Akisame Kōetsuji is one of the supporting characters of History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi. He is a philosophical Jujutsu master, and one of the senior members of Ryōzanpaku and Doctor of the Ryōzanpaku.
He is voiced by Kent Williams who also voices Hatori Sohma.
History[]
In his younger days, Akisame traveled the world to further the development of his unique Jijitsu style, taking in aspects and inspiration from other styles he studied. He later met and became friends of Miu's father, Saiga. During one of his journeys, he met the child and not-yet-named Shigure who was raised deep in the mountains along with her father who was a great master at both crafting and wielding weapons. Because her father was suffering from a terminal illness, he requested Akisame to take his life away in a duel so that he could die a warrior's death. Akisame initially refused, but eventually had to throw him off a cliff after a forced confrontation. Before dying, Shigure's father admitted he did not really want to die in battle, but was trying to be a bad example so his daughter would avoid repeating his mistakes. Akisame then gave Shigure her name and took her to be raised by Akisame's old friend, the late master of the Kōsaka-style. After the old man passed away, Akisame brought Shigure into Ryōzanpaku.
Personality[]
Despite having a very kind and understanding appearance, Akisame is noted to be the most strict of all the teachers at Ryozanpaku. Because of the grueling training Akisame forces on Kenichi, in the manga Kenichi often runs home to him in times of problems screaming "DORAEMON!" (coincidentally while Akisame is eating dorayaki) in a parody of the recurring gag from the manga of the same name. According to Kenichi, he is capable of unspeakable brutality. His training often involves the usage of various machines that grabs Kenichi's arms and legs and often pulverizes him to nothing, which often leaves Kenichi in a exhausted mess, which is often a running gag as Kenichi often tries to run away whenever he sees his crazy training machines.
While normally a composed and collected individual, at times he has shown anger, such as he did after learning about Ogata's treatment of his disciple. According to Ma Kensei, whenever Akisame says "Eh, I don't want to", his stubborness becomes unrivaled to the point where no amount of compensation can change his mind, and according a flashback, Akisame refused all manners of payment for a statue he crafted offered by a rich country leader (much to Miu's distress) and even sent the assassins and professional thieves hired to steal the statue back beaten up and sent back with an "Eh, I don't want to" note.
Kōetsuji believes that masters should not interfere with their disciples' battles, and often has to convince Sakaki not to pulverize those who beat up Kenichi. However, like all the other masters at the dojo, he worries about Kenichi as well. He later believes that Kenichi will climb the ladder of a true martial artist and has on some occasion's praised his disciple whenever he impresses him, such as how Kenichi saved the congress woman from her death in the fight against Alexander Gaidar.
He seems to hold some kind of grudge against Takeda's master James Shiba as seen when James often insults Akisame's mustache. This grudge held to the point of a rivalry of some sorts as the two actually bet their mustache's to be shaved should the losers disciple lose the match. Though Akisame choose to let Shiba go, after seeing Shiba only shave a small amount off, he became enraged and ordered Shigure to "shave all the hair off his body". The one thing Akisame cannot stand is green peppers, as he reacts with an expression of distaste when Kensei threatened to cook only green peppers and beef, and picks out green pepper after green pepper out of Kensei's Qing Jiao Rou, depositing them in Apachai's bowl. He also has a habit of scratching his mustache after he lies. He has no trouble using his friends as guinea pigs to come up with new techniques.
Abilities and Powers[]
Akisame has repeatedly shown himself a remarkably skilled man. While a specialist in defensive methods of battle, Akisame is an extremely powerful man who should the need come, can easily cause great harm to his opponent. He once accidently dislocated a man's shoulder, claiming it to have been an unwanted habit. The true exent of Akisame's skill is yet to be seen, yet in each confrontation with Yami member Alexander, he has maintained a calm and detached demeanor, able to fight on equal ground with him while splitting his attention or completely overwhelming Alexander once getting serious. using his ki Akisame can flip an opponent without actually touching them.
- Master Judoka: Akisame is easily recognized one of the most powerful practitioners of Judoka in the world. He has mastered all its various forms and styles and their respective techniques, whether it be modern or ancient. He is also equally well-versed in combat styles that draw influence from Judoka, as he was able to match and counters and grappling and striking skills of Alexander Gaidar using Combat Sambo, which is an enhanced version of Jujutsu that adds military forms into its techniques. The true extent of Akisame's skill is yet to be seen, yet in each confrontation with Yami member Alexander, he has maintained a calm and detached demeanor, able to fight on equal ground with him while splitting his attention or completely overwhelming Alexander once getting serious. Using his ki alone, Akisame can flip an opponent without actually touching them.
- Renaissance Man: Unlike most of the other masters of Ryōzanpaku, Akisame is a highly skilled and accomplished man in a variety of areas outside of martial arts. He is an expert in many fields of study including literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, art history, anthropology, linguistics, and music. He is a famous and legendary artisan, who has mastered all forms of fine art, including calligraphy, painting, pottery, and sculpting. He is also a remarkable engineer and doctor, often using these talents to help the dojo get by or to further Kenichi's training. Akisame is also fluent in many languages, including Japanese, Russian, and English.
- Medical Master: His medical skills are such that he is renowned for being able to heal seemingly any injury, new or old, even to the point of saving lives most doctors would deem lost causes. He also owns an orthopedic clinic, and can reset and fix bones with ease. It is from his immense skill and knowledge of medicine and anatomy that he developed his unique physical conditioning methods. His skills in the medical field are so great that he was able to save Apachai's life while the latter had a hole in his side and even using tools from Shigure and performing the surgury on flight, Apachai's life was saved. He is known amongs doctors as the "The medic demon". They're also quite afraid of him.
- Keen Intellect: Akisame has frightening powers of perception that allow him to seemingly know everything that is going on to every last detail even if he isn't there. He even knows when people are talking about him. He also has very good insight on people, often knowing if they are troubled or hiding something; he sometimes even knows what a person is thinking, which scares Kenichi. With keen observation, Akisame is also a quick study, able to quickly replicate Nijima's computer skills. He is a master of strategy games, having never lost a game of Othello, Shōgi, and Go.
- Master Strategist and Tactician: In battle, Akisame is able to quickly analyze the situation at hand, consider past details, and discern an opponent's battle tactics and techniques. After doing this he can quickly think several moves ahead of his opponent and formulate the best counter strategy. Akisame is very resourceful, able to use a wide array of unorthodox tactics to accomplish his goal, most commonly seen from his training methods for himself and Kenichi. During his fight at Okinawa with one of Yami's weapon masters, he got in range of the enemy's long reach with his speed, applied countermeasures to avoid being harmed (such as hanging onto a chandelier using his toes), and forced his opponent's armor to vibrate, knocking him out.
- Immense Physical Prowess: As a man who puts strong emphasis on physical conditioning, Akisame has trained himself to the absolute peak of human physical potential. This has come from 20 years of in-depth research and strict training. Transforming all his muscle into pink tissue, Akisame has reached the perfect balance between speed and stamina with strength and durability and has conditioned both to their highest possible level. Overall, he is able to easily overpower men twice his size and easily keep up with or outpace the fastest of opponent. With his great speed, being able to save a young Shigure from a falling boulder across a long distance, with Shigure's father remarking that he was even faster than himself. His speed allows him to quickly write Russian symbols legibly even when driving a motorcycle at high speeds. He has been noted as having inhuman strength for his size, seen from being able to easily overpower a man twice his size and built and using a single finger to push a bent street pole back into place. Sakaki, who is noted to have immense physical strength, has stated that he rates Akisame's strength at a very high level and that in a real fight between them, one would definitely die.