Characters / Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple – Shinpaku Alliance

Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple Character Index
Ryozanpaku Dojo | Shinpaku Alliance | The Eight Fists of Ragnarok | Yomi | Yami - Unarmed | Yami - Armed | Relatives | Others

Haruo Niijima

Haruo Niijima

Voiced by: Takumi Yamazaki (JP), Todd Haberkorn (EN), Rafael Pacheco (LA)

A member of the Newspaper Club who investigates everyone. Niijima dreams of eventually ruling the world and formed the Alliance for that purpose.

---

• Action Survivor: His abilities to run, escape, gather info, use traps, use tactics ,and the ability to sense others make him just as dangerous as the other fighters.
• Ambiguously Human: Played very much for laughs. Apparently, going into a church or shrine is harmful to him and he needs to be carried around, and the author jokingly suggests that his heart is somehow hairy, as well as his talent for investigation and attention to detail, among other skills he has, are all treated as alien or demonic powers he has in a half-hearted, tongue-in-cheek manner.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: One of his Alien powers is some kind of scan with his eyes to come to conclusions. (don't ask).
• Badass Normal: He doesn't have any training in martial arts. Even so, he was the only one of his gang to escape Berserker and he did it through sheer agility, speed, and the ability to slip out of his clothes without losing either of the former two.
  • He also has high-class concealment and evasion techniques that match those of the martial artists. Not to mention he can keep up with most of the Disciple class martial artists in speed, while cackling. It's a special breathing technique.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: In an omake it was suggested that his heart is hairy.
• Crazy-Prepared: He has traps around the entire city and Shinpaku's base, and he seems to have a plan any time he has enough time or resources. He even made a back up from the time he helped Akisame download Yami's database, and he is also pen-pals with Inspector Honmaki's daughter, who he made a member of Shinpaku!
• Expy: Pointy ears, fangs, beady eyes, big nose and Cheshire cat smile? Check. Jerkass, Magnificent Bastard, and bully? Check. Specialties are information gathering, trickery, and being crazy prepared? Check. May or may not be the devil in human form? Check. Did Hiruma get a haircut or something?
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Siegfried's about the only high-ranked member of the Shinpaku Alliance who genuinely likes him. Everyone else is usually blackmailed into the Alliance, dragged in, or just following another member.
• Gonk: Downplayed. He isn't exactly cartoonishly hideous, but he is EXTREMELY weird looking due to his pointy nose, sharp, elf-like ears, and forked tongue, plus his oddly shaped, constantly glaring eyes and strange and devious expressions. The other characters seem to think he's an alien. The author may clearly agrees with them.
• Holy Burns Evil: Can't enter a church or shrine without being carried. Later freaks out when attacked with Vajra.
• Hypocritical Humor: Niijima hates people who spread false information. Except when it's him.
• Jerkass: He's rude, selfish, and utterly shameless.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Surprisingly enough, when it comes to his weaker subordinates he's a good, helpful and caring leader, and will (occasionally) do good deed without any ulterior motive.
• Non-Action Guy: Running away is virtually a superpower when it comes time to run. Subverted when he's not running away but actually leading someone into a trap.
• Non-Standard Character Design: A part of the reason why he counts as a Gonk. All of the physical features he has, such as his long nose, elf-like ears, forked tongue, plus the bizarre, constant smile on his face and the perpetual angry look in his eyes all subtly blend together to make him stand way out in the cast of characters, and in general he looks like a character from Apocalypse Zero.
• Pet the Dog: When he's surrounded by Ragnarök, instead of calling Kenichi for help he sends him a sincere message of how Kenichi changed his opinion of him and encourages him to keep inspiring people to change for the better. Knowing Niijima would never send such a message under normal circumstances, Kenichi figures out something must be severely wrong.
• Red Baron: "The Lord Demon"; only Siegfried calls him that.
• Running Gag: His Ambiguously Human status. He's even been genuinely mistaken as an alien or a demon by other people at times and often gets illustrated with antannae or unnaturally long Femme Fatalons.
• Shout-Out: Given that he's jokingly treated as secretly being an alien or a demon, the fact that he's sometimes portrayed with antannae and Femme Fatalons, combined with his fangs, long, elven ears, and equally long nose make him look as he's attempting to cosplay King Piccolo from the original Dragon Ball, given that he was stated to be a demon before being revealed as being part of an alien species from another planet.
• The So-Called Coward: Niijima is quite cowardly, but when you consider that he's going up against an array of Charles Atlas Superpowered individuals while he himself is physically just a normal person, it makes a bit more sense. That said, Niijima has also never failed to aid Ryouzanpaku when it's something that falls within his area of expertise, even if it's dangerous. As of chapter 556, he's been part of teams that are directly invading enemy military bases. Twice. Simply because his computer skills are necessary. Niijima knows to pick only the battles he can win.
• Toxic Friend Influence: He's constantly pushing Kenichi into doing selfish things.
• With Friends Like These...: Kenichi applies this trope to Niijima, who often berated Kenichi early on. But as Kenichi gains power, Niijima starts sucking up to him, and also greatly exaggerates Kenichi's accomplishments, mostly for the former's own selfish gains. He will once in a rare while, however, do some good without any real ulterior motives, such as when he tells Miu that Kenichi missed her play because he was fighting Kisara to prevent her from disrupting the play. He will sometimes also give Kenichi some warnings about threats against him or someone Kenichi may care about.

Ikki Takeda

Ikki Takeda

Voiced by: Kazuki Yao (JP), J. Michael Tatum (EN), Irwin Daayán (LA)

---

• Achilles' Heel: A somewhat more literal example than most. Normally, he's a fast and powerful Lightning Bruiser. Damage his legs enough with Muay Thai-styled Low Roundhouses, though, and he slows down considerably. Truth in Television, since proper stance and footwork is more important than practiced strikes in Martial Arts, particularly in Boxing, due to Kinetic Linking.
• Ambiguously Brown: He has dark skin.
• Amazon Chaser: After Miu beats him up due to a (sort of) misunderstanding, he says he's fallen in love.
• Art Evolution: In the original series, Takeda had a drastically different appearance. He had lighter skin, a crew cut, and looked more "Japanese".
• Battle Aura: Gets really pissed off when he realizes that Kenichi and Miu are the only ones in the dojo. Lampshaded by Tanimoto
  Tanimoto: "Hey, don't emit that aura behind me carefree boxer!!"
  • Takeda also gets points for being the first Shinpaku to unlock his ki all on his own, without being overwhelmed by it.
• Boxing Battler: His fighting style, which contrasts with the rest of the cast that primarily uses eastern martial arts. Even before receiving master training, Takeda was already considered to be a great enough boxer to make it to a professional level. After receiving training from a master, Takeda's boxing skills skyrocketed to new heights.
• Can't Catch Up: He sees Kenichi's progress, seeks out a master and is soon almost on the same level.
• Career-Ending Injury: He gave up professional boxing because his left arm was left paralyzed during a gang fight to protect a friend. This is quickly subverted when Koetsuji heals his arm and Takeda is able to go back to boxing.
• Conservation of Detail: When he first appears, Takeda stands with a slightly hunched posture. This is actually foreshadowing that the injury that forced him to retire from boxing isn't with his arm, but his spine. Once Akisame fixes him, Takeda is able to stand up straighter.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After his fight with Kenichi, you can see them supporting each other on their way to Koetsuji's clinic. Saving him from a lethal fall, and arranging for his paralysis cure no doubt endeared him to Kenichi.
• Defector from Decadence: He worked under Kisara, like Ukita, but he quit after Kenichi helped him heal his arm and get back into boxing.
• Extremity Extremist: He's a boxer after all, but he's half-again an extremist in his first appearance, see I Am Not Left-Handed.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Played for Laughs. He gets real jealous at Kenichi and Ukita's growing popularity with girls.
• Handicapped Badass: Before he fights Kenichi, his left arm was paralyzed.
• Heel–Face Turn: He becomes one of Kenichi's closest allies after the latter saves him from a fall during their fight, and especially after Koetsuji fixes his crippled left arm.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Ukita, his best friend who even betrayed Ragnarök for him.
• I Am Not Left-Handed:
  • Subverted. In his first fight with Kenichi, he starts off by saying that he'll only be using his right arm to fight, instead of using his "legendary left." Turns out that this is actually because his left arm is paralyzed—or it was, until Koetsuji fixed it.
  • Later is played straight after training with James, who has him wear a harness of some sort; it appears to be made of high-tension springs. When he removes it during the D of D tournament, he lands a One-Hit KO on a guy from a special forces military unit.
• Lightning Bruiser: Thanks largely to his training in boxing, Takeda can hit pretty hard and move fast, so long as his legs don't get attacked, or he gets Zerg Rushed.
• Oral Fixation: Often, if not always, chews on a stalk of bamboo in an attempt to look cooler.
• Perpetual Smiler: Developed into this after his Heel–Face Turn, but remains fourth in frequency after Kajima, Agaard, and Diego, in that order.
• Token Good Teammate: When he was part of Ragnarok, he reassured his opponents who lost to him that they did their best and chewed out Ukita whenever he used unfair methods to win.
• Took a Level in Badass: Once he gets training from James Shiba. He can now accurately block attacks from very versatile fighters like Kenichi using only his knuckles, fight evenly with fighters like Lugh, and even fight evenly against weapon users despite being at a great disadvantage against them due to being a boxer. He also becomes the only one in the Shinpaku Alliance to unlock ki all on his own.
• Verbal Tic: Tends to end his sentences with "~ja nai?" or "isn't it?".

Kōzō Ukita

Kōzō Ukita

Voiced by: Tōru Ōkawa (JP), Mike McFarland (EN), Javier Rivero (LA)

---

• Can't Catch Up: Because unlike everybody else, he trained normally. It is used for his Character Development, though he still can't catch up.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Not only is Kisara Tsundere for him but Freya is quite obviously crushing on him. Shiratori is also starting to show some interest in him! But Ukita is very oblivious about this and he seems interested only in Kisara.
• Cool Shades: Has sunglasses at all times.
• Defector from Decadence: Same case as Takeda, Ukita leaves Ragnarok in his buddy's wake, but he doesn't show it until saving him from taking a beatdown by the rest of Kisara's thugs.
• Face of a Thug: When we first saw him, he was positively thugly. Then Art Evolution happened as he became less of a delinquent. The anime took cues from his later appearances and made him that way from the start.
• Heel–Face Turn: One of the first examples of the series. He stand with Takeda against Ragnarök's edict of execution after Takeda quit Ragnarök, switching sides during his planned ambush on Takeda and rejoining the Judo Club.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Ukita and Takeda are best friends and have known each other since their time in Ragnarök. They always have each others backs and are always seen together. Ukita has shown to be very loyal to Takeda.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He may be the weakest of the Shinpaku Alliance fighters, but that does not mean he's someone to be trifled with. A Yami weapon-user finds this out the hard way when Ukita saves Chikage by blocking a dagger with his bare hands and throws him to the ground. Chikage was impressed.
• The Load: Was afraid of ending up as this due to his friends getting stronger than him. Then he saves Chikage from a Yami weapon-user.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Poor Ukita gets ignored for laughs.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: While never a genius, he had a lot of common sense and knew when he was outmatched early on. After the tournament storyline, Ukita tends to run straightforward at opponents far stronger than himself, and he usually needs to be saved before something bad happens.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He isn't really that unskilled, he just trains normally; unlike the others, who are either prodigies or have genius masters. Events have shown that he could be an absolute beast with the right master.
• The Worf Effect: Usually the first one down to show the strength of the newest enemy.

Renka Ma

Renka Ma

Voiced by: Mika Kanai (JP), Kate Oxley (EN), Mildred Barrera (LA)

Ma Kensei's 16-year-old daughter. She came to Japan in search of her father, who she planned to take back to China. She falls in love with Kenichi.

She is able to perceive martial techniques at a level unusual for non-Master-class martial artists.

---

• Action Girl: Having trained in Chinese Kenpo since her childhood, Renka is a highly talented martial artist. She has demonstrated an insight into master-level fights that few other non-master class characters have displayed.
• Anime Chinese Girl: She lacks the accent, as she speaks Japanese as fluently as the other characters, but otherwise she fits all of the requirements for the trope such as the martial arts ability, the qipao style of dress, and sometimes the hair style.
• Ascended Extra: While important she doesn't become a regular character until about chapter 310.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: As we are frequently reminded, Renka has the habit of chasing moving objects.
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: She'll gladly flaunt her body without shame if it means getting Kenichi's attention.
• Cat Smile: Which results in Miu suffering from Cuteness Proximity. Flat out lapses into fully cat-like behavior when Miu starts treating her like one, with her Expressive Hair acting just like a Cat Girl's ears.
  • Even Kisara, who normally reacts with animosity towards well-endowed girls, sees her as a cat and starts waving cat toys around to play with her.
• Cleavage Window: Many of her outfits have holes at the chest area.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: As much as Miu, if not moreso.
• Demoted to Extra: Is an important character in the manga and very popular with readers. In the anime, she only appears in two episodes and is never mentioned again. Though this is because the anime ends before Renka really starts to show up.
• Expressive Hair: Causing many people to refer to her as a cat.
• Expy: Of another chinese girl, Shampoo from Ranma ½. Oddly enough Renka was called "kitty" and even has a tendency to act like a cat, possibly a reference to Shampoo's cat form. The two also compete against the lead females for the attention of the series' protagonist.
• Fanservice Pack: The next time people see her in Chapter 309, her breasts are noticeably bigger, and unlike Miu, this was permanent.
• Fight Magnet: More so than even Kenichi, though she does live in a bad part of Chinatown where the Chinese mafia operates.
• Genki Girl: She is very hyper and strongwilled.
• Hero of Another Story: Due to being a high ranking member of a large Chinese Kenpo organization, The Phoenix Alliance, she is frequently attacked by members of other opposing organizations, like the White Tiger Black Dragon Clan and even the Chinese Mafia as well as keeping the peace in the Chinese district where she lives. This is hinted at as being Ma Kensei's way of training her.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The dark to Miu's light. She is definitely "flirtier" and more shameless than Miu.
• Morality Chain: With her father, she's annoyed by his perverted nature and usually puts him in his place and reminds him of his responsibilities at home.
• Ms. Fanservice: Similar to Miu (if not more), she sports a noticeably curvaceous frame and large bust. And wears a Stripperific outfit that is very revealing.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Either her outfits will sport this to begin with or will later as a result of clothing damage.
• The Rival: In Love to Miu. In fighting to Rachel.
• Stripperific: Renka tends to wear incredibly revealing Chinese dresses that draw attention to her breasts and legs, suggesting that she doesn't have much modesty.
• Tsundere: At first she treats Kenichi with disdain, but soon took a strong liking to Kenichi and showed this openly by trying to take him to China with her along with her father. Her initial excuse was "he's my father's best disciple". This "strong liking" later became "strong love", even though she denies it. However, in an omake where Pisuke visits Kenichi, he reveals that Renka's feelings are in fact love.
• Token Evil Teammate: The only member of the Shinpaku Alliance to have professed a willingness to kill under certain circumstances, having declared her intention of doing so to her uncle Sogetsu for dishonoring her family and the Phoenix Alliance. As she lost easily it's unknown if she'd have actually done so.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Sakaki jokes that he can't believe someone like Kensei fathered someone as attractive as Renka but she's truly a subverted trope. While she may not look anything like Kensei now, she does look a lot like his younger self (and her father does state she takes after her mom).

Kaoru Shiratori

Kaoru Shiratori

Voiced by: Junko Minagawa (JP), Joel McDonald (EN)

Kisara's right hand woman.

---

• All There in the Manual: Her given name is revealed in the official databook.
• Ascended Extra: Initially nothing more than an extra whom Kisara talks to, but much later on suddenly gets an increased role through the Kisara-Ukita-Freya Love Triangle.
• Badass Bystander: Despite not fighting much it's revealed Shiratori is just as good as Kisara.
• Bifauxnen: She looks like a long-haired pretty boy. She never made herself pass as a guy, but her appearance made a lot of guys mistake her for a boy.
• Everybody Knew Already: All the girls are surprised to learn the guys didn't know Shiratori is a woman.
• Samus Is a Girl: She is revealed to be a girl after she fought Ukita. The members of the Valkyries seem to have known that she was a girl from the start.
• The Stoic: Shiratori is typically a very calm and reserved individual, rarely ever speaking unless directly addressed.
• Tomboyish Voice: She has a low, deep voice, matching with her Bifauxnen nature.

Number 20

Number 20 (real name Touko Amada)

Voiced by: Rikako Aikawa (JP), Monica Rial (EN), Karem Cid (LA)

Loki's right-hand henchwoman.

---

• All There in the Manual: Her real name is never stated in the series, only revealed in the databook.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Without her goggles, she has green eyes with yellow star mark pupils.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Similar to Loki, she wears night-vision goggles even during daytime. She most likely does so to look more threatening, given that without them she has starry-looking eyes that give her a rather cute face.
• Gun Nut: She's often seen sporting firearms, and clearly knows how to use them.
• Heel–Face Turn: When Loki defects to Shinpaku, she follows him.
• Ignored Enamoured Underling: Subverted. It's very much clear she has the hots for Loki, and while he often mistreats her, he's shown to care enough for her to protect her from Yami.
• Ms. Fanservice: Like most of the female cast, she has a rather curvaceous figure.
• Perky Female Minion: To Loki.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: While not unnattractive in her usual outfit, she looks very cute in a dress on a cruise, and even makes a nice Meido when posing as a servant of Chikage.
• Would Hurt a Child: Downplayed. While she did hold Honoka at knifepoint to force Kenichi and Natsu to comply with Loki, she was visibly unnerved when she accidentally gave her a small cut in her face (which was actually Honoka's fault for not staying still), implying that she didn't actually mean to hurt her.
• You Are Number 6: Number 20, duh.

The Valkyries

The Valkyries

An all female weapon using group of fighters who follow Freya and whom Kisara was once a part of.

---

• All There in the Manual: Only one of them (Hibiki, the chain ball-flail user) was named in the series. The guidebook reveals their full names proper:
  • Chisato Ayasaki (long-haired tonfa user).
  • Reo Usami (blue-haired bo user).
  • Yoko Igarashi (sai user with the bandanna).
  • Ami Fujiyima (metal fan user with frizzled pigtails).
  • Hibiki Yuki
  • Shizuru Toyonaga (naginata user).
  • Yuriko Aiba (whip user with short hair).
  • Yumeko Tsumemoto (nunchaku user with turquoise hair).
• Amazon Brigade: All female weapon using team.
• Ambiguously Brown: Ami, later revealed, thanks to Fanservice, to just be really tan.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Often they will attack anyone they recognize as an enemy of Ragnarok without even bothering to look into the circumstances. This bites all of them in their asses when they decide to attack Shigure.
• Defeat by Modesty: They often lose because their opponent destroys their uniforms, such as Shigure cutting them.
• Elite Mooks: A rare Good Guy version, due to them being stronger than average fighters but weaker than the main fighters. It's later revealed they get training from a Master.
• Informed Ability: They (including Kisara) claimed to have gotten better after their Humiliation Conga from Shigure, but were all curb stomped effortlessly by Miu. It's most likely because they pressed her Berserk Button.
• Jerkasses: In their first appearance, definitely. They brutally beat Kisara for fraternizing with Miu, even though she hadn't just yet planned to betray Ragnarok. Also, their beating of Kenichi was certainly not played for laughs. They seem to have dropped it for the most part after joining Shinpaku, thankfully.
• Kick Them While They're Down: Kisara and Kenichi both received horrible beat downs from them, and they all laughed while they did so. Also, the fan user tried to assault a kitten while it was sick, which thankfully doesn't cross the Moral Event Horizon since no one was crippled or killed.
• The Leader: Chisato (the long-haired Tonfa wielder) is called this, other then Freya or Niijima, because she is the one who gives orders while in the field.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When in Ragnarok they mistook Kisara and Miu caring for a stray cat together as a sign of treason and acted on it, leaving Kisara with no choice but actually betraying Ragnarok and triggering her Heel–Face Turn.
• Odd Friendship: The team and Thor are on very friendly terms. Justified since they all have the same master, Freya's grandfather, and are frequent sparring partners.
• The Resenter: Early on they resent Kisara, a former member, for leaving the group and, in their opinion, insulting Freya with her ingratitude.
• Took a Level in Badass: Shigure notes that they have grown stronger the second time she fights them because while their clothes are destroyed their weapons are not.
• Too Dumb to Live: Sure, attacking her the first time was slightly justified since they had no idea who she was (even though Kenichi warned them to run), but the second time they try to fight Shigure around all bets are off.

---