Any Japanese school worth its salt has a Kendo team, and any school at which the Kendo team gets significant on-screen time will have a rather good one. At such a school, the
Club President of the kendo team will usually be an important character of some sort. He or she (usually he, but females are showing up more often in this role, and are usually
Shorttank or
Defrosting Ice Queen types) is generally
sempai to the
Kid Samurai, a
True Companion to the
Student Council President, and possibly
The Rival to the
Heir to the Dojo.
One aspect to this trope that may not be immediately apparent to Western audiences is the social ranking of after school activities. A rough equivalent would be the status hierarchy that exists in American high school sports. Kendo, as a traditional martial art and one that requires a good deal of strength and dexterity, is a club with high social status, thus the usual prominence of its club president.
Most likely the
Big Man on Campus. If he serves as
The Ace, or another character's
Always Someone Better, see
School Idol. If he's a
Jerkass, see
Jerk Jock. If there's one in the club, the
Cute Sports Club Manager is his most likely
Love Interest.
Sometimes, the Kendo Captain will be replaced with Judo or Karate captain, depending on the school and other factors.
The closest Western counterpart would probably be the captain of the football team in American
High School series. The Quidditch captain in the
Harry Potter books also holds a reasonably similar position, both in school pecking order and plot function.
Compare:
Heir to the Dojo.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Kyouichi Saiyonji from Revolutionary Girl Utena.
- Tatewaki Kuno from Ranma 1/2 is the captain of the team, but he is a grade-A, class one moron and buffoon that almost no one takes seriously.
- Rei Hasekura (Rosa Foetida en Bouton) from Maria-sama ga Miteru.
- Kirino from Bamboo Blade. Since the whole show is about kendo, that makes her role quite prominent.
- Masashi Takeda (pictured above) from Mai-HiME.
- Soichiro Arima in His and Her Circumstances, who also doubles as the student council president. Somewhat justified, in that he spends almost every waking moment devoted to academic perfection, thinking it's his way to prove to his family and himself that he's a good, worthy person.
- Maya Natsume from Tenjou Tenge.
- Wakou, Sharaku's tomboyish older sister from Black Jack.
- Masaya Aoyama in Tokyo Mew Mew.
- Shiina from The Secret of Haruka Nogizaka is on the naginata team.
- Subversion: Genichirou Sanada from The Prince of Tennis has the looks, the behavior, the ethics code and the kendo skills... but he's the sub-captain of the tennis team.
- To a degree, all of the tennis captains count as moral equivalents, considering how the story revolves around tennis.
- Hinagiku in Hayate the Combat Butler
- Masamune Asuka and Tounomine Hajime in Otomen.
- Hattori Heiji in Detective Conan.
- Takemitsu Shinzou in Sket Dance. Bonus points for also constantly cosplaying as a samurai.
- Shusui Hayasaka of Busou Renkin.
- Saeko Bushijima in the beginning of Highschool of the Dead.
- Kamiya Tsurugi and Taizan Yodaka are both captains of their Kendo clubs in the 2011 manga, Kurogane
- Wakaba Saegusa in Vividred Operation
Video Games
- Persona 3 has a Kendo Team Social Link, indeed mainly focused on the captain. However, the script's mostly the same even if you're on the Track or Swim teams, and on the whole the team doesn't really have as massive a pull as the other examples on this page.
- Persona 3 Portable adds new scenes with the Kendo Team Link seeing the captain from a different direction and adds the girls Tennis team captain who starts failing at her job to inspire her teammates which you help her out on.
Visual Novels
- Osanai Syouko, the protagonist of Girls Love VN Aoi Shiro. She has everything you can expect to find in a Kendo team captain.
Moral equivalents:
Anime and Manga
Film
Literature
- Oliver Wood, Cedric Diggory, Angelina Johnson, Roger Davies, and Harry Potter himself.
Web Original
- Since Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe is a Superhero School, there's a big emphasis on self-defense. So there are two martials arts groups, each with their own fearsome leader: N'Dizi of the Tigers and Zhong Lau of the Dragons.
Western Animation
- Eric Bennett from Bionic Six is the captain and star of his school's baseball team. In fact, his fighting style as Sport-1 involved him using a baseball bat as his main weapon.
