Manga / Hoshin Engi

aka: Houshin Engi

Taikobo

Hoshin Engi is a shonen manga series by Ryu Fujisaki, published by Shueisha. Serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1996 to 2000 and compiled in 23 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha, the 18 kanzen-ban volumes were released periodically between July 2005 and June 2006 in Japan only. Viz Media has acquired the rights to the manga, with bi-monthly releases starting June 5, 2007, in the United States and Canada.

Taikobo is a young Sennin (a class of supernatural beings) charged by his mentor to seal up all of the rogue Sennin causing trouble in the Human World, the chief of whom is Dakki, who has brainwashed the current emperor and causing all sorts of grief for the citizens of the Yin dynasty. The plot thickens when Taikobo discovers that his mentor has ulterior motives, and the conspiracy encompasses all of the Sennin World.

Hoshin Engi, the Japanese rendering of Fengshen Yanyi (which means The Investiture of the Gods, itself already Very Loosely Based on a True Story), took the same direction as Saiyuki. Whereas Saiyuki revolves around four guys riding a dragon jeep to the west, Hoshin Engi revolves around the gods (who are also mostly Pretty Boys) altering the course of history and helping the Chinese dynasty transfer from Yin to Zhou in the 11th Century BC.

A 26-episode anime adaptation, titled Senkaiden Hoshin Engi, aired on Japanese TV in 1999. It was released in North America on DVD as Soul Hunter in 2001. As of January 2009, Shomei TV announced their intentions to remake the anime series if they received 10,000 signatures, which was finally reached in July 2017. The new anime, Hakyu Hoshin Engi, debuted in 2018, together with a novel by Ryo Yoshigami and a short sequel manga by Ryu Fujisaki.

Additionally, a video game based on the manga was developed for the PlayStation and the Wonderswan. Characters from the manga also appear in Jump Ultimate Stars for Nintendo DS, with only Taikobo playable and other characters serving as support.

Here is a spreadsheet for the Chinese pronunciation of all the names and terms used in the manga.

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Hoshin Engi provides examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Venus is definitely a Gonk, but has a good heart, but Taikobo does not want anything to do with her.
  • Played very straight with Dakki, despite being gorgeous.
• Adaptation Deviation: As mentioned by Fujisaki in the first volume, the manga is based on Fengshen Yanyi and took the plot, characters and several elements from it... but deviates a lot, with nearly uncountable cases of Adaptational Badass, Adaptational Wimp, Mythology Gag and much more to make an original story.
• Adaptation Expansion: The 1999 anime does this a lot. For example in the manga, we barely spend time with sisters Kashi and Koshi before they commit suicide. The anime spends more time with them.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Korean opening of the 1999 anime replaces "Will" by Chihiro Yonekura for "In Your Name" by Kang Seong-ho.
• Anachronism Stew: Includes lightsabers, rocket punch, and Precision-Guided Boomerang, ON FIRE! Justified since paope are alien artifacts.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Some of the yokai sennin's original forms. Precisely, Okijin, who used to be a stone lute, and Yoka (who was a sword).
• Anyone Can Die: The Hoshin List contains 365 entries: it is inevitable that characters will drop in spades, and not just the bad guys or the small fries either...
• Arc Words: "The Signpost of History".
• Asshole Victim:
  • Su Koko, the king of the northern region. While the other three kings deplore the state of the citizens from the capital, he shows no sympathy and finds no problem with their state as long as they are still alive. Although he too is shocked by Dakki's "party", he quickly grovels before her and begins to flatter her in order to save his own skin. In the end, Dakki has him locked up and he starves to death.
  • Nobody felt sorry to see Ryogaku squashed by his own son.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Ryogaku is a Mad Scientist who mastered the use of deadly virus and artificial plagues and he derives a great pleasure from infecting as much people as possible and excitedly waits for their souls to fly away.
  • Ryukan seems nice enough at a first glance... but is a creepy Stalker with a Crush who's willing to murder all those who get between him and Sengyoku and even Sengyoku herself when he's about to die.
• Badass Family: The Ko clan. Nento Dojin and Ryukitsu Koshu are half-siblings and two of the world's strongest sennin.
• Berserk Button: Never insult Shinkohyo's fashion sense. Or harm Taikobo in Bukichi's presence. Or, if you're the King of Yin, never do anything to really upset Bunchu.
• Betty and Veronica: Dakki (Veronica) and Empress Kyohi (Betty) for King Chu.
• Bittersweet Ending: At least, for Bukichi and Supushan.
• Bloody Murder: Otenkun's spatial paope is created from his own blood and is highly corrosive.
• Boisterous Bruiser:
  • Hiko Ko, while normally calm, collected and cool-headed, is no stranger to taking matters in his own hands and charge in combat, using a simple steel club against even Sendo opponents.
  • Nan Kyukatsu, the general of Seiki, is an extremely hotblooded man and a Frontline General.
• Break the Cutie: Tensho. His mom and aunt both kill themselves, he watches his dad die by acid rain right in front of him, and his older brother kicks it soon after. It is seriously no wonder the kid developed an abandonment complex.
  • Possibly Oeki too, although we never see what specifically broke him.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Taiitsu is so camera-savvy he always poses facing the panel. Other characters lampshade this endlessly.
  • And there are dozens of references to the readers and the publisher made by the characters.
  • During his duel with Taikobo, Raishinshi is aghast to discover the format of the page has changed into a four panel gag manga.
  • When her technique is being contrasted by Taikyokuzu, Dakki thinks to herself that by posing in an even more audacious pose she could enhance the power of her seductive technique... and then asks the editor if she's allowed to do that but because the manga is rated for young boys he vetoes her.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Dakki has committed so many atrocities that she has a hard time remembering them all. During a boozing session for Dakki and her entourage, Ko Kibi returns from the imperial cellar with a barrel of alcohol and mentions that there is a dried-up corpse in there. Dakki thinks for a few moments and then finally remembers that she had locked the Lord of the North in there and left him to starve to death.
• Canon Foreigner: The girl at the inn does not appear in the manga.
• Cast Full of Pretty Boys: All the main characters are dashing young-looking males. Explains all the yaoi doujinshis out there. It doesn't help that the only females are either evil, Clingy Jealous Girl (see below), or otherwise make no impact on the story.
• Cast Herd: The Sennin at Kongrong, Taikobo's team, Zhou (which Taikobo joins), and Yin, just to name a few.
• The Chessmaster: Taikobo, much to the surprise of those around him, who usually see him in his default "lazy" mode, Dakki, Bunchu, and Fuuki.
• Chivalrous Pervert:
  • King Chu, until Dakki got to him to make him a lust crazed tyrant. Somewhat arguable though, because he had shades of I Have You Now, My Pretty even before Dakki got her hands on him. So Go, Dakki's father, laments his ruthlessness when it comes to acquiring new women for his harem. After hearing that So Go has a very beautiful daughter, King Chu threatened to make his country suffer unless he brought her to become his concubine.
  • Hatsu Ki. He reforms fast enough to lead his armies, however.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Sengyoku, thanks to some Love at First Punch to the mole man Dokouson.
• Combined Energy Attack: The true purpose of the Hoshin Project was to collect enough souls to fight the Big Bad.
• Compressed Adaptation: The 2018 anime tried to adapt the 23-volume manga into 23 episodes. As such, in the attempt to cram an entire volume's worth of content into a single episode, many plot elements are cut or simplified. Unfortunately, the end result still ended up being a poorly paced, incoherent mess that left newcomers confused and hardcore fans disappointed.
• Cooking Duel: Taikobo arranges one in an attempt to get Sho Ki eating again, but it backfires in his face when the combatants turn it into an all-out brawl.
• Crapsack World: At least inside the Imperial Capital, where lavish parties are held at the expense of the poor people.
  • Not to mention all of the worlds before the current one are completely destroyed just because they didn't match up to Joka's standards.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Ryukan is this for Sengyoku.

• Decadent Court: The arrival of Dakki and her minions has turned King Chu's court into one of these.
• Demoted to Extra: The 12 Kongrong Elite Sennin are relegated to voiceless cameos in the last two episodes of the 1999 anime.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Dakki has the imperial painter's eyes gouged out because he drew an abstract portrait of her instead of a traditional one.
• Distant Finale: The final epilogue chapter, which has Bukichi and Supushan visiting the mortal world to see their friends again while narrating what happened to the other Sennin.
• Doomed Hometown: Taikobo became a sennin because members of his clan had been press-ganged into being buried with an emperor; later, almost all of anyone who's even remotely related to him perish to a pit of poisonous snakes under Dakki's orders. Turns out he's actually half of an alien, so his original hometown is a planet far away, and that one's been ruined, too.
• Driven to Suicide: Several characters, either as defiance (Kashi, Koshi, Kyohi) or as simply sheer despair such as Bunchu.
• Dub Name Change:
  • The anime uses transliterations from Chinese instead of Japanese since it is about the real-life Chinese Yin dynasty. Supushan is Sibuxiang, Kongrong is Kun Lun, etc.
  • Likewise, the official French version of the manga also uses the Chinese names, adapted by professional translator Sylvain Chollet, and includes a comparison of Japanese and Chinese names at the end of each volume.
  • Instead of using the original Japanese names, the Mexican Spanish and Florida-made Portuguese dubs of the series use the Chinese names from the original novel the manga is based on (or translations to English and mistranslations of some names) of many of the characters. For example, the main hero Taikobo becomes "Tai Kung" (a mistranslation of Jiang Taigong from the original Chinese classic), Nataku becomes "Nazha" (his original name in the classic) and the villainess Dakki uses her original Chinese name "Daji", plus many others.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Nataku, while he isn't bad per se, is ruthlessly violent, and the only person he cares about is his mother. This gets positively Freudian when it's revealed that he has especially murderous intentions towards his father.
• Evil Empire: Yin, though most of the evil is concentrated near the top (specifically, Dakki and her sisters); everyone else is pretty much either brainwashed or Just Following Orders.
• Fantastic Racism: The Sennin of the Kongrong Mountains, who mostly evolved from humans and have a typical human behavior, tend to look down on those from the Kingo Islands, who also look (sometimes vaguely) human but evolved from rocks, plants, objects, insects and animals. The yokai sennin, as they are called, kept some of their animal mannerisms and don't have the best reputation. The Kongrong inhabitants also tend to consider their Kingo counterparts as less technologically advanced, although that is not the case. In return though, the yokai sennin are just as prejudiced against humans, usually seeing them as nothing more than food.
• Funny Afro: The result of Taikobo getting hit with Raishinshi's thunder attack. Supushan, more ridiculously, had Funny Ojou Ringlets instead. It was ridiculous enough that Raishinshi stopped the battle so that the two could fix their hair.
• Gambit Pileup: First, the Yin dynasty must be overthrown by the Zhou dynasty. Before that, the sennin must engage on a slugfest to severely reduce their numbers to avoid alerting Joka. Then, the remaining sennin go on a hunt for Joka. What for? Joka, with the help of Dakki herself, is reshaping the world over and over again for her own convenience while Dakki herself, after learning from Joka's former crewmates that fused themselves with Earth, wanted Joka's powers so that she can become Mother Earth herself.
• Gambit Roulette: The entire Hoshin Project which involves subtly altering history so that the Big Bad Joka, who had been shaping and reshaping the earth every time history does not suit her liking, does not notice, while at the same time collecting enough souls to aid the main protagonist into battle. To this end, Taikobo must ensure that the Zhou dynasty rises to challenge Yin, and that capturing Dakki is never to be attempted, and the move must be regarded as human progress as opposed to sendo interference. Incidentally, The Plan itself starts with Genshi Tenson manipulating Taikobo into executing a soul hunt, which later turns out to be a more complex, secret plan to create a separate world to store the rebel souls to be hunted, which later turns out to be a large scale prediction of casualties in the upcoming war which is to an extent triggered by Taikobo's actions, a prediction which is secretly meant to be the gathering of souls to execute a Combined Energy Attack. Taikobo's nemesis, Otenkun, is revealed to seem to be cooperating in a roundabout manner suggesting they may be being manipulated by Genshi Tenson all along, only to find out he was just following instructions from the real mastermind, who ends up being? Taikobo and Otenkun's merged self.
• Gonk: The Unsho Sisters, who firmly believe themselves to be the most voluptuous sexy bombs to ever appear in the Sennin Worlds. Taikobo pukes blood upon seeing them make a sexy pose.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The Hoshin Project is initially introduced as a way to capture Dakki and all her minions so that they can be sealed in a Divine World and stop pestering mankind. Subverted when the list turns out to be a ruse.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Kashi wears violet and purple clothing in both the anime and the manga incarnations. In the anime flashbacks, Empress Kyohi wears a violet dress.
• Graceful Loser: Chokomei thanks Taikobo for his final battle while he departs to the Hoshindai.
• The Grays: The Ancestors, a race of space aliens who fled from their destroyed planet and reached Earth. Joka, the Big Bad trying to recreate her homeworld bit by bit, is the only exponent of the Ancestors left alongside Fukki.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The 1999 anime introduces three mysterious beings that Genshi Tenson answers to who overlook and manipulate events in their goal to maintain a hold over all space and time.
• Half-Identical Twins: Shintenkun has the appearance of a set of twins, male and female, joined together by their limbs.
• Happy Flashback: Toward the end of the anime, we are treated to flashbacks of the Emperor and his family during much happier times: the Emperor's ascension to the throne, the birth of his first son and various family scenes.
• Heavy Sleeper: Taijo Rokun (Lao-tzu), who is so lazy he gets his paope to breathe for him. He basically sleeps for years at a time.
• Heroic BSoD: Taikobo gets one early in the series when Dakki destroys his clan in retribution for hurting her sister. He gets over it.
  • He gets this again when Chokomei kills Supushan, and in fact, blue screens so hard the rest of the cast thinks he's dead as well and Chokomei declares victory and runs the end credits.
  • Koshi experiences one as a result of Kashi's death, and it is heartbreaking.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Taikobo was falling apart (literally) from the effort to fight the last Big Bad and would have died if not for some timely intervention.
  • Kanei dies protecting Crown Prince Inchon from enemy soldiers.
  • Crown Prince Inchon dies protecting Taikobo from his brother's paope.
  • Yonin, one of Chokomei's minions, sacrifices himself to save Taikobo.
• Hope Spot: Every time Dakki's evil influence over King Chu is reduced or eliminated and he goes back to the diligent and wise monarch he was before, Bunchu either goes away or Dakki returns and things get worse...
• Hostage Situation: Several take place during the manga.
  • Taikobo holds Dakki's sister Okijin hostage in order to gain access to the imperial palace.
  • Dakki takes advantage of Hiko's sister Koshi being married to the emperor and uses her as a hostage to ensure Hiko's loyalty.
  • Hiko's father is held hostage by Dakki's underlings.
  • Crown Prince Inchao holds some Zhou soldiers hostage in his battle with Taikobo.
  • The entire arc taking place in Chou Komei's ship is this.
• Hot Consort: King Chu has two: Kyouhi initially, then Dakki.
• Human Alien: Taikobo who is later known as Fuuki.
• If I Can't Have You…: Ryukan wants to pull this on Toh Sengyoku, the woman he has been stalking, after realizing that she is in love with someone else.
• I'm a Humanitarian: In one scene, Dakki is shown gorging herself on human remains from the snake pit. Sho Ki is also forced to eat a hamburger made out of his own son.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Most of the sennin wear them. Dakki's clothes take the cake, though — several of them are actually paope.
• Improbable Weapon User: Given that the paope are magical items, you end up with people fighting with shoulder throws and genie-style lamps, among other things. This is true in the original Fengshen Yanyi as well. One of the most improbable attacks makes a flaming pagoda appear and drop on an opponent's head, but there are so many other examples that it almost seems like it's normal weapons that should be considered unusual.
• Inconsistent Dub: Early episodes also translate the names of the paope and a few other terms concerning the sennin. Later episodes use the Chinese names instead, though a few Japanese names make it though. Also, one spirit beast, despite not changing voice actors, suddenly gets a Southern accent.
• Karma Houdini: In an interesting case, both Dakki and Fuuki: the former obeyed Joka while waiting for the chance to steal her body and merge with Earth itself, committing all the atrocities that were supposed to happen according to the "Signpost of History". Fuuki, divided as Taikobo and Oeki/Otenkun carried on the Hoshin Project according to the same signpost in order to not alert Joka, with Otenkun causing the collapse of the Sennin World and the deaths of nearly all the sennin to fulfill the part of the plan Taikobo couldn't partake in.
• King of All Cosmos: Just about all of the sennin are Bunny Ears Lawyers.
• Konami Code: Called out as instructions to perform a complex aerial maneuver (at which point Supushan simply throws his head in despair). Later, after Supushan gets an upgrade, he is able to perform the maneuver flawlessly.
• Laser Blade: Dotoku Shinjin and Ko Tenka wield the Bakuya no Hoken, which is a lightsaber. Later, Ko Tenka gets the Kishintei, which are throwing knives shaped like lightsabers.
• Last of His Kind: Fuuki and Joka are the only remaining Ancestors.
• Lecherous Licking: Taikobo out of all people does this when he takes Supushan hostage during his battle with Kibi.
• Limited Wardrobe: Used straight with some characters such as Yozen and Bunchu, averted with others such as Nataku or Dakki's sisters Kibi and Okijin. Worth noting is that Taikobo receives new clothes on several occasions, some of which are identical to what he was previously wearing.
• Love at First Sight: Sengyoku for Dokoson.
• Mad Scientist: Lots, including Taiitsu "please call me 'Science Otaku' instead" Shinjin, to Raishinshi's "father" Unchushi, and Ryogaku, who develops biological weapon, in ancient China!
• The Man Behind the Man:
  • Dakki, the woman behind King Chu. Joka is later revealed to be the alien behind Dakki.
  • Much more noticeable in the case of the Hoshin Project, whose executors and masterminds seem to change with every revelation. Played for all its worth in the end when it's revealed that the man at the top of the long chain of command manipulating Taikobo is... Taikobo, or rather Fuuki, Taikobo's true self.
• Market-Based Title: The 1999 anime was renamed Soul Hunter when localized into English. The manga stayed Hoshin Engi.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: The sons of Sho Ki (Hakuyuko, Hatsu, Shukotan, and Raishinshi) have ninety-six siblings.
• Memory Gambit: Fuuki plans the whole Hoshin project, hands it over to Genshi Tenson, and splits himself into Taikobo and Otenkun, while simultaneously sealing his memories. Genshi Tenson then commands Taikobo to begin the Hoshin Project.. Which kicks off the manga.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Don't tell me you didn't tear up a little when Gyokutei Shinjin died.
• Musical Assassin: Ma Reikai, one of the four Maka Yonsho, uses a guitar-shaped paope called Kurobiwa.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The emperor finally realizes just how badly things are going in the capital city too late to make much of a difference, but at least he shows remorse for what happens.
• Noble Fugitive: The two crown princes of Yin escape from the capital and eventually take refuge into the sennin world.
• Nobody Poops: Averted with Dakki of all people. Shinkohyo retrieves Supu for Taikobo when Dakki goes to the toilet.
• No Name Given: In the anime, we never find out the name of the girl Tenka meets at the inn.
• Not So Harmless: Shinkohyo looks like a clown, but is one of the most powerful of the doshi, as Taikobo finds out.
  • Also Taikobo is actually one half of an ancient alien called Fuuki.
  • Ko Kibi.
• No Sense of Humor: In the manga, Joka has absolutely no sense of humor.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Taikobo.
• Parents in Distress: Nataku's parents are captured by Chokomei. Hiko Ko's father is held hostage by Dakki's underlings. In the end, they are all saved.
• Quirky But Competent: Most obviously Taikobo, but everybody else is this to some degree.
• Really 700 Years Old: Most of the sennin in general; specifically, Taikobo, and even more so, Fuuki.
• La Résistance: The Duke of the West plus his sons (i.e. the Duchy of Zhou) and an ever increasing roster of sennin and disgruntled former Yin citizens.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: A rather dark take on this trope. Being the empress of Yin, Dakki is technically royalty, but instead of working for the people and the country, she focuses all her energy in coming up with more creative torture devices (to the point where she is shown racking her brains) and on two occasions she is shown aiding in their construction by doing hard manual labor.
• Royal Harem: King Chu has a harem consisting of two hundred concubines.
• Say It with Hearts: Dakki. Her sister says it with stars.
• Scenery Porn: For all its flaws, it cannot be denied that the 2018 adaptation looks great.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Joka's body was sealed by the other four Ancestors in a giant coffin of glass, but unfortunately she can move her soul out from time to time to act and influence the outside world to recreate her planet. She still seeks a way to release her body so that she can act directly.
• Shout-Out: One of the sennin training in Kongrong Island is shown using an A.T. Field. Ryu Fujisaki has said that he is a fan of Evangelion.
• Sibling Team: The three sisters, Dakki, Okijin, and Kibi work together to further Dakki's schemes.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Fire sennin Nento Dojin and water sennyo Ryukitsu Koshu, the sennin half-siblings. Nento has a fiery fighting spirit and a rather rude attitude while Koshu is calm and polite.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: When Chokomei goes One-Winged Angel and turns into a giant plant, Yozen first thinks about just burning the roots to kill it, but realizes that plant Chokomei can spreads seeds and grow faster than he burns, thus they need to destroy the whole thing in one blow to defeat him. Taikobo does it by using Supushan's new Super Mode to fly to the part of the atmosphere where the atmosphere is the coldest, and combining the power of said super mode and his newly upgraded Dashinben to summon a massive tornado to freeze all of it.
• Shout-Out: When Taikobo and Raishinshi are ready to begin their bare fists battle, the scene is very similar to fighting games, complete with timer and health bars.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Many important characters who die in the manga are left alive and well in the anime, including Hiko Ko, Ko Tenka, and Bunchu.
• Spell My Name With An S: In general, Viz transliterates names as shortly as possible. For example, Taikobo instead of Taikoubou. For that matter, Hoshin Engi instead of Houshin Engi. Doubled consonants are the only exception; Dakki is the same in all regions.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Bukichi can talk to birds because he used to have a part-time job in a zoo.
• Stalker with a Crush: Ryukan is a very creepy example of this. He is an obsessive and deluded individual who has been stalking Toh Sengyoku for a long time and seems to be convinced that she is in love with him, despite having no evidence to support his belief. He is the reason why Sengyoku is terrified of birds, as he uses a fire bird paope.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Tenka has a brief moment of this with Sengyoku while on Chokomei's ship. Sengyoku is understandably outraged. Worth noting, however, is that Tenka had a point: Sengyoku had not proven herself to be a strong fighter and her paope is very weak, so Tenka's concerns were legitimate.
• The Stoic: Shukotan, so stoic he barely expresses anything except mild annoyance/amusement at Taikobo's and his brother's hijinks.
• Sudden Name Change: Halfway through the manga, the name of King Chu's first wife Kyohi changes to Kyoshi.
• Supernatural Suffocation: One of the enemies that Taikobo faces has a paope that controls water, which she uses to create a permanent, inescapable water bubble just large enough to engulf his head.
• Talking Weapon: Hito is a yosei sword, and hence is a living sword which can shapeshift and talk.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Kashi (extremely feminine) and Koshi (tomboy).
• Took a Level in Badass: Chokeiho, the generally competent paperwork-wise right-hand man to Bunchu, in the later stages of the manga, sees fit to wield Bunchu's Kinben, after he dies. Of course, he needs a lot of finesse wielding it, but he still comes as really helpful.
• Tournament Arc: The party faces off Dakki's selected fighter in Joka's spaceship, Horai Island.
• Underestimating Badassery: Taikobo and Bunchu both underestimate Dakki, who together with Okijin underestimate Taikobo. Ryukan underestimated Ryukitsu Koshu.
• Undying Loyalty: The Shisei have this for Bunchu and a big part of Bunchu's character is his adamantine devotion to the Yin dynasty.
• Unwanted Revival: Taikobo (now known as Fuuki) at the end, who is an example of "not wanting to be found by the people looking for him." The reason? He just likes to mess with them.
• Was Once a Man: Bagen is a human paope who was transformed while he was a young adult, causing him to turn in a grotesque monster.
• Weapons Kitchen Sink: Paope, as per the original novel, range from actual weapons to odd items such as mirrors, fans, bracelets, boomerangs, computers, umbrellas, and much more.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Taiitsu Shinjin is afraid of heights. If living on a floating rock is not enough, he often finds himself in situations where he must confront his fear.
• Womanliness as Pathos: Especially in the first anime where the fact that Dakki and her sisters were attractive women was portrayed as the #1 reason why everything went to shit in the first place.
• Yandere: Ryuukan. He will viciously attack anyone who intrudes on his "personal time with Sengyoku."

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