter for Chairman Katahara builds him up a prominent obstacle for Ohma to defeat, he is revealed to be much more than that when he uses "Indestructible", which is one of the Niko Style moves. In the end, he and Ohma never face each other, but he plays a much larger role in the greater storyline when it is further revealed that he's a disciple of "The Other Niko" who taught Ohma "Advance".
  • He's also surprisingly perceptive and humble about his own limitations, fully acknowledging when he cannot surpass an opponent in their preferred style (as he did with Kaolan in boxing and Jurota in throws.)
  • Agito is also shown to be remarkably skilled at sculpting in one of the 4komas, making a silver bust of Metsudo's head the size of his own body.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: As their fight reaches it's climax, Agito's only viable move would be his Dragon Shot, only for Gensai to use a wrist lock and completely and utterly mangle his wrist with the earth-shattering power of his own strongest attack.
• Incompletely Trained: He was trained in the Niko style by the "real" Niko to an uncertain degree, but he uses the flexible fundamentals of it as the foundation of his "Formless" style rather than its named techniques. In Omega his "Formless" style is also revealed to be incomplete, as he was saved from the Gu ritual by Metsudo before it was completed. He is therefore unable to maintain it at peak sharpness after five minutes of nonstop usage, while a student who was formally trained by the "real" Niko is able to basically live in that state. However Kanoh was able to integrate his base in "Formless" with regular martial arts by overcoming his mental block, giving him an out via Confusion Fu when Lu Tian proves his superior using purely Formless.
• "Instant Death" Radius: Not to the extent of Wakatsuki but thanks to his mastery of Fa Jin strikes anything from his kick to a one inch punch has the power to knock someone out.
• Irony: A man feared for his unpredictable "Formless" fighting style gambles the outcome of his climactic duel with Gensai on a Signature Move everyone has seen before. It doesn't succeed.
• Legacy Character: He is the fifth Fang of Metsudo. Kanoh ends up stepping down by the end of Ashura.
• Lightning Bruiser: Kanoh is downright massive at just about 201cm and 128 kilos (282 Pounds^note Even in the UFC Heavyweight division, where Acrofatic people like Mark Hunt and Roy Nelson have no issue making weight, Agito would be 20 pounds too heavy to make the legal weight limit while shredded to the gills.) of pure muscle, yet has the speed and acrobatic ability of a ballet dancer. His strikes are so strong that they are compared to being struck by a giant knife, and Sen Hatsumi felt that if Kanoh wasn't deliberately trying not to kill him, his knockout hit would've cracked Sen's head like taking a hammer to a melon. On top of that, he's proven he can take ridiculous amounts of punishment too.
• Literal-Minded: Due to a traumatic and violent past, Kanoh doesn't have much experience with the concept of fantasy or popular culture. An offhand Kaiju joke convinces him that 50-story monsters with atomic breath really exist (and might make good opponents), and he heads off into the woods on a childish monster hunt after seeing a monster movie poster.
• Living Legend: He's already this long before the series starts due to his complete dominance and unprecedented streak in the Kengan matches. Cemented by his Leitmotif, which is best described as Agito's personal hype song that recounts just how utterly invincible he is perceived to be.
• Made of Iron: The sheer amount of punishment this man can take is completely mindboggling, to the point where he's probably the biggest tank in the entire roster. The beating he sustains in the first round alone would've probably killed or knocked out a majority of the fighters in the Tournament, and he takes even more damage in each following round without slowing down. His ludicrous endurance reaches its limit after a long, violent fight the between him and Gensai, with both men beating each other bloody.
• Master of All: Agito is a godlike martial artist, whether it be striking or grappling, despite having no single style. Instead of practicing one martial art, he has a massive and ever-expanding array of techniques and strategies he has amassed and mastered through picking them up from his opponents mid-fight that he can use, though his massive moveset does come with some limitations, such as actually having to choose which of them is best suited for the situation. He is inferred to have learned at least the basics of the Niko Style from the "real" Niko. Considering Niko Tokita's explanation that the Niko Style is akin to a martial arts starter pack that then lets the user more easily adapt to any other type of fighting, fits what Agito does to a T.
  • However, against true masters such as Gensai Kuroki and Lu Tian, it is shown that the flaws of a Jack of All Trades still remain. He has mastered both ordinary martial arts and the formless style to an incredible degree, but not enough to match the absolute best in the world. Thus, he cannot defeat them regardless of which style he uses. Kuroki compares this to challenging a perfect spear with two imperfect swords. In his fight with Kuroki, he evolves his style-switching to the point where he can rapidly change between the two, catching Kuroki off-guard and landing some serious hits. However, Kuroki eventually figures out the timing of the style switching and counters it. It is only by the time of Omega that Agito has mastered the style-switching to be nearly instantaneous, making it uncounterable. Thus, while he was unable to match Lu Tian in either Formless or Martial Arts, employing both simultaneously is enough to overwhelm Lu Tian.
• Multiform Balance: Agito can use ordinary martial arts acquired through observing hundreds of fighters and learning their styles, or he can use the Formless, a wild and unorthodox style without set movements. Both styles have advantages and disadvantages. Agito is good enough to overwhelm most fighters in either style. Only a select few are good enough to make him require both. To date only Gensai Kuroki has managed to defeat Agito employing both styles to its fullest, using nothing but his absolute mastery of Karate. In his fight against Kuroki, he rapidly evolves the switching between his two styles in order to throw his opponent off guard, but Kuroki is so damn skilled he starts seeing through the timing of the style switches to counter Agito. By the time of Omega, Agito's style switching has become nearly instantaneous and thus uncounterable, making him truly able to use both effectively at the same time.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: No points for guessing that the guy who looks like a Mr. Olympia competitor through his skintight bodysuit is incredibly physically powerful. His One Inch Punch is strong enough to kill an ordinary man in one go.
• No Brows: Agito lacks eyebrows, or at least, they're so thin that they might as well not be there. This contributes to making a striking contrast between his solid, stoic self, and how unhinged his expression becomes once he starts using Formless.
• Noble Demon: While brutal and murderously violent in a fight, he's very curt outside the ring, striking up a friendly conversation with Okubo after their fight. He's also able to restrain himself despite his extreme bloodlust and cease fighting when his opponent drops.
  • This is taken even further in Omega, where Agito gets along just fine with his colleagues, and also respects the skills of his opponents during a fight. If anything, he is slowly edging away from this trope and into Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: While Agito bears no particular physical resemblance to him and all they share in terms of personality is a reputation for stoicism, his role in the story is very reminiscent of PRIDE Heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko; A seemingly invincible heavyweight with a perfect and unprecedently long winning streak who could beat anyone at their own game and who's title as Champion/Fang would rapidly change hands during a brief retirement before his return to competitive fighting.
• Oh, Crap!: Kaolan causes this to him several times, from causing him to blackout early in the fight to forcing Kanoh utterly into a corner by switching fighting styles halfway through the match, even nearly slitting Kanoh's throat with an elbow. Kanoh describes his fight with Kaolan afterwards as the first time he's been terrified in a fight, causing him to stop messing around with his Formless state for the rest of the tournament. He has never shown any fear since in a fight, though Gensai managing to reverse his Dragon Shot despite having a broken hand leaves him visibly flabbergasted.
  Fury. Unease. Despair. These could not describe the emotion that had gripped Kanoh.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: He has an awful habit of talking shit to his opponents immediately before they turn the tables on him. He taunts Okubo about never being able to get on his level right before Okubo puts him through a 15-page long beatdown, and invites Kaolan to use his Muay Thai against him, after which he is driven to the absolute brink by the boxing champion.
• Paralysis by Analysis: The biggest weakness of the Formless stance is that Agito needs to decide from a multitude of options to figure out which one's perfect for the situation, when it's faster to stick to a single choice of attack.
• Progressively Prettier: When he first appears, he's drawn in a very eerie-looking way. Later on, after his character development, he's depicted as far more handsome, though still capable of pulling off some unsettling expressions.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Despite his reputation as something akin to a violent force of nature, he's actually one of the most amicable fighters in the series when he's not in the ring. He strikes up a friendly talk over dinner with Naoya Okubo and encourages him to keep on improving his MMA only a few hours after denting the guy's temple inwards like a golf ball.
• Pyrrhic Victory: He wins by a hair against Kaolan through an accidental fracture and catching him off-guard with what Kanoh considers a cheap trick, and is wholly unsatisfied afterwards as a result. You'd be forgiven for thinking Kaolan won going entirely by their post-match scenes.
• Rasputinian Death: He doesn't die, though the principle is the same. Okubo and Kaolan both put Agito through the wringer something fierce, but neither of those beatdowns even comes close to the one Gensai puts on him. To wit: Gensai stabs through his shoulder with his hand and all the way through Agito's right hand with his thumb, beats him down with a variety of heavy blows, particularly going for the jaw and liver, and finally delivers a picture-perfect downwards kick to Agito's jaw before punching him so hard in the face that it's depicted as if Agito's face explodes.
• Sanity Has Advantages: His Formless state is insufficient against strong enough opponents specialized in a single form of attack, such as Kaolan's striking, causing Omori to step in and fight Kanoh to teach him how to fight around that problem. This makes Kanoh a far more dangerous combatant in the final rounds of the tournament, allowing him to switch between his wild, adaptive Formless state and his cold and calculated normal state at will. By the end of his fight with Kuroki, he has learned to employ both his Formless style and his martial arts alternatively, elevating him to even higher levels.
  • In Omega, his 2 years of traveling the world have not only made him more sane in general, but actually allowed him to properly merge his Split Personality into one. This has the advantage of removing the time lag it takes to switch between his formless style and his martial arts (as there is no more split personality switching involved anymore). This makes Agito strong enough that even Kuroki isn't sure anymore that he could still defeat him.
• Scars Are Forever: After losing to Gensai, he receives an explosion shaped scar on his forehead, a permanent reminder to his first true defeat.
• Signature Move: The "Dragon Shot", a devastating one-inch punch delivered from so close to his opponent that it's more or less impossible to avoid. Despite the short range not allowing him much of a windup, the amount of force he puts into it through his legs is almost palpable, and very well-communicated by the series' art. While he completely crushes Sen by hitting him twice in the chest with it, it ends up being his undoing against Gensai Kuroki, who had already seen it used and designed a countermeasure.
• Slasher Smile: When he's pleased with his opponents performance and moves in to crush them, he adopts a hellish smile that barely looks human.
• Split Personality: His mastery of the "Formless" comes from a personality disorder where Kanoh will go back to his "Beast" self that fought and kill in the Gu ritual and under the other Niko to cope. Metsudo was able to give him back some humanity and a much calmer personality.
  • In Omega it is revealed that he has managed to merge his two personalities into one. See Sanity Has Advantages above for more.
• Strong and Skilled: It is implied that Kanoh has been fighting since he could stand up straight due to his brutal backstory. But he has has a massive repertoire of martial arts and techniques that he had learned by "evolving" through fighting with his a multitude of opponents and having mastered their styles to their fullest extent. A special shout out goes to when he activates his "Formless" state where he makes unique movements that do not belong to any specific martial art but through his own feral instincts and has now the ability to combine both this and formal martial arts. Kanoh himself is also built of pure muscle and has an immense amount of strength as he can hit harder than a majority of the competitors through his ability to augment a tremendous amount of explosive power into his attacks, thus allowing him to demolish his opponent with his sheer strength to where his attacks are compared to that of powerful medieval weaponry.
• Super-Strength: He's ridiculously strong, to the point where he's able to send Ohma flying across a hallway with a single kick when he talked down to him and Wakatsuki. This is augmented greatly by his ability to use Fa Jin, meaning each of his attacks at any rate hits like a knockout blow due to the massive explosive power he produces from his body. When it lands cleanly, his Dragon Shot sends the similarly massive Lu Tian several meters straight into the air, shatters the majority of his teeth and breaks his jaw, and he bends part of the lounge's railing like it was a twig in fury when The Other Niko shows up on the monitors at the Purgatory stadium.
• The Stoic: His default mood, either when he's not in the ring or when he hasn't found a real challenge. It's less due to a lack of emotional range and more that he's very awkward. By the time he appears in Omega, this trait is pretty much gone.
• This Is Unforgivable!: When he learns that Yumigahama, his successor as the Fang, only wanted to use the title as a bargaining chip before jumping ship over to Purgatory, he immediately comes out of retirement just for the chance to tear them a new one.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Himuro notes that very few fighters were actually killed by him, and in spite of the bloodlust he has Kanoh has consistently kept himself from going too far in his matches. He refrains from landing another punch on Okubo when he sees that he was already knocked out, and Hatsumi notes that he was holding back on a finishing kick that he felt would have popped his skull open if Kanoh had kicked him like he meant it.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Noted above, Agito lost much of his former arrogance and thus able to more respect and recognize others.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: 2 years of him not fighting in the Kengan matches made Agito much more calm and he is able to smile normally and even make jokes.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: "Formless" is achieved when a trained martial artist fought and killed for their life to the point of insanity, making their combat reflexes more natural than if it was from diligent training. Even though Agito's mental condition improve the Formless is permanently accessible as his edge over other fighters.
• Undying Loyalty: He fights for Metsudo with a loyalty unheard of in the otherwise pragmatic Kengan Association to pay back his self-perceived debt to Metsudo for saving his life and bringing him up among a supportive group of colleagues and friends. Yumigahama wanting to use the title Kanoh spent so much blood and tears to bring glory as a mere bargaining chip to get more fight money from Toyoda causes Kanoh to rejoin the Association just for the chance to beat the everloving fuck out of Yumigahama; He doesn't get that chance, but he eviscerates his opponent not long after.
• The Unfought: Despite being built up as a Final Boss (and even referred to as such by Okubo), Ohma never actually fights Kanoh, as he gets defeated by Gensai in the Semi-finals.
• Vague Age: He's an orphan from Mainland China whom Metsudo found while digging up the remains of the Worm's "Gu" Rituals, and since he probably never celebrated a birthday before that, his exact age is unknown. Given that Takayama refers to him as a "brat" in a flashback to when Agito had just been taken under Metsudo's care, he's probably a few years younger than Takayama, which would put him somewhere in his mid-to-late 30's currently.
• Verbal Tic: He refers to himself with different pronouns depending on how excited he is. In casual conversation, he simply uses I or "Watashi", which is fairly normal. When he's in or about to get into a fight, he uses "Ore", a more gruff and masculine pronoun, which is translated as "We" to better communicate his schizophrenic behavior; He does not use the Royal "We" ("Yo", "Ware", or "Chin" in Japanese).
• Visual Pun: His finishing move against Lu Tian is a One-Inch Punch uppercut, shattering his jaw and teeth, literally defanging his opponent in the process.
• Walking the Earth: His fate at the end of Ashura.
• Weaksauce Weakness: In addition to a few psychological hangups that sometimes cause him issues in the ring, his use of a bodysuit while fighting implies he has fragile skin, and indeed he does tend to bleed quite a bit when he takes enough damage.
• Villainous BSoD: His match against Kaolan gives him one so bad that his predecessor as Fang threatens to substitute him before the next round.
  Agito: What we saw was terror.
• World's Best Warrior: He's the undisputed fighter in the Kengan Association with a staggering 157-win streak as of the start of the story, and while several fighters claim to be on his level, and even more are claimed by spectators to be on that level, very, very few people are able to even fight the Fang, much less stand a fighting chance. This makes his eventual loss to Gensai Kuroki all the more shocking, with spectators, commentators and the other fighters reduced to open-mouthed awe. After merging his formless and martial arts perfectly in Omega, Kuroki states that Kanoh might be able to defeat him, leaving the title's possessor ambiguous. after Purgatory and Kengan become cross promotion Kanoh is considered at the top but Jurota and Rolòn are considered on his level, the former beating Kanoh in a tense fight.
• Worthy Opponent: Throughout the tournament, he gets into fights with some of the most powerful fighters in the tournament. He openly respects Okubo for giving him a good fight in the first round, acknowledges that Kaolan is the strongest foe he had faced to date, and even treats Sen Hatsumi with respect during their fight. Gensai Kuroki has nothing but respect for him and acknowledges him as an equal before defeating him and winning the tournament in the finals.
  • In Omega, Agito is quite friendly with Wakatsuki, someone he previously derided, likely due to them being by far the most experienced fighters in the Kengan vs. Purgatory roster. When Wakatsuki is knocked out by Fei, Agito comes to reassure him of the fact that the loss came from a madman with nothing to lose.