| Seishirō Sakurazuka | |
|---|---|
| Tokyo Babylon, X character | |
| First appearance | Tokyo Babylon |
| Created by | Clamp |
| Voiced by |
Japanese Dean Fenton (Tokyo Babylon) Garrick Hagon (X feature film) Dave Mallow (X TV series) J. Michael Tatum (Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle) |
| Portrayed by | Shihodo Wataru (Tokyo Babylon 1999) |
| Profile | |
| Aliases | The Sakurazukamori |
Seishirō Sakurazuka (桜塚 星史郎 Sakurazuka Seishirō) is a fictional character created by Clamp in their 1990 manga Tokyo Babylon. In Tokyo Babylon, he appears as a kindly veterinarian engaged in a love-hate relationship with the onmyoji Subaru Sumeragi. He is also known as the Sakurazukamori, Japan’s number one assassin. The character returns in the apocalyptic manga X as a combatant in the battle of Armageddon, a Dragon of Earth.
An alternate version of the character appears in Clamp's crossover series, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle.
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Seishirō was born in the mid-1960s[1] to Setsuka Sakurazuka, a member of the Sakurazukamori Cherry Blossom burial mound guardian (桜塚護), an assassin clan empowered by black onmyōdō and represented by an inverted pentagram.
A Sakurazukamori is expected to kill their target without compunction, as well as their relatives and anyone else who sees them at their grim work. Sakurazukamori's attacks involves shikigami[2], ofuda (paper spells often thrown at targets) and hand-to-hand combat. They can also wield massive illusions, heralded by uncanny showers of cherry blossoms, in which victims can be trapped and killed. A person targeted by the Sakurazukamori may glimpse a ghostly cherry tree, whose blossoms are always in bloom even out of season.[3]
Although it is stated to have many "allies and clients", the clan of the Sakurazukamori in fact consists of only one member at a time, with the new Sakurazukamori killing their predecessor[4]. Thus, from an early age Seishirō was trained to become the next Sakurazukamori, both in terms of his physical and magical abilities; he was also raised to be devoid of emotions such as love and hate, and to place no value on human life.
At the age of 15, Seishirō killed his mother Setsuka and assumed the role, subsequently noting that: "I felt nothing. Though drenched in my mother's blood... I felt nothing. And those I killed after that were the same."[4] As she died, Setsuka prophesied that her son would one day be killed by the one he loved most (as she had been), a notion that Seishirō dismissed as impossible.
In the mid-1980s, Seishirō had an encounter during one of his assassin missions: he had just killed a small girl when an innocent 9-year-old boy approached him, and attempted to exorcize the illusionary cherry tree that accompanied him. Seishirō, not realising at the time that the child was the future head of the Sumeragi clan, was nonetheless intrigued, and held off from killing the boy as he should have done; instead, he whispered a bet to him (much of which he subsequently obscured from the boy's memory):
| “ | If you and I should ever meet again, let us live together for one year. My heart is the direct inverse of yours... you are kind, pure, and honest. And I'm sure that is how you will continue to grow up. Your heart will remain pure. So, if we should ever meet again, I will try my hardest to learn to love you. Just for one year... and after that year, if I can consider you "special", you will have won and I will not kill you. But if I decide that I cannot consider you special to me -- if I cannot distinguish the difference between you and that corpse, then... I will kill you. And so today... I will let you go. | ” |
Seishirō then kissed the boy on the backs of his hands, marking them with inverted pentagrams, so that he would recognise him if, as in the bet, they ever met again.[4]
Seishirō subsequently created the "legitimate front" of a humble, bespectacled veterinarian working in Shinjuku, Tokyo. His concern for animal life is entirely false: the animals in his surgery were in fact "sacrificed in his stead", suffering the backlash (逆凪 sakanagi) from deadly attack spells he had used.[5]
In 1991 he meets up with 16-year-old Subaru Sumeragi, Japan's most powerful onmyoji, after the latter's shikigami causes an unlikely meeting between the two at Ikebukuro train station.
Seishirō, now 25 years old, recognises Subaru as the boy he had marked as "prey" years before (despite the fact that Subaru now wore magically-enchanted gloves to conceal the pentagrams), and begins a year of courtship that will ultimately change both of their lives. Often he professes his love for the boy, with Subaru's eccentric twin sister Hokuto enthusiastically supporting the pairing, much to Subaru’s embarrassment. Seishirō also protects Subaru on several occasions, even sacrificing his right eye to protect Subaru from a knife-wielding attacker.
Though freely sharing his knowledge of the occult and occasionally using his powers, Seishirō obscures his true identity and personal details (as an onmyōji could be attacked by someone knowing their true date and place of birth) and avoids admitting even the derivation of his own last name. Hokuto suspects he is the Sakurazukamori (even half-jokingly threatening to kill him if he ever hurt her brother[6]), but continues to try to bring the two together. Seishirō appears amused by the decadence of Tokyo society ("Where else on Earth do so many people enjoy their descent into destruction?"[7]), and notes that people are entirely self-motivated ("Even when we want to do something for another person, it's only because we want the satisfaction that we made someone else happy"[8]). However, by himself, Seishirō often broods on his own nature ("Kindness... and a "pure" heart... two things that couldn't be more alien to me."[9]), and frequently hints at the bet he made with Subaru.
On one occasion he conceals his assassin nature from Subaru by rendering the latter unconscious when about to carry out a hit.[6]
When the year had passed, Subaru finally realises his love for Seishirō, but at this point Seishirō reveals his true nature as the Sakurazukamori, as well as the nature of the bet. He traps Subaru inside an illusion (featuring the same cherry tree under which they had met many years before) and tortures him, all the while insisting that he was unmoved and thinks of Subaru as no more than an "object", and wondering why Subaru is upset when similar "betrayals" happen across Tokyo every day. He almost kills the young onmyōji, but Subaru's grandmother intervenes to free him from the illusion, leaving herself crippled as a result.
Seishirō disappears from Subaru's life after this point; Hokuto, fearing that he will come after her brother, offers up her own life in his place. Seishirō accepts and stabs her through the heart; with her last breath, Hokuto casts a spell whose effects would subsequently be revealed in X.
After leaving Tokyo following the events of Tokyo Babylon, Seishirō returns to the city to assume his place as one of the Dragons of Earth. He meets Subaru in X after destroying one of the city’s kekkai, and encounters him again several more times throughout the year, most of these encounters ending in magical combat.
Though still unemotional, Seishirō makes an unlikely friend with Fūma, the most powerful Dragon of Earth; the two share a love of decadence and decide to eat out in all the best restaurants of any place they were about to destroy.
The final battle between Seishirō and Subaru takes place during volume 16 of the manga, on the Rainbow Bridge. After some time of fighting, Seishirō heads in for the finishing blow. Hokuto’s final spell takes effect, leaving Subaru with his hand through Seishirō’s chest, killing the Sakurazukamori instead. Hokuto’s final wish was Subaru could not be killed the same way she was. Seishirō knew this, effectively committing suicide.
Seishirō's decision to invoke Hokuto's spell resulted from his belief that it is Subaru's wish to kill him. His last words, of which only "Subaru-kun, I... you..." are revealed, leave Subaru in a state of disbelief. Coupled with his mother's prophecy that he would be killed by the one he loved the most, and Fuma's remark that it is his wish to be killed by Subaru, it implies Seishirō had emotions and loved Subaru, regardless of his previous claims.
After the incident on Rainbow Bridge, Subaru is slated to become the next Sakurazukamori, for the ritual of succession for Sakurazukamori is to kill their predecessor. Fūma later offers Subaru Seishirō's remaining intact eye (his only remnants), revealing that it was Seishirō's wish to erase Fūma's trace on Subaru (his eye which was gouged by Fūma), which Subaru accepts. This act completes this ritual and, after regaining his full sight, Subaru becomes the 14th Sakurazukamori and one of the Dragons of Earth.
Subaru and his twin sister Hokuto, as well as Seishirō, were first conceived by series creator Nanase Ohkawa for a dōjinshi novel about an onmyōji who hunts elves, of which only the beginning exists[10]. The characters were twice drawn for covers, and when South asked Clamp to create a new series for them, these characters were used. In the dōjinshi, Seishirō was also a veterinarian, but though he had a dark side, it was nowhere near as pronounced. Thus, he was the character who underwent the most change from this early conception to the creation of Tokyo Babylon. In the dōjinshi, Seishirō's shikigami was named Nandaro ("Just what is this?"), and Clamp privately still refer to it by this name.
Subaru and Seishirō appear in X because their relationship parallels Kamui and Fuma's. They serve as an example to Kamui and Fuuma: One of X's most important developments is the question what these two will do so they won't end up like Subaru and Seishirō[11].
In the live-action sequel to CLAMP's manga, Seishirō Sakurazuka is portrayed by Shihodo Wataru. In the film, the Sakurazukamori assassinates a former enemy of the Sumeragi clan; however, his signature hand-through-the-chest style of killing is dropped in favor of magically strangling his victims. No references to his characteristic cherry blossoms are made.
In Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Seishirō appears as a mysterious traveler from Syaoran's past who also gained the power to travel between worlds from the witch Yūko Ichihara. He searches for the vampire twins and initially believed to be a vampire hunter. He started hunting them ever since Subaru gave him his blood, and Kamui states that if finds them, he will kill. him His younger brother, Fūma, establishes that he and Seishirō are actually treasure hunters. Seishirō's abilities include summoning Oni to fight for him. He is able to turn the Oni into different weapons. He gained such abilities with the help of one of Sakura's magical feathers, which Syaoran fails to retrieve in their encounter in Ōto Country. An experienced fighter, Seishirō also taught Syaoran how to fight by utilizing the longer reach of his legs to compensate for the lack of sight in one eye.
Later he appears in Nihon Country and discovers that Fai D. Flowright has vampire blood, initially believing that Fai and his friends know Subaru's location. After realizing they do not, he intends to leave Nihon but is challenged by the original "Syaoran for the feather. After Syaoran unleashs his ultimate spell on Seishirō, he reclaims the feather and is sent into the dimension of dreams alone to rescue Sakura's soul. However, Fūma wonders if Seishirō was planning to give the original Syaoran the feather to confront his clone. After the fight, Seishirō leaves the country to continue his search for Subaru. In the series' finale, he is shown alongside Kamui, Subaru and Fūma.
In the book Understanding Manga and Anime, writer Robin E. Brenner referred to Seishirō's and Subaru's relationship as one of the most explicit ones from X. Brenner stated that Seishirō's unheard last words were meant to force readers to interpret them into their own ways, something characteristic in manga series.[12] Mania Entertainment writer Mike Dungan found Seishirō's role in Tokyo Babylon as comical, with his romantic intentions for Subaru being hard to find genuine.[13] Zac Bertschy from Anime News Network referred to Seishirō as one of the most deep villains from X, pointing that he was already developed in Tokyo Babylon. His confrontation with Subaru in the TV series was praised mainly because how their character designs were updated from the ones from Tokyo Babylon.[14] Mania Entertainment's Chris Beveridge agreed with Bertschy, calling the episode of their final battle one of the best ones from the series focused on how their backgrounds are shown and tragic elements portrayed.[15] In a character popularity poll from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Seishirō was voted as the sixth most popular character from the series.[16]
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