Himura Kenshin
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Himura Kenshin (緋村剣心?), known in Western-order (Kenshin Himura) in the English anime, is a fictional character of the anime and manga series Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X.
His Japanese seiyū is Mayo Suzukaze and his English voice actors are Richard Cansino (TV) and J. Shanon Weaver (OVA). In the early drama CD version, Kenshin's voiced by Megumi Ogata. In all Rurouni Kenshin stories, Kenshin was born on June 20, 1849.
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[edit] Biography
The main character of the Rurouni Kenshin series: Kenshin was a former anti-Shogunate assassin that went by the name "Hitokiri Battōsai" (spelled with a macron in the Viz manga, and spelled as "Hitokiri Battousai" in the English anime releases). The title implies he has mastered the technique of Battojutsu (sword drawing technique, studied in modern times as Iaijutsu) and can draw his sword with lightning speed. Hitokiri was the title given to samurai assassins ("man slayers" in the English anime).
After the revolution, he picked up a reverse-bladed sword sakabatō, given to him by a master sword smith named Shakku, and assumed the life of a "rurouni". This word was created by Watsuki as a fusion of the words "Ronin" (masterless samurai) and "wanderer". Kenshin becomes a technical master of the Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū swordstyle after completing his previously abandoned training with his master, but declines the official mastership and title of "Seijuro Hiko" (given to each disciple who masters Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu swordsmanship along with a traditional cape that is passed down to each "Seijuro Hiko").
Kenshin is known to switch between an easy going Kenshin and a very serious Battōsai.
[edit] Early life
Kenshin is born into a peasant family under the name of "Shinta". By age 8, both his parents die of cholera. By age 10, he is being sold into slavery. However, the slave-traders' caravan is attacked by thieves in the mountains, and every person except for Shinta himself is slaughtered before Hiko Seijurō XIII intervenes, killing all the thieves easily. Hiko then leaves Shinta alone in the field of bodies, instructing him to seek shelter in a nearby village. A week later, after learning that Shinta is not in the village and therefore presuming that he has committed suicide, Hiko returns to the site of the slaughter, to find that Shinta has buried all the corpses by hand - even those of the thieves. Won over by the boy's strength at heart, he adopts Shinta into his Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu apprenticeship, renaming him "Kenshin" (Ken=sword, Shin=heart). Kenshin later obtained "Himura" ("of the scarlet village"), as his family name.
Hiko Seijuro raises and trains Kenshin in the art of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, until, at around the age of fourteen, Kenshin's decision to get involved with the Revolution clashes with Hiko's neutral standpoint, claiming that whoever acquires Kenshin would be granted victory. This conflict causes young Kenshin to abandon his training and master in order to fight for what he believes - the ideal of protecting people. During this time, his sword skills are noticed by Takasugi Shinsaku, commander of the Kiheitai and a leader of the Chōshū Ishin Shishi. He later points out the boy to his longtime friend Katsura Kogoro, another leader of the Chōshū Ishin Shishi, who immediately wants the boy to be imported into his ranks. However, in turn, Katsura must swear an oath to Shinsaku to never draw his sword again, apparently in exchange for taking the boy's "Purity".
He is assigned the role of an Assassin, and shared the common goal of the Ishin Shishi to deliver "Tenchu" (punishment from the heavens) upon the Shogunate. The next year, during a mission to assassinate Shigekura Jubei, he encounters a Mimawarigumi member on bodyguard duty named Kiyosato. After disposing of Jubei and his other bodyguards, Kenshin attempts to do away with Kiyosato as well. During the battle, Kiyosato's determination to live, namely for his fiancée Yukishiro Tomoe, manages to give him enough strength and will to scar the "Battosai" on his left cheek, an act thought impossible by the Ishin Shishi. The manga and OVA differ somewhat on the scar's symbolism. In the manga, it is said that any scar that a person has a very strong negative memory or emotion about does not heal. In the OVA, it opens up again on numerous occasions, usually in correspondence with Kenshin's own feelings of guilt. Some weeks after this incident, Kenshin encounters Tomoe face-to-face for the first time, defending her from the harassment of several drunkards in a tavern. Soon after this, she witnesses his fight with a Yaminobu assassin, in which he literally cuts his assailant in half, leaving the blood-soaked, mutilated corpse on the street. This was the first time that Kenshin had been the target of another hired assassin.
[edit] Life with Tomoe
Unbeknownst to Kenshin, a drunk Tomoe witnesses his fight with the Yaminobu assassin. He only notices her presence after, having been splattered with the assailant's blood, she exclaims "You truly make blood rain." Kenshin ponders killing her due to his protocol to kill any person who catches him "in the act", but she faints from shock and intoxication, and he instead takes her back to the inn serving as the Ishin Shishi makeshift headquarters, where she becomes employed as a servant. During this time, Tomoe and Kenshin develop a loose "relationship", in which Tomoe notices that the Battosai is more of a pure and innocent child than a brutal manslayer. However, during this time, the Ishin Shishi is virtually split in two when the decision to light Kyoto ablaze causes a famous conflict with the deadly "Wolves of Mibu", the Shinsengumi.
After the crisis suffered by the Chōshū campaign in the Ikeda-ya Jiken, Katsura orders Kenshin and Tomoe to abandon Kyoto, and flee to a remote village where Tomoe and Kenshin will put on the facade of a pharmacist and husband and wife. During this time, Kenshin and Tomoe begin to slowly form a deeper relationship. Kenshin swears, "I will protect your happiness". Tomoe, taken aback by his kindness, begins to struggle with the depth of her feelings.
Later, Tomoe's younger brother, Yukishiro Enishi manages to find what was supposed to be their hidden location. It is then revealed Tomoe's true role was to avenge the death of her fiance, Kiyosato Akira. Tomoe decides that Kenshin had "taken her happiness only to give her another", so that he may protect more lives than he had ever taken.
Some time later, Tomoe confesses her past to Kenshin.In the manga the readers see they merely spend the entire night talking instead and her cry for the first time over her fiancé's death, claiming that she realizes she was the one who caused his murder by not revealing to him how much she loved him and the next morning Tomoe sneaks out of the house before Kenshin wakes up.
During Tomoe's last meeting with the okashira of the Yaminobu - a pro-Shogunate covert network (similar to the Oniwabanshu ninja clan encountered by Kenshin many years later) that had formulated a plan to assassinate Kenshin - she realizes that all along they had actually used her to create Kenshin's weakness. Meanwhile, Kenshin runs off, desperate to find her, and is ambushed by several Yaminobu ninjas, each of whom manages to wound him severely, being blinded and deafened by an explosion set off by a dying ninja and numbed by the cold with only his sense of smell remaining. Eventually he comes to the hut where the okashira waits (with Tomoe). In the end, with a last desperate attempt to defeat the okashira, Kenshin blindly swings his sword, killing both his assailant, and Tomoe, who had jumped in at the last minute to save Kenshin from a fatal attack. During the swing Kenshin noticed the smell of white plums, Tomoe's signature perfume, but was unaware of her intervention until it was too late. In the end, Kenshin holds her in his lap, while she utters the words "This is the way it's supposed to be.", She then uses the knife to cut him across the cheek, finally forming the "X/cross shaped scar". Tomoe personally slashing the scar is another deviation from the manga by the OVA. The manga instead details that the knife had flown from Tomoe's hands into the air and coincidentally landed so it slashed Kenshin's cheek in a way that created the X/cross shaped scar. (The OVA, given its more realistic nature, probably shied away from depicting something so improbable.) Enishi, who watches the entire event unfold, is utterly shattered. He becomes a refugee, eventually leaving the country. He develops an unparalleled grudge and seething hatred for Kenshin, and spends the next ten years plotting his revenge, using the Chinese Triads to acquire his means.
[edit] Meeting Kaoru and the Events of Rurouni Kenshin (present)
Following Tomoe's death, Kenshin vows never to kill again once he finishes his work to bring about the revolution, seeking life as a wanderer (or "rurouni"). With his reverse-blade sword, or sakabato, the rurouni travels freely helping strangers here and there. It is during this period of his life that Kenshin meets Kamiya Kaoru, the feisty young instructor of the Kamiya-Kasshin-ryu dojo, who was seeking a man parading around as the "Battosai". In the end, Kenshin rescues the girl and defeats the faux Battosai, at the same time, revealing his true identity. However, instead of allowing Kenshin to continue his wandering, she offers him a "home," while telling him that she disregards his past. He takes advantage of her hospitality and, charmed by her personality, decides to stay.
Numerous events transpire from that point. He establishes lifelong relationships with numerous individuals, including Myojin Yahiko, orphaned child of a samurai family and former Yakuza pickpocket; former Sekihotai member and street fighter-for-hire Sagara Sanosuke; foxy doctor Takani Megumi; hyperactive young ninja Machimaki Misao and brooding warrior Shinomori Aoshi (both members of the Oniwabanshu ninja clan, Aoshi with the Edo portion, Misao with the Kyoto branch); along with uneasy ally, ex-Shinsengumi member, and longtime rival of Battosai, Saito Hajime (who is of course, directly based off the historical Saito Hajime). Likewise, Kenshin makes his share of enemies - most notably Udo Jin-e Kurogasa, aka , a lunatic assassin, and formerly a traitorous member of the Shinsengumi; Shishio Makoto, the brutal once-successor to Kenshin's position as Chōshū hitokiri, and mastermind behind a movement seeking to overthrow the Meiji government; and another, more haunting ghost from his past, Yukishiro Enishi, Tomoe's revenge-obsessed brother. To defeat such foes, Kenshin was forced to resume his training and mend his relationship with Hiko Seijurō , while forging the strongest bonds with his allies and enemies. Throughout the battles and trials, Kenshin's friends stay by his side, and they form a dysfunctional 'family' together nicknamed the Kenshin-gumi.
When Yukishiro Enishi found out about Kenshin's feelings towards Kaoru, he set out to kidnap her, doing so and leaving a professionally made decoy of Kaoru with a sword in her heart, making everyone believe that she'd been murdered. This was a self proclaimed jinchu, which is translated "punishment from man", making reference to the Tenchu that Kenshin brought about during the war. Enishi's goal was to make Kenshin's life a living hell. Instead of wandering again as he had after Tomoe's death, Kenshin falls into severe depression and runs off to a desolate place known as the "Fallen Village" to mourn. When Kenshin's friends discover Kaoru is alive, Kenshin gets back on track. He goes to rescue her on Enishi's island, where she is safe and sound and waiting for him. A battle between Kenshin and Enishi follows, and when Kenshin wins and Enishi recognizes his wrongs, Kenshin and Kaoru return home.
Throughout the Rurouni Kenshin period, Kamiya Kaoru develops strong romantic feelings for him, which he comes to realize and return not long after meeting her. Despite his feelings, he is constantly haunted by the wrongs committed in his past, and believes he doesn't deserve happiness. Eventually, though, he gets over his previous sins and they marry. They have a son by the name of Himura Kenji.
In Rurouni Kenshin: Seisōhen/Samurai X: Reflection, Kenshin and Kaoru marry, but he decides to wander again sometime after spring 1883, returning to her every couple of years because he still feels the need to help others, so Kaoru allows him to go, promising to welcome him home with a smile and their child. He eventually contracts a disease and dies from it. This does not happen in the manga (this happens in the OVA (Samurai X) and is not considered canon). In the original manga, Rurouni Kenshin ends with the main characters reuniting for a picnic in spring 1883, where Kenshin and Kaoru are parenting Kenji in his toddler years.
[edit] Seisōhen/Samurai X: Reflection
In Rurouni Kenshin: Seisōhen/Samurai X: Reflection, a OVA which chronicles some events of the series and the aftermath. The ending is of quite a different tone than the one portrayed in the manga. While the animation is heavily similar to the fluid and vivid realism of the other OVA, Trust & Betrayal, it took many liberties with both the anime series and manga.
In the OVA, audiences see Kaoru and Kenshin getting together and marrying. They have a son named Kenji, and live in peace throughout Kenji's toddler years, much like they did in the manga. Sometime after that, however, Kenshin becomes tortured anew by the guilt of leading a happy life after such a destructive past. He makes the decision to wander again, and Kaoru strongly supports him, promising to welcome him home with a smile and their child. For fifteen years, he wanders, returning every once in a while.
Kenshin eventually becomes ravaged by an unknown disease that is much like leprosy (the writers have admitted there is no medical explanation for his condition). To share his pain, Kaoru convinces Kenshin to infect her with the disease through sexual intercourse. Soon after, he proceeds to ask her to call him Shinta (his birth name) when he returns from the battlefront in China. Kenshin then leaves to go to China as he had promised, not fighting and killing, but instead helping people.
In China, Sanosuke discovers a very ill Kenshin sometime after he'd fallen overboard on a ship. Sanosuke is deeply upset to see the weakened state that his dear friend of many years has degraded to. Sanosuke arranges Kenshin's return to Tokyo by boat. Upon arriving, a bed ridden Kaoru, almost on instinct, gets up to walk outside the dojo on the cherry blossom path, seeing her husband struggling with each step to meet her.
The two finally meet, and Kenshin collapses into her arms as he clutches her to him. They end up beneath a cherry blossom tree, where Kaoru tells him that they will invite the others for a cherry blossom viewing, and continue to gather in the years to come. With the silence growing stronger, Kaoru realizes that Kenshin has died quietly in her arms. Upon brushing his hair off his left cheek, Kaoru notices Kenshin's scar has faded away, signifying an end to his life of pain and bloodshed and commencement to a life of peace. In the final scene before the credits, she holds his head in her arms and weeps.
After the credits, an older Himura Kenji, along with his sweetheart Raikōji Chizuru (a homage to Watsuki Nobuhiro's original manga "Rurouni", which inspired Rurouni Kenshin), are seen walking down a cherry-blossom path.
[edit] List of his techniques
- Ka Ryu Sen: a gust of wind caused by Kenshin's sakabatō, he uses this to stun or impede opponents at a distance.
- Kenshin Ryu Spinning Circular Attack: in Samurai X: The Motion Picture (Requiem for the Ishin Patriots), Kenshin faces against an old enemy who witnessed his best friend's death at Kenshin's hands. He therefore learned all of Kenshin's moves and countered them with his sword and sheath attack style. As his last resort, Kenshin jumped up and fooled his opponent into believing that he was going to use the Ryu Tsui Zen. Kenshin then spun around and delivered an airborne, spinning attack that was very similar to the Amakakeru Ryu No Hirameki. Sagara Sanosuke named this attack.
[edit] About Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū
Supersonic Sword Technique. Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū is a fictional ancient sword style that is said to pit one against many. It is a sword art that is passed from master to apprentice, its masters inheriting the name of Hiko Seijuro.
There are quite a few techniques within this sword style, all of them utilizing godlike speed and precision.
Himura Kenshin mastered the Battōjutsu style, (note the name Battōsai) perfecting all parts of it, including all of its weaknesses. Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū style Battō-jutsu also uses godlike speed.
However, Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū is suited for muscular men, like Hiko Seijuro. After Kenshin learns the "Amakakeru Ryû no Hirameki", he feels his body starting to "stagnate". By the time of the last chapter, five years after the main story, he has become unable to perform Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryû.
[edit] List of Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū techniques
Both Kenshin's and his master's:
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Doryusen (Earth Dragon Strike)
A quick blow against the ground, causing massive airwaves/rocks to strike enemies.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūtsuisen (Dragon Hammer Strike)
An overhead, single-handed or double-handed (more powerful) swing, delivered after a high jump. This is Kenshin's favorite technique.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūtsuisen~ Zan (Dragon Hammer Strike~ Tragedy)
A downward striking stab, delivered after a jump (like Ryutsuisen). This was only seen once in the series
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūshōsen (Soaring Dragon Flight)
An upward, double-handed slash, often delivered with a jump. The main target is the opponent's neck.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūtsuishōsen (Dragon Hammer Flight Strike)
Rapid combination of Ryūtsuisen followed by Ryūshōsen.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūkansen (Dragon Spiral Strike)
A swing that takes advantage of the entire body's turning motion to dodge an enemy's attack or to bypass an enemy's defense, striking immediately after. This is best used at a counter-attack
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūkansen Tsumuji (Dragon Flash Spiral)
Differs from the normal Ryūkansen in that the swordsman is in motion (and in one particular case in midair) while spinning.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūkansen Kogarashi (Dragon Spiral Strike~ Wintry Wind)
Differs from the normal Ryū kan sen in that the target is the opponent's head.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūkansen Arashi (Dragon Spiral Strike Storm)
Differs from the normal Ryūkansen in that the swordsman is in a full somersault while attacking.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūsōsen (Dragon's Nest Strike)
Using the godlike speed, this is simply a super-fast succession of swordstrikes aimed at random locations.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūsōsen~ Garami (Dragon's Nest Strike~ Strangle)
Again using godlike speed, a super-fast succession of swordstrikes is made, this time aimed at specifically one point (i.e. The head).
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Ryūmeisen (Dragon Howl Flash)
A reverse-battojutsu of sorts, slamming the sword back into its sheath at superfast speeds and causing a miniature sonic boom to disrupt an opponent's balance. Kenshin used this during his fight with Enishi
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Kuzu Ryūsen (Nine Headed Dragon)
In all forms of kendo, there are nine vital target points: right shoulder, left shoulder, right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, between the legs, head, and chest. All forms of attack and defense thus focus on these points. Using the godlike speed of Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū, the swordsman strikes all nine target points at once, making any normal defense impossible (though this was later contradicted when Yukishiro Enishi blocked each of the nine strikes without fail). Since it is a charging attack, it is also impossible to dodge (The only exception being Seta Sojiro, whose speed is greater than even Kenshin's). This can be considered a step up from the Ryū sō sen, which uses the godlike speed to make successive attacks. The mark of the Kuzuryūsen is the simultaneous nature of the nine strikes. Learning this technique is the first step to understanding the nature of the Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki. This technique appears to be a favorite of Kenshin's master.
[edit] Battō-jutsu Techniques
- Art of Drawing the Blade
Stance with right foot placed in front of left, pressing the blade of the sheathed sword against the curve of the sheath, which increases draw speed. The drawing of the blade is the same motion used for the attack. It is an all-or-nothing attack where missing the target results in the user being completely vulnerable. Kenshin's hitokiri name, "battōsai", means "one who has mastered the battō-jutsu". In full, Himura Kenshin was referred to as being the Legendary Hitokiri Battōsai - The manslayer who has mastered the battō-jutsu. In the English version of the anime, they use the name Battōsai, the manslayer for short. All battou-jutsu in Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu are comprised of two steps to avoid failure
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Battojutsu Soryūsen (Twin Dragon Spark)
As above, but with a follow-up attack utilizing the sheath as its secondary strike. This second swing "covers" the period of vulnerability left after a normal battōjutsu.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Battojutsu Soryūsen Ikazuchi (Twin Dragon Thunder)
An alternate version of the above two-strike attack. The first attack is with the sheath, pushing the opponent's parrying weapon out of position for the second, drawn weapon attack.
- Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū: Battojutsu Hiryūsen (Flying Dragon Flash)
Beginning with the sword still sheathed, the swordsman performs a complete spin and thrusts his arm outward, flicking the tsuba of the sword with his thumb at the same time. The sword is flung out of the sheath at high speed to strike the opponent. A technique with power on the same order of the Douryūsen.
- Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki (Heavens Bridging Dragon Spark, translated as "Dragon Flight of Heaven" in Viz manga)
This is Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū's ōgi (secret technique, the one technique that distills the teachings of the school to a single, signature move). This attack is a modification of a normal battōjutsu. Normally when using a Battōjutsu, the right leg is in front of the left leg so as not to cut one's leg off when drawing from the left. The only way to defeat the Kuzuryūsen is by surpassing the Godlike speed of Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū, being faster than the fastest of attacks. In Rurouni Kenshin, where microseconds make the difference between success and failure, the way to do so is to quickly step forward with the left leg an instant after drawing the sword. The last step adds force and acceleration to the swing, making Kenshin's Shinsoku, or God-Speed, into the even faster Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki.
There is another secret to this technique. If the initial strike is blocked, the unusually fast slashing motion generates a vacuum in its wake from the clashing of the two blades. This vacuum actually sucks in the user's opponent, leaving them completely open for the second strike of the Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki that follows the first, which is the true secret technique of Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū. This second slash concentrates the power of the Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki and makes it far more powerful than the first strike.
"Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki" is so fast that its implementation can be successful even when the enemy's strike has actually reached the user's body, as in Rurouni Kenshin manga volume 14. As depicted, Shinomori Aoshi's signature Kaiten-kenbu Rokuren attack has actually begun to cut into Kenshin's neck when Kenshin released the attack, and blows Aoshi back before he can even finish.
"Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki" is the pinnacle of Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryū. Part of its strength is its user's dominating will to live. "To live! that is the heart of existence," admonishes Kenshin's shishō. The only time this move ever failed was during Kenshin's first fight with Enishi in which the vacuum benefited Enishi.
[edit] Miscellaneous Techniques
- Zantetsu
The most skilled swordsmen were purportedly able to use their swords to cut through steel. Kenshin states he can use it anywhere except underwater.
- Shiraha Dori
A defensive technique where the enemy's sword is stopped by using the bare hand/s. This was the move used to defeat Shinomori Aoshi in the Tokyo Arc. And used by Yahiko near the end of the manga.
- Modoshi Giri (Reversing Cut)
The most skilled swordsmen using the best of blades were supposedly able to slice an object in two and rejoin the halves together, as if it were never cut at all.
| Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X) |
|---|
| Characters |
| Himura Kenshin | Kamiya Kaoru | Sagara Sanosuke | Myōjin Yahiko | Takani Megumi | Shinomori Aoshi| Makimachi Misao| Minor characters |
| Terms and Historical references |
| Samurai | Shinsengumi | Battousai | Meiji period | Saitō Hajime | Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu | Ishin Shishi | Three great nobles |
