|
Himura KenshinGo back to character page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shinta was born to peasant parents and had no last name. His early life as a farmers' son was harsh because he was born in the middle of a famine. His early years were spent struggling to scratch out a living alongside his father and older brothers. Much of what they grew was taken as tribute to their daimyo and the shogunate. At age nine, cholera spread through the village, killing Shinta's parents and brothers, leaving Shinta an orphan. The little redhead was sold into slavery, destined to work in the tea houses because of his ethereal beauty.
On the way to be sold, Shinta was befriended by three sisters who had been sold into prostitution to pay their family's debts, Sakura, Akane and Kasumi. The girls gave Shinta some of their food and held him in their arms at night so he wouldn't be afraid. Shinta felt happy and safe with the sisters.
However, it was not to last. Only a day after Shinta had met the sisters, the slave caravan was attacked by bandits who slaughtered everyone just for kicks. Shinta tried to protect the sisters, but was too small to wield the heavy katana he held. The sisters shielded Shinta with their bodies and were killed before his eyes.
Just as they were about to kill Shinta, a large swordsman intervened and killed them all in seconds. Hiko Seijuro XIII left Shinta by himself, telling the boy to go to a nearby town. He returned the next day and found the boy still with the bodies, having buried them all, including the bandits. Shinta had made special graves for the three sisters and explained to Hiko that he had wished to protect them even if it cost his life. Hiko admired the boy's early maturity and took Shinta under his wing, renaming him Kenshin or Sword Heart.
For four years Kenshin trained under Hiko in the sword school of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. Hiko was a harsh and demanding teacher and believed the best way for Kenshin to learn new moves was to be beaten up with them! Kenshin rose to the challenge and mastered each new move quickly. Although he couldn't hope to attack Hiko due to their size difference, he could defend himself from Hiko's attacks and could execute each move perfectly. After four years, Kenshin had mastered all the moves except the secrets.
During this time, war was brewing. Many people were fed up with the feudal system that had dominated Japan for the past 300 years and wanted a change. Revolutionaries took up arms and fought against the shogunate who were oppressing the lower classes, such as what Kenshin had come from.
Kenshin, remembering his own starved childhood, pleaded with Hiko to go with him and lend the power of Hiten to the war effort. Hiko explained to Kenshin that a sword style as powerful as Hiten would influence the outcome of the war and would be corrupted if put into the hands of politicians. Hiko knew that if Kenshin fought and killed with Hiten before his training was complete, it would ruin his soul and make him a mass murderer.
Not caring for his master's words, Kenshin abruptly left and enlisted with the Kiheitai of the Choshuu Ishin Shishi. The head of the Ishin Shishi, one Katsura Kogoro saw Kenshin's skill with the blade and recruited him as their shadow assassin, or hitokiri.
At the tender age of 14, Kenshin started killing shogunate supporters. He justified this by telling himself he was delivering "tenchuu" or Heaven's Justice. Inside, it was killing him to just kill and kill again. His features hardened, voice and his eyes hardened. Those who saw the change from the once gentle boy to the cold killer feared him. Even his own compatriots stayed well away from him. Only his direct overseer, a man named Iizuka and Katsura treated Kenshin like a human being and not a hitokiri.
A year after becoming a hitokiri, Kenshin was now known by a new name, Battousai: One who has mastered Battoujutsu. Hitokiri Battousai was all he was called, never Kenshin. Battousai killed a bunch of shogunate supporters one night in April of 1864. One of them, a young man named Kiyosato Akira put up quite a fight and was able to wound Battousai on the left cheek before Battousai did him in.
One month later, Battousai was in a sake bar, trying to drink away his pain. The problem was, the sake tasted like blood. Even though a month had passed, the wound on his left cheek was still vivid. It seemed that the hate of Kiyosato had prevented the wound from healing.
A young girl walked into the bar, sat down behind Battousai and ordered chilled sake. Some tough-guy swordsmen started harassing her and declared themselves imperial warriors of Aizu. A few people in the crowd jeered them, pointing out that Aizu was on the Bakufu's side. The larger of the two guys started to draw his sword but was stopped by Battousai who told him and his buddy to get out of Kyoto.
The thugs left the bar, but decided to ambush and kill Battousai. Before they could do this, they were killed themselves by a chain-wielding assassin of the Shogunate.
After Battousai left the sake bar, he was attacked by the assassin. Battousai struggled against this assassin until he was able to grab one of the swords and then proceeded to kill the assassin with his own weapon, causing blood to spatter everywhere, including on the girl from the bar, who had come to thank him. As Battousai stood staring at her, she passed out.
Battousai decided not to kill her as me might have and instead took her to the Kohagiya which was one of many Ishin Shishi hideouts. The next morning, she told him her name was Yukishiro Tomoe. Tomoe stayed at the inn and became a maid of all work for the innkeeper. Kenshin didn't like her being there because she made him feel funny and he was the butt of jokes. Iizuka would tease him about Tomoe till Kenshin threatened him with his katana.
Once, Tomoe entered the room she and Kenshin were sharing. She saw Kenshin sleeping in his usual position, sitting up in the windowsill and decided to put a blanket around his shoulders because he was asleep. When she got near him, he woke up and put his sword to her throat, almost killing her. When he came to his senses, he shoved her away as he gasped for breath. Apologizing profusely, he told her that she should stay away from him because he was dangerous. Tomoe offered to be a sheath for Kenshin's insanity.
Kenshin and Tomoe started spending time together and grew closer. Kenshin trusted her enough to sleep in front of her, something he never did around others.
But things were afoot. There was a mole among the Ishin Shishi who was leaking out classified information. Things came to a head when the meeting at Ikedaya was massacred by the Shinsengumi and everyone except Katsura Koguro (who had been running late) was killed or arrested.
The Isshin Shishi went to all-out battle against the Bakufu supporters but were out-manned and outclassed. They were crushed and scattered. Some of the retreating Ishin set fire to Kyoto out of spite. Katsura and the members of his Ishin, who had nothing to do with the fire, had to go into hiding because their inn was burnt down.
Katsura sent Kenshin and Tomoe into the Otsu countryside to pose as apothecaries. Kenshin and Tomoe got married and took up their new life in the mountains. The only people who knew their whereabouts were Katsura and Iizuka.
During their five months, Kenshin found that life in the countryside agreed with him. He began to feel again and for the first time in his short life, learned what happiness really was. He spent a lot of time playing with the local children and really enjoyed himself. His only contact to the outside was Iizuka, who would regularly update him on the goings-on in Kyoto. Kenshin would ask about Katsura, but no one knew where he went to.
One day in December, Kenshin was playing with the children when they looked up and saw a young boy with spiky black hair and sharp black eyes staring at them. When Kenshin approached the boy, the boy bit him on the hand. Tomoe came out of the house and recognized the boy. It was her little brother, Enishi. Kenshin decided to give Tomoe and Enishi time to reunite with each other.
In the house, Enishi informed Tomoe that the time was at hand. It was time to cast Tenchuu on Battousai. Tomoe recalled that when she had spoken with the Yaminobu, they would send a contact to her. Tomoe was horrified that Enishi had gotten mixed up in all this. She told him to go back to Edo (Tokyo). Enishi was angered. Why was Tomoe defending him? Why was she protecting the man who...?
Enishi ran out of the house in rage. When he saw Kenshin coming back to the house, he said, "If only YOU had never existed!!!", then took off full blast. That night as they sat together, Tomoe told Kenshin the story of her life.
She was the daughter of a samurai who was the retainer to the Shogunate. The family had never been wealthy, but always had what they needed. Her father hadn't been good at swordsmanship or painting, but was kind and hardworking.
Their mother had died giving birth to Enishi. The father had been overcome with grief and spent most of his time away from home. Tomoe had raised Enishi in the mother's place. To Enishi, she was both mother and sister. Tomoe was so much the focus of his world that what happened next was to be very upsetting for him.
Tomoe had become engaged to the second son of a samurai. When Enishi was told, he threw a huge tantrum. This in turn saddened Tomoe. She wanted to marry her fiance, but hated to see Enishi upset. Because of this, she was in conflict with herself and couldn't express her joy at being engaged to her fiance.
He ended up thinking himself unworthy of her love because he was only a second son. To that end, he postponed their wedding, deciding he needed to fight for the Bakufu in the war to prove his worthiness. A few months later, he was killed. Tomoe explained that when her fiance died, her happiness died as well, which was why she never smiled.
Kenshin in turn told her that as a hitokiri, he'd nearly gone mad from all the killing, till she came into his life, started questioning what he was doing and then gave him the sheath for his madness. He said that spending the time in Otsu with her had awakened him and allowed him to understand what he was truly fighting for. He then promised her that when it was all over, he'd give up killing for good.
Tomoe decided that she couldn't go through with her agreement to help the Yaminobu kill Kenshin. She left early in the morning and went to try and save both their hides. She went to Yaminobu HQ and told them that his weakness was when he was asleep. The leader didn't fall for that. He knocked Tomoe out and imprisoned her in their hide out. Tomoe then figured out that their plan all along was to use her as Kenshin's weakness. Enishi was sent to deliver the ransom note (which he believed to be a letter of challenge) to Kenshin and Tomoe's house.
When Kenshin found out, he was of course, pissed. He gathered his daisho (katana and wakizashi) and left the house to look for Tomoe. As he got deeper into the forest, his senses were thrown off by the magnetic properties. He was attacked by the Yaminobu ninja.
After a battle with him, Kenshin lopped off the ninja's arms and chased him as he ran off. Kenshin dropped the ninja's arms on the floor of the cave he'd run into and said, "You forgot these." The ninja set off a bomb in the cave that damaged Kenshin's hearing.
The next set were a bit harder to fight. One wielded a large ax and the other had long steel claws on his hands. Kenshin took a beating but was able to lop the legs off the ax-wielding ninja and shove his wakizashi right into the right hand of the guy with the long claws. Again, they set off a bomb; this one damaged his vision.
Finally he got the main place where Tomoe was being held. He went up against the Yaminobu leader. The two fought a pitched and drawn out battle with Kenshin on the losing end due to his injuries. Kenshin decided that the only way to win was to take them both out.
At this moment, Tomoe woke up. She looked out the door and saw Kenshin and the Yaminobu leader charging at each other. She remembered that she had let Kiyosato be killed because she hadn't stopped him from leaving and didn't want the same thing to happen to Kenshin. Just as Kenshin swung his sword down at the ninja, Tomoe threw herself between them. Kenshin's sword cleaved her in two and also finished off the Yaminobu leader, who was blocked from hitting him by Tomoe. Tomoe's tanto flew up into the air and slashed Kenshin's left cheek, completing the cruciform scar. Enishi saw his sister die in the battle and suffered severe emotional trauma, his hair turning white.
Kenshin held the dying Tomoe in his arms and cried for the first time probably since his parents had died. The hitokiri now understood the pain he had been causing others.
After everything settled down, Kenshin found Tomoe's diary in their house. When he read an early entry he discovered that the man he'd killed last year, Kiyosato Akira was her fiance. He found out that he'd been the one who took her happiness and that she'd come to kill him, but ended up falling in love with him.
At that time, Katsura returned and asked Kenshin to become a free-striking swordsman for the Ishin Shishi. Katsura also mentioned that the Bakufu mole who had caused all the trouble had been found and had subsequently been dispatched by the new Shadow Hitokiri, one Shishio Makoto. What he did not say was that the mole had been none other than Iizuka, who had been rather like a friend to Kenshin. Perhaps Katsura left this information out to spare the feelings of the grieving hitokiri.
Kenshin accepted Katsura's proposal, but informed his commander that after the war was over, he would never kill again. Katsura realized that Kenshin's sword style should not have been used to destroy the old era, but rather to protect the new.
For the next four years, Kenshin acted as a free striking swordsman, guarding the Ishin Shishi from the likes of the Shinsengumi, especially their captains, Okita Souji and Saitou Hajime. After the Ishin Shishi's decisive victory at the Battle of Toba Fushimi, Kenshin abandoned his daisho on the battlefield and disappeared.
Over the next decade, he wandered all over Japan, carrying a sword with reversed edges called the Sakabatou. With this sword, he was able to fight, but not kill. He fought many battles and helped the people he met. During this time, he came to understand the true philosophy of Hiten, which Hiko had tried to explain to him before he left, but which he had not been able to understand.
In 1878, Kenshin wandered into Tokyo and was accosted by a young girl wielding a bokken and accusing him of ruining her dojo's reputation.
So the adventure begins.
|
|
|
|
|
Kenshin Himura is a hitokiri turned into a good samurai...He has vowed never to kill anybody again and as he journeys through his life, he makes many friends who are always by his side when he needs them......
| (Nitskits) |
Tue, 12 Sep 2006 05:27:15 -0400 |
|
|
|
|
|
Weapon: reverse blade sword
If read a book series The Belgaraid specifically the Queen of sorcery, You'll find a charecter similar to Kenshin (Mandorallen). Kenshin is a guy that decided it's time to start on the path of the Hero than a nameless thug who kills. He also gets married so I'm told and has a kid.
He is trully should be remebered as a good man that should talk to Wong-Fei-Hong some time.
Aces: Skill, and his hope for a better Japan
| (Keith) |
Fri, 24 Jun 2005 01:53:38 -0400 |
|
|
|
|
|
Himura Kenshin, the star of the show, is a wandering swordsman. During the Meiji-restauration in Japan, (1868) he was an Imperialist manslayer known as the hitokiri Battousai. When the battles were over, he threw away his katana and took up a reverse-blade sword, with which he vowed to never kill again and to protect the innocent.
Because of his dark past, Kenshin has talked himself into a rather persistent inferiority-complex, which won't give way unless his dark, Battousai-side comes out to play. His friends try their best to keep him sane and to help him heal his wounds, but he can get stubborn.
All in all, he's the most lovable, red-headed crimefighter around!!
|
|
|
Site design by ecxol.net:
|
