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Main characters

General Tropes:

  • Big, Thin, Short Trio: Big (Jubei, who is the most muscled one), thin (Kagero, who is a woman and slimmer) and short (Dakuan, who is half of their height).
  • Fighter, Mage, Thief: Jubei is the fighter, as he's the strongest fighter; Kagero is the mage, as she has support abilities like her poisonous body and drugged petals; and Dakuan is the thief, as he is a stealth expert.
  • Freudian Trio: Dakuan is the Superego, as he is an agent of the shogun who resorts to blackmail and kill his own allies if he needs it; Kagero is the Id, as she is the most emotional one, is motivated by revenge for her dead colleagues and has some personal issues due to her work; and Jubei is the Ego, being the balance between them.
  • Knight, Knave, and Squire: Jubei is the knight, being a Hitman with a Heart who doesn't exploit his customers if they cannot pay him; Dakuan is the knave, for he's sneaky and amoral; and Kagero is the squire, as she's unexperienced and in her very first field mission. You have to wonder if Yoshiaki Kawajiri was an early troper given how nicely these tropes fit the characters.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Dakuan is blackmailing Jubei and Kagero doesn't like any of them, but they are forced to work together.

    Jubei Kibagami 
Voiced By: Kōichi Yamadera (Japanese), Dean Wein (English), José Manuel Vieira (Latin America), Paco Gázquez (Spain), Claudio Moneta (Italian)

  • Badass Normal: Has no overt superhuman abilities, trusting only in his sword, smarts and peak physical skills to do the work. Still, he is behind most of the kills of the movie (although in no small part due to some help from Kagero and occasionally by sheer luck).
  • Big Damn Heroes: Jubei arrives just in time to save Dakuan from Zakuro, setting Genma's ship on fire in the process.
  • Brainy Brunette: Dark haired and with some outstanding battle smarts.
  • Byronic Hero: A gloomy loner with some past ordeals.
  • Can't Bathe Without a Weapon: He keeps his sword within arm's reach when he's bathing at a hot springs. It quickly comes in handy when he's attacked by Benisato.
  • Can't Catch Up: Inverted. He is the hero of the film, but pretty much all of the bad guys are (much) more powerful than him.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: Done all the time to show his gutsy nature.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Though a very professional guy, he still seems a bit too eager to Suck Out the Poison from Kagero's thigh, later asks her if she really poisons the people she sleeps with, and even teases her that he's willing to find out for himself whether it's true or not. However, he refuses to sleep with her when she offers in order to cure his poison, because he can see that she clearly either doesn't want to or at least is tremendously nervous/reluctant about it. He's also Not Distracted by the Sexy at all when he first encounters Benisato in a hot spring, realizing full well that she's dangerous.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Was forced to butcher his friends in self-defense.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Has a lot of moments of this.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Despite showing often both fear and anger in their fights, Jubei barely bats an eye at the vision of strange ninjas with demonic abilities.
  • Establishing Character Moment: The first scene of the movie sums up Jubei in a nutshell: A master at sword-fighting, willing to do the right thing over money and eager to snark at whoever crosses his path.
  • The Dulcinea Effect: Risks his life in order to rescue an unknown woman from an unknown rock monster.
  • Everything's Better with Samurai: While he is referred outright as a ninja and is shown to have worked for a ninja clan, his appearance, skillset and fighting style are those of a regular samurai from a Chanbara film. Then again, in real life the professions of ninja and samurai often overlapped, so the concept of a ninja looking like a samurai is not that odd.
  • Flaw Exploitation: His modus operandi is to find and ruthlessly exploit the weakness of the Devils while never taking a risk if he can avoid it. Whether it's taking advantage of the fact that Tessai can't turn his entire body to stone, using Utsusu's blindness against him, knocking Mushizo into the water, or using Shijima's own contraption against him, he has a way of finding a way to get to and use the flaws of nearly all of the Devils that he faces.
  • The Gadfly: He occasionally teases the aloof Kagero with his laid-back shenanigans, even feigning an attempt of kissing her when she angrily invites him to check her status as a Poisonous Person.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: A ninja specialized in swordfighting.
  • Hitman with a Heart: Jubei himself admits that he works for money, though it's revealed both at his introduction and through the film that he has a moral center he will not break. He accepts a case for much less money than he could gain if demanded, knowing his contractors would be in economic trouble, and later refuses or at least demorates his obligued intercourse with Kagero, even if it puts his own life in risk.
  • It's Personal: He wants to avenge his fellow ninjas and Kagero at the hands of Genma.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: He's a cynic who doesn't lie to himself about the stuff he has to go through in this mission, but is also willing to fight to the end.
  • Made of Iron: The guy can stand up to some serious beatdowns, and he always comes back for more.
  • Meaningful Name: "Kibagami" means "Fang God," which could be a lyrical way to describe his sword skill.
  • Minored in Ass-Kicking: Though he is mainly known as a swordfighter, the climax reveals he is no way worse in hand-to-hand.
  • Navel-Deep Neckline: Male example. He wears his kimono very open, showing his chest.
  • Not So Stoic: He turns noticeably much somber when the trio finds out the massacre which had place in Shimoda.
  • Rage Breaking Point: He absolutely loses it when Genma kills Kagero.
  • Signature Headgear: Wears a signature kasa hat, which gets Hat Damage at Tessai's hands.
  • Sword Beam: His signature attack, and the closest thing to a supernatural power he has, is his ability to slash objects which are well out of the range of his sword. Though the attack looks remarkably like a Razor Wind of some kind, it is never referred as a superhuman technique, at least not like those of the Kimon ninja, so it might be actually considered a Charles Atlas Superpower in the movie's setting.
  • Tragic Keepsake: After Kagero succumbs to her wounds, Jubei wears her headband in her honor.
  • Walking the Earth: He is a drifter who walks around Japan.
  • Weak, but Skilled: Unlike the rest of the cast, he doesn't have overt superhuman abilities, but he is very good at figuring out strategies to fight his adversaries, both pre-planned and on the fly.

    Dakuan 
Voiced By: Takeshi Aono (Japanese), Stephen Apostolina (English), Salomón Adames (Latin America), Alberto Trifol (Spain), Sergio Masier (Italian)

  • Anti-Hero: Bordering on Nominal Hero, he is willing to do anything to fulfill his mission, even blackmail innocent people with lethal means and "silence" them at the end of the day.
  • Bad Habits: His shakujo staff, which is associated to the Buddhist faith, as well as his hat and advanced age, make him pass as an old monk. Of course, he is actually a ninja spy.
  • Bald of Evil: Seen the only time he is without his hat.
  • Beard of Evil: Sports a long, thin goatee, a kind of beard typically seen in villainous characters. In Dakuan's case, he is not a villain, but is definitely dastardly.
  • Chameleon Camouflage: Can turn his body into a vegetal-like state in order to look exactly like a tree branch.
  • Creepy Blue Eyes: Has grey-blueish eyes that bulge out when excited.
  • Deadpan Snarker: His snarking is more cutting than Jubei's, which tend to be fairly lighthearted in comparison.
  • Dirty Old Man: Not openly, but he still praises Kagero's attractiveness with a very creepy expression when enumerating her traits. Giving the rest of the list, it makes him more of Admiring the Abomination.
    "By the way, did you make love to the ninja girl?"
  • Empty Piles of Clothing: Disappears leaving his kimono behind when he is about to be killed by Shijima. As his camouflage skill seem to work only in his flesh body, it becomes necessary for him to get nude in order to do his camouflage trick.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: Played with. His ringed staff was used in real life to warn everybody of the carrier's presence, which makes it a quite inadequate tool for someone who is trying to hide himself. However, it is arguably part of his disguise, and he is still skilled enough to hide his presence without making it sound too much.
  • Meaningful Name: In a pun to the real life Takuan, "Dakuan" means "Impure Monk," referring to his fake monk disguise. It also hints that, as he is a spy, it might not be his real name.
  • Miniature Senior Citizen: A really short fellow, he barely reaches Jubei's waist even with his hat.
  • Non-Action Guy: Dakuan never engages in open battle, preferring to sneak around, gather information and work from the shadows. Only when forced does he resort to fighting, and even then he uses his wits and actively avoids a direct encounter.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: His face design is definitely more cartoonish than other characters, making him look a bit grotesque.
  • Old Soldier: His advanced age hasn't dulled his effectiveness as a government spy much.
  • Rubber Man: Shows the skill to elongate his arm in a rubber band-like manner in order to use it as a rope.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He was planning on leading Jubei towards Tokugawa headquarters in order to hand him an eternal reward, but when Jubei gets Dakuan's gold bars cut out of his pockets and dropped to the sea, Dakuan decides to leave Jubei in his already injured state and let the flora and fauna hopefully kill Jubei off instead.
  • The Smart Guy: Out of the three leads, he is in charge of planning their moves.
  • Shipper on Deck: Getting Jubei and Kagero to fall in love was a secondary pet project of his, likely done as a personal challenge to test his skills as a ninja and out of some twisted bout of sympathy for Kagero's condition
  • The Spymaster: His job for the Tokugawa shogunate.
  • Stealth Expert: He is good enough in infiltration that only a fellow expert like Shijima can hope to catch him, and still the Demon of Kimon fails at locating him at the end.
  • Stock Ninja Weaponry: Carries shurikens, one of the few "classic" ninja weapons shown in the film.
  • Thinking Tic: He is introduced watching Tessai and Yurimaru among the shadows while caressing his goatee.
  • Telescoping Staff: His shakujo is not as simple as it looks: it can extend several meters long, which Dakuan uses to climb trees.
  • Villainous Cheekbones: Another evil trait of his is his thin, pointed face.
  • Warrior Monk: He's technically a ninja monk. The latter part might be just a coverup, but this is never entirely implied, and it would not be historically hard for a Buddhist monk of the period to be also a martial artist and spy.

    Kagero 
Voiced By: Emi Shinohara (Japanese), Wendee Lee (English), María T. Hernández (Latin America), Silvia Castelló (Spain), Jasmine Laurenti (Italian)

  • Acquired Poison Immunity: She is immune to all kinds of poison, and it is mentioned that she works as the chamberlain's food taster.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: It's implied that she's fallen for the leader of her ninja clan, and vice versa, but neither can act on their feelings or even voice them, as there's no point. She then falls in love with Jubei, who doesn't make love to her even if it would cure his own poisoning.
  • Almighty Janitor: Even as a kunoichi mainly focused in domestic service like food tasting, she outlives her entire ninja squad and scores some kills among the mighty Demons of Kimon.
  • Aloof Dark-Haired Girl/Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: A trademark of Yoshiaki Kawajiri's lead girls.
  • Badass Normal: On the physical field, very much like Jubei, she is just a very skilled kunoichi, having to rely on her agility and survival skills to get the work done.
  • Blessed with Suck: She's immune to poisons but they're not filtered out of her body either. This means she Can't Have Sex, Ever, despite being an incredibly beautiful woman, as she'd poison any man who came into contact with her.
  • Blue Is Heroic: Her mini-kimono is blue, complete with small touches of red.
  • Broken Bird: That's what a lifetime of abuse and stern training does.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Her poisonous body is apparently the result of a specialized Training from Hell taken to fantastic extremes and not of any supernatural ability.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Deep into the movie it's revealed that she carries a rather large bunch of opium-laced cherry petals in her person, which she uses against Mushizo's hornets. Exactly how was it all stored in her kimono it is another question.
  • Death Seeker: Shows signs of this, which Jubei notes and calls her out for, though it's not clear if they represent an actual desire to die or only a spectacular disregard for her life in favor of her mission.
  • Dub Name Change: Her name is changed to Kageto in the Venezuelan Spanish dub.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: At the end of the film, Genma fatally stabs Kagero in the gut as part of the former's trap.
  • Martial Arts Headband: An ornate variation with a red jewel resting over her forehead.
  • Meaningful Name: "Kagero" means "Heat Haze," which alludes to her stealthy nature as a kunoichi. Written in a different way, it means "Mayfly," perhaps referring to her short life.
  • Minidress of Power: Wears a short blue kimono which falls to her thighs.
  • Poisonous Person: In addition to being immune to poison, she can emit them. Tessai's bit of Lecherous Licking sealed his fate, regardless of what else he did.
  • Tsundere: She gives both Jubei and the leader of her ninja group cold (and sometimes rather rough) treatment, but secretly cares about them much more than she lets on.

The Eight Demons of Kimon

General Tropes

  • Ambiguously Human: Are they actual demons, or humans twisted by their dark arts? Either thing is equally possible in this setting.
  • Dwindling Party: They're killed one by one by the heroes (and in some cases each other) over the course of the film.
  • Elite Mooks: They are not the only men in the Shogun of Dark's paycheck, but are certainly the strongest of them.
  • Mysterious Past: Genma is the only one whose past and/or origin we know. The rest are demonic ninja for the sake of demonic ninja.
  • Two Girls to a Team: Benisato and Zakuro are the only women. In a Tomboy and Girly Girl fashion, the former uses seduction and feminine wiles, while the latter likes the more traditionally masculine art of blowing things up.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: Even although we don't get to see all the members interacting together, at least some of them hold murderous grudges toward others, which causes them more than one defeat.

    Genma Himuro 
Voiced By: Daisuke Gōri (Japanese), Richard Epcar (English), Luis Miguel Pérez (Latin America), Antonio Gómez de Vicente (Spain), Paolo Marchese (Italian)

  • An Arm and a Leg: Jubei cuts off his right arm during the Final Battle, but he reattaches it. He also loses his left arm in his final moments.
  • And I Must Scream: An iconic anime example, he's encased in gold and sinks into the sea.
  • Big Bad: Everything that happens in the film is due to his schemes.
  • Body Horror: When using his powers to shapeshift back into his original form, his whole head swells grotesquely.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Believing that Genma is on the same side that you are is a bad assumption, no matter who you are. He has no actual loyalty to anyone. First he betrays the Yamashiro clan by selling them out to the Toyotomi and telling them about the Yamashiro's hidden gold mine. Then, he betrays his fellow Yamashiro ninja by claiming their lord ordered them to kill Jubei, which gets them all cut down by their friend. Finally, he betrays the Shogun of the Dark and the Toyotomi with his plan to seize their secret, ill-gotten gold from them and make himself the true master of Japan.
  • Complete Immortality: He came back from getting his head cut off. He even survives having his arm cut off, being impaled with a spike and being cut in half during the Final Battle.
  • Depraved Bisexual: It's mentioned that Genma sleeps with both Yurimaru and Benisato. He, however, couldn't care any less for either of them.
  • Disney Villain Death: After being covered in molten gold, Genma falls into the sea after Jubei defeats him.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Genma is a vassal of the Toyotomi family, archrival to the Tokugawa Shogunate, but his real ambition is to take the gold and use it to establish an army of ninja through which he can rule all of Japan from the shadows.
  • Dub Name Change: His surname is changed from Himuro to Amuro in the European Spanish dub of the film and to Himaro in the Venezuelan Spanish dub.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: He has a deep, baritone voice and is the Big Bad.
  • Fashionable Asymmetry: Wears armor only in his right arm.
  • Fate Worse than Death: His complete immortality means he'll suffer for a *very* long time, covered in molten gold and sunk to the bottom of a large river.
  • Final Boss: He's the last of the Demons which Jubei confronts, and the skill gap between them is quite large. Jubei only manages to beat him through extreme determination and a bit of luck.
  • He Knows Too Much: The Yamashiro ninja knew about their hidden mine. Gemma didn't want to risk their telling anybody else about it, so he tricked them into killing each other.
  • It's All About Me: He shows no emotion at all about betraying others, or when his colleagues and lovers within the Devils of Kimon are killed.
  • Lightning Bruiser: During his final confronation with Jubei, he's able to land several devastating blows while shrugging off most attacks.
  • Master of Disguise: Due to his inhuman control over his body he can reshape it however he wants. As a result, he is able to impersonate people that look nothing like him.
  • Master of Your Domain: To an extreme degree. Genma's control over his body allows him to reshape his body to his will and recover from fatal wounds on multiple occasions.
  • Meaningful Name: The term Genma may be translated several different ways depending on how the kanji is written, and one of those meanings is "Great Illusion," and is a term that represents supernatural power.
  • Off with His Head!: Jubei decapitated him as revenge for framing his allies, but he just put it back on his neck.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: The closest thing to a Pet the Dog moment he has is when he orders his surviving underlings to leave the sinking ship and save themselves, as he may need them again in the future.
  • Red Right Hand: He wears metal armor on his functioning left arm.
  • The Starscream: It's only mentioned in a single brief scene, but Genma was hired to acquire the massive gold shipment on behalf of the Toyotomi family and retainers, who intended to use it to purchase foreign weapons that would allow them to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, just as the Tokugawa overthrew the Toyotomi. Genma betrays them, planning to use the gold for himself and become one of the most powerful men in Japan.
  • The Stoic: Perhaps part and parcel of Genma's supernatural control over his body is a corresponding supernatural control over his emotions. His expression seldom changes, and he looks serene even in the middle of committing atrocities or when his plans have just been foiled.
  • Taking You with Me: Attempted to do this to Jubei as the ship sinks, but it doesn't work out.
  • This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: After Zakuro is killed, Genma decides to confront Jubei himself. Not that he has any other options, since Zakuro was his last surviving lieutenant.
  • Vicariously Ambitious: Genma knows that a ninja's life is regarded as even more worthless than that of a peasant's in Feudal Japan, and therefore even with his Complete Immortality he will never be legitimately recognized as an Emperor no matter how much gold he has. Therefore, he settles instead to use the blood-money of Shimoda village acquired by his monsters to buy an army of Ninja so massive and well-armed that any legitimate government, regardless of dynasty, will have no choice but to be figureheads puppeted by his absolute word from the shadows, making him the true ruler of Japan.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He does this to Shinkuro and Jubei's allies as well as the Toyotomi retainer and his own men.

    Tessai 
Voiced By: Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (Japanese), Kevin Seymour (English), Daniel Jiménez (Latin America), Doménech Farell (Spain), Pietro Ubaldi (Italian)

  • Achilles' Heel:
    • Only his skin is invulnerable; his eyes aren't, which Jubei quickly guesses and successfully exploits.
    • Invulnerable skin doesn't protect him from Kagero's poison.
  • Ax-Crazy: The guy takes a perverse delight in maiming and killing.
  • Bald of Evil: He has no hair and is a villain.
  • Blood Lust: Tessai drinks blood from Hanza's severed arm, apparently for no reason other than to terrify Kagero and freak her out.
  • The Brute: The largest and strongest of the Devils, while also being far from the smartest.
  • Double Weapon: His weapon is a giant double dagger which he can throw like a boomerang.
  • Dub Name Change: His name is changed to Kasai in the Venezuelan Spanish dub.
  • Establishing Character Moment: His slaughter of the Koga ninja and previously mentioned Blood Lust.
  • Evil Is Bigger: He is a hulk of a man, and becomes even bigger when he turns into stone.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: He is a villain with a deep voice.
  • Eye Scream: Jubei throws a dart into his left eye to blind him.
  • Fatal Flaw: His desire to exact revenge on Jubei and lust for Kagero leads to him getting poisoned and eventually killed by Jubei.
  • Fingore: When Kagero's poison starts to take effect, he sees his stone skin start to crumble: enraged, he blindly tosses his boomerang sword at Jubei, which he evades, allowing him to cut off Tessai's now-weakened fingers...
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: ...which leads to him being unable to catch the sword, causing it to embed itself halfway through his skull.
  • It's Personal: He is out to kill Jubei after the latter intervenes in Tessai's Attempted Rape. Notably enough, Yurimaru ordered him to ignore Jubei.
  • Lecherous Licking: Once he has Kagero at his mercy, he spends a long time licking all over her body.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Despite being huge and certainly heavy, he moves exactly like all the other ninjas of the movie.
  • Logical Weakness: Impenetrable skin will do nothing to protect him from being poisoned, or wounded in places not protected by his skin, such as his eyes. And should anything weaken his body/skin, the protection it offers is effectively gone.
  • Meaningful Name: "Tessai" means "Made of Iron." Fitting, as he can turn his skin to stone.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: His stone skin renders him effectively immune to bladed weapons. Considering this is 17th century Japan, this makes him immune to almost every way to attack him out there.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Captures Kagero and tries to rape her, making it clear that she doesn't have to be alive for him to enjoy himself.
  • Rock Monster: His ability allows him to turn his skin and flesh into hard stone. His skin starts to fall off after being infected with Kagero's poisons.
  • Rolling Attack: He turns himself into a wheel with his double blade protruding from the sides to break through a wall and attack Jubei.
  • Starter Villain: The first of the Eight Demons faced and the first cut down by Jubei.
  • Stealthy Colossus: Sneaks up on Kagero's party and kills everybody along with Yurimaru before anyone realizes he's there.
  • Super-Strength: Enough to rip a man's arms off.
  • Taking You with Me: He attempts to take Jubei down in his dying moments, but it doesn't work out.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Tessai has no problem walking around for extended periods without a shirt.
  • The Worf Effect: Subverted. He's the first of the Demons to die, but it doesn't establish how strong is the protagonist of the film, but how scary are the bad guys.

    Benisato 
Voiced By: Gara Takashima (Japanese), Joan-Carol O'Connell (English), María Luisa Rosselló (Spain), Caterina Rochira (Italian)

  • Animalistic Abomination: Benisato is basically human, but she can shed her skin and generate an entire army of snakes from her body.
  • Animated Tattoo: One of her varied ways to create ophidians from her body is making snake tattoos appear in her skin and turning them into actual animals.
  • Bad Habits: Not herself personally, but she makes a snake clone disguised as an old Buddhist nun.
  • Ceiling Cling: She remains hidden in a human face-shaped coccoon made of snakes on the ceiling of the temple.
  • Dead Guy Puppet: Can make them out of piles of snakes and empty human skins.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: She has white skin, dark hair and is a villain.
  • Fatal Flaw: Her smug nature ends up doing her in, especially after taunting Yurimaru over her relationship with Genma after failing once.
  • Faux Affably Evil: All of her dialog is spoken in even and polite tones, but she sometimes uses that to conceal barbs, such as taunting Yurimaru about how Genma is her lover as well, or calling Jubei out for trying to do a Backup Bluff. No matter how politely she may speak, it's clearly insincere.
  • Femme Fatale: Seductive and subtle.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: Goes completely naked in both of her encounters with Jubei. As she never engages in hand-to-hand combat (at least, not if she can avoid it), and instead fights by generating animals from any part of her body, it is a practical option to use more easily her skill, and plays to her skills in seduction as well.
  • High-Voltage Death: Yurimaru uses his electric powers to kill her.
  • Hypnotic Eyes: Or in her case, the eyes of her snake tattoos. They can entrance their enemies into a temporary paralysis.
  • Instrument of Murder: In her very first apparition in the film, she carries a lute-like instrument that opens to reveal a hidden blade, but it is never used afterwards.
  • Meaningful Name: "Benisato" means literally "Lipstick House," which alludes to her seductive nature and the fact that she, well, houses snakes in her body. A deadly kiss indeed...
  • Ms. Fanservice: She is attractive and is frequently seen without clothing.
  • Never Bareheaded: The hair ornament she keeps all the time even when butt naked.
  • Shameless Fanservice Girl: To the extent that she apparently doesn't care about wearing clothes when she is out for blood.
  • Smug Snake: Tells Yurimaru outright that she will give his message for Genma in the latter's bed, knowing Yurimaru's jealously about it. Bonus points for her power over snakes.
  • Snakes Are Sinister: Especially if they are black, venomous and come from a gorgeous human body.
  • Super Sex Organs: Just like the rest of her body, her vagina can generate snakes, a technique she uses to bite Kagero while the latter has a blade in her throat.
  • The Vamp: She appears to Jubei in a hot spring while nude and posing seductively, though her true intentions are less about getting intimate with him and more about giving him a hundred poisonous bites.
  • The Worm That Walks: After Jubei is caught by her snakes in the temple, she emerges from a pile of the damn animals. It isn't clear whether she can dissolve her body in a number of snakes and or if she was simply hiding under them all the time.
  • You Have Failed Me: Makes two failed attempts to kill Jubei, after the second attempt falls apart Yurimaru kills her from afar.

    Yurimaru 
Voiced By: Toshihiko Seki (Japanese), Richard Cansino (English), Kaihiamal Martínez (Latin America), Rafael Calvo (Spain), Luca Semeraro (Italian)

  • Death by Woman Scorned: Zakuro kills Yurimaru towards the end of the film after being spurned one too many times by him.
  • Defeat Equals Explosion: Inverted. He dies when Zakuro uses a rat stuffed with gunpowder to kill him out of jealousy.
  • Depraved Homosexual: Yurimaru is a ruthless killer for hire who happens to sleep with other men.
  • The Dragon: He is second-in-command to Genma, as well as his lover.
  • Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: Yurimaru sleeps with Genma, treats Zakuro like garbage, and murders Benisato for failing twice. Since Benisato was also sleeping with Genma, jealousy may also have been a factor.
  • Establishing Character Moment: His first scene involves him wrapping a steel wire around one of the Koga ninja and electrocuting him to death.
  • Fatal Flaw: His abuse of Zakuro and Benisato leads to his death at Zakuro's hands.
  • Invisibility: He only does it briefly, but he goes invisible to catch Jubei by surprise.
  • Karmic Death: He gets blown up by Zakuro, the very same woman whom he mistreated.
  • Make Sure He's Dead: When he attempts to kill the protagonists with his electric powers while they're crossing a river, the other Devils immediately say that No One Could Survive That!, and are willing to assume the protagonists are dead. Yurimaru will have none of it and wants proof.
  • Mundane Utility: Thanks to his powers, he can also send long-distance messages through nearly invisible wires.
  • Not Enough to Bury: After getting blown up by an explosive rat sent by Zakuro, his severed arm falls into the pier. Zakuro finds it and quips he's now "queen of the devils" before throwing it into the sea.
  • Oh, Crap!: His perplexed expression when he notices a small rat collapse close to where he's killing Jubei quickly changes to panic when he realizes that the creature is an explosive trap sent by Zakuro.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Under certain situations, he can be this. Using his electric powers on a river full of living creatures produces a devastating result.
  • Psycho Electro: He channels the lightning through the slender steel wires that he throws to snare and strangle his victims.
  • Shock and Awe: His schtick is creating lightning in his body and sending it through his steel wires. Any character he manages to wrap up in those wires is in for a bad time.
  • Sissy Villain: Fanciful clothes (while most of the Devils aside from the seductive Benisato wear rather practical and utilitarian clothing), excessively pretty, rebuffs women, confirmed to sleep with men, takes part in horrifically immoral schemes involving mass murder... yep, he counts.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: He always speaks calmly and softly, even when he's electrocuting his victims.
  • Wicked Cultured: He's shown writing calligraphy when Benisato arrives to report her first battle with Jubei.
  • You Have Failed Me: He electrocutes Benisato after one failure too many in killing Jubei.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He does this to Benisato and eventually would have done so to Zakuro, though he doesn't get that far since Zakuro strikes first.

    Shijima 
Voiced By: Akimasa Ohmori (Japanese), Kevin Seymour (English), unknown (Latin America), Miguel Rey (Spain), Gianluca Iacono (Italian)

  • An Arm and a Leg: He's already missing an arm, and later Jubei's Razor Wind severs his right leg at knee level. Disturbingly enough, he doesn't seem to notice much.
  • Artificial Limbs: His left arm is a mechanical crossbow/claw/hand combination.
  • Badasses Wear Bandanas: Wears a black one as a turban.
  • Casting a Shadow: Can disappear into and navigate through shadows, or use them to create illusions.
  • Combo Platter Powers: Shijima has probably the greatest variety of powers among the Devils. He can melt into shadows, generate illusionary shadow duplicates of himself, turn his opponents into People Puppets and attack his opponents with a sort of grappling-claw.
  • Exotic Weapon Supremacy: Subverted. He uses a weird contraption that is kinda like a crossbow if instead of a bolt there was a multi-pronged claw that fired from a spring and was connected to the bow by a metal chain. However, while its main purpose seems to be a sudden assassination weapon while striking from the shadows, he doesn't actually have much luck with it; Dakuan is able to dodge it at the last instant and Jubei blocks it, and when Shijima tries to pull the chain back to the bow against the latter, he winds up impaling himself on Jubei's sword, as it had become entangled in the claw/chain.
  • Handicapped Badass: Lacks an arm, but has an impressive weapon to make up for it.
  • Lean and Mean: An unnaturally lean dude.
  • Logical Weakness: His claw/crossbow contraption is suited for sniping attacks from afar, but can only hit once and, as Jubei showed, the chain can get tangled in obstacles, sometimes with deadly results.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: Gets a leg chopped off by Jubei and not only doesn't blink, but also hops merrily away and does not even tend it. Given that the wound barely bleeds, it's probable that he has a Healing Factor.
  • People Puppets: Shows the ability to mind control people, apparently only after molesting them (or at least getting his saliva inside their bodies).
  • Red Right Hand: His artificial left arm.
  • The Strategist: He relies on misdirection, trickery, ambush tactics, and luring his enemies into traps.
  • Stealth Expert: No one is shown to be a greater master at using shadows, deception, and sneaking than Shijima.

    Utsusu Mujuro 
Voiced By: Norio Wakamoto (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English), Juan Guzmán (Latin America), Francisco Alborch (Spain), Alberto Sette (Italian)

  • Affably Evil: He seeks an honorable duel with Jubei and speaks politely.
  • Badass Normal: Aside from his status as a Blind Weaponmaster, Mujuro is the only member of the Eight Devils not to boast supernatural powers and gets by purely on his swordplay.
  • Blade Reflection: He uses this trick to blind his opponents and strike while they're disorientated.
  • Blind Weaponmaster: A blind swordsman who is actually Jubei's complete superior in terms of skill, which is quite a feat.
  • Challenge Seeker: He isn't out to just defeat his enemies, but to duel them.
  • Disability Superpower: He may be blind, but his other senses compensate and allow him to easily best opponents who can see.
  • Dub Name Change: His name is changed to Usutsu Muzuru in the Venezuelan Spanish dub.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: He fights more like a samurai than a ninja, to the extent that he saves enemies from their deaths in order to host honorable duels against them. Bonus points for wearing a fancy white robe instead of something more practical. The fact that he introduces himself using a surname adds credence to the idea that he is actually a samurai, and was perhaps recruited into the group as a mercenary due to his fighting skill rather than any ninja abilities.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Jubei fatally stabs Mujuro while fighting in the forest.
  • Logical Weakness: Although his hearing is impressive and has some advantages over regular vision, it is not infallible, and it does not make up completely for functional eyes. Whether because he couldn't hear it due to it not moving, or because he is trying to keep track of too many things at once with his hearing (Jubei, Kagero, the trees of the woods they're fighting in, etc.), he can't tell that Kagero's blade is lodged in a tree after she attempted to sneak attack him earlier. Later in the fight Jubei winds up in the perfect position for the lodged blade to block Utsusu's strike, whereas if Utsusu could see he would have been able to tell that the blade was there and adjusted accordingly.
  • Master Swordsman: He makes Jubei, who is the next best swordsman in the movie (and is much better than anyone else shown onscreen), look rough and amateurish by comparison.
  • Noble Demon: Saves Jubei and Kagero from falling off a cliff because he wants to kill them in battle fair and square.
  • Only One Name: Inverted. Along with Himuro, he is the only Demon of Kimon who has a first name and a second name. It's likely that he and possibly Gemma are the only ones in the group of samurai descent, since peasants were not supposed to speak their family name in public during this era of Japanese history.
  • Super-Senses: His senses are keen enough to mostly make up for his lack of vision. Even Jubei's attempt to use the sound of falling trees to disguise an attack is easily foiled by Utsusu's hearing. However, his sharpened hearing is not infallible and can miss thin, stationary objects when overtasked. Jubei exploits this weakness and it allows him to kill Utsusu despite Utsusu's superior swordsmanship.
  • This Cannot Be!: Mutters these words in shock as he dies, unable to understand how Jubei could, as far as he could tell, parry his attack and then stab almost instantly, unaware that his blade was actually blocked by Kagero's sword.

    Mushizo 
Voiced By: Reizo Nomoto (Japanese), Milton James (English), Domingo Moreno (Latin America), José Luis Barcelona (Spain), Aldo Stella (Italian)

  • An Arm and a Leg: Jubei makes him fall from his perch on the tree root he was standing on by chopping his leg with Razor Wind from underwater.
  • Bee-Bee Gun: He controls hornets as attack beasts.
  • Blood Knight: He sees his adversaries as his prey and is not willing to leave them to his allies.
  • Body Horror: The dude is not just hideously malformed, he has a hornet hive grafted to his back. Even worse, judging from his death scene, the hive isn't limited to his hunch and probably runs through his entire torso. He also carries a needle on his throat and can exhale it out with surprising strength.
  • Clothing Damage: After Jubei slashes off his robe, he remains bare-chested for the rest of his scenes.
  • Evil Sounds Raspy: No wonder, considering his throat contains a needle.
  • Faster Than They Look: You wouldn't think that he'd be especially agile considering his large hunch and barrel-chested build, but Mushizo is really quick on his feet and can keep pace with the much more athletic Jubei.
  • Friend to Bugs: Not only friend but also home.
  • Gonk: He would make Quasimodo look handsome, no kidding.
  • Handicapped Badass: Mushizo is hunchbacked and malformed, but it doesn't stop him from being a very lethal ninja.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Suffers fatal stings from his own maddened hornets after he plunges into a pond and they try to escape from his body. Just to be sure, Jubei delivers a finishing blow which decapitates Mushizo.
  • The Infested: He has a hive of wasps living in the hump on his back that follows his commands.
  • Informed Attribute: Some promotional materials describe Mushizo as a monk warrior, but, unlike Dakuan, nothing about him makes one think of a monk.
  • Logical Weakness: Supernatural control or not, wasps are still wasps. When Mushizo is submerged underwater the wasp hive is flooded, forcing them to try to save themselves by digging through Mushizo's own flesh.
  • Long Neck: Which makes him creepier while he is peeking around in search of his enemy.
  • Long-Range Fighter: Played with. He's a much larger threat when siccing his wasps on enemies at long range, but Mushizo is no slouch in close quarters either, where he skillfully wields throwing knives and a spear.
  • Lovecraftian Superpower: He can control hornets and houses them into his own body.
  • Meaningful Name: "Mushizo" means "Insect Cellar," relating to the wasp nest he has grafted in his hump.
  • Pest Controller: Somehow has control over and communicates with a swarm of wasps.
  • Red Right Hand: He has a hornet hive grafted to his back.
  • Required Secondary Powers: Deconstructed. Aside from sheltering them into his hump, he does hold some kind of control over the insects, probably via psychic link, but it means that things can get very bad for him if he loses it. Effectively, he is killed when the hornets panic and cease obeying him at a critical moment.
  • Spike Shooter: Can fire needles out of his throat, with enough force to pierce the handle of Jubei's katana.
  • The Strategist: He uses clever tactics, like keeping his enemies at long distance so his swarm can kill them while he's at no risk, and luring enemies into a false sense of security before launching a surprise attack, which he does twice in his bout with Jubei.
  • The Symbiote: Has a mutually beneficial relationship with the hornets living inside his body.
  • Wicked Wasps: He's a living hornets' nest. He communicates with and controls the insects, using them to gather information and as a weapon.
  • The Worm That Walks: Although he is not made of them, he is basically a walking hornet hive.

    Zakuro 
Voiced By: Masako Katsuki (Japanese), Riva Spier (English), Jhaidy Barboza (Latin America), María Pilar Quesada (Spain), Patrizia Salmoiraghi (Italian)

  • Action Bomb: Her specialty lies in opening living or dead creatures up and turning them into this, then stitching them back together, and finally putting them somewhere useful to her.
  • Character Death: She is covered in either oil or sake by Dakuan and Jubei sets her on fire, which also causes all the explosives she carries to go off.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Towards Yurimaru.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: She sports a large scar in the right side of her face, which also looks stitched, possibly implying self-experimentation just like she does to corpses.
  • Hoist by Her Own Petard: Literally. She is blown up with her own explosives.
  • Lady in Red: Though less successful in the seductive factor than she would wish.
  • Logical Weakness: To use her gunpowder explosions the way she does, she has to have a large supply on her person at all times. Both Dakuan and Jubei realize that this means that if they could set off her gunpowder, she'd be blown to pieces along with anything else nearby that is valuable to the Devils of Kimon. While she managed to prevent Dakuan from exploiting that weakness, she wasn't so fortunate with Jubei.
  • Mad Bomber: A gunpowder expert with a nasty temper and some sick jealously.
  • Meaningful Name: "Zakuro" means literally "pomegranate," which might or might not be a multi-language cultural pun. The Spanish and Portuguese word for pomegranate is the homophone of "hand grenade", which would echo her usage of gunpowder and explosive techniques (and likely not by coincidence, those were popularized in Japan by Spanish and Portuguese merchants).
  • No Shirt, Long Jacket: A variation: she wears a cape over really nothing aside from bandages.
  • Red Is Heroic: Inverted: she wears in red and is a villainess.
  • Red Right Hand: She has gunpowder in her own body.
  • Scars Are Forever: She has a scar on the right side of her face.
  • Sarashi: It composes most of her outfit, basically. It also marks her nipples.
  • Villainous Rescue: Yurimaru captures Jubei and starts electrocuting him. He likely would've killed Jubei if Zakuro's rat bomb hadn't arrived when it did. Yurimaru's hesitation when he sees the rat makes him let up on shocking Jubei, allowing the latter to cut himself free and escape right before the rat explodes.
  • Woman Scorned: Zakuro doesn't take Yurimaru rejecting her well at all. Of course, Yurimaru's poor treatment of her probably didn't help much...
  • Yandere: Being rebuffed one too many times by Yumimaru made her decide to murder him.

Mochizuki clan

    Sakaki Hyobu 
Voiced By: Shuichiro Moriyama (Japanese), Edward Mannix (English), Josep María Zamora (Spain), Maurizio Scattorin (Italian)

  • Coitus Uninterruptus: He is briefed by Kagero while having sex with a random woman, and the closest he comes to stopping is a brief pause. He doesn't even wait until the end of the briefing before he gets back to it.
  • Dead All Along: Though we do not find out exactly how long this has been the case. Late in the film, it's revealed that Genma has been using his powers to impersonate Sakaki.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Seems to be a prudent leader, if a bit cold towards his subordinates.
  • The Stoic: He shows little to no emotion regardless of the circumstances.

    Hanza 
Voiced By: Katsuji Mori (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English), Oriol Rafel (Spain), Marco Balzarotti (Italian)

  • Badass Normal: He shows himself to be capable fighter, but he's out of his depth taking on Tessai and the Devils of Kimon.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: He throws himself at Tessai to distract Tessai from Kagero, hoping she'll be able to escape.
  • The Leader: He's the head of his clan's ninja.
  • Sacrificial Lion: He's gruesomely killed at the beginning of the film to show how dangerous the Devils of Kimon are.
  • She Is All Grown Up: His reaction to Kagero, along with the rest of his team.
  • The Spymaster: He's the head of Intelligence for the Mochizuki clan, and his spies are able to spot the Devils of Kimon in the early stages of their plan and attempt to start connecting the dots.

Yamashiro clan

    Shinkuro 
Voiced By: Junichi Sugawara (Japanese), Milton James (English), unknown (Spanish)


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