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The opponents Kenshin meets throughout the series.

Hiruma Kihei and Gohei

45 year-old Hiruma Kihei (比留間喜兵衛 Hiruma Kihee?) and 37 year-old Hiruma Gohei (比留間伍兵衛 Hiruma Gohee?) scheme to take Kaoru's dojo.

Gohei becomes a murderer and falsely uses the name "Hitokiri Battōsai." Gohei attempts to kill Kaoru, but Kenshin saves her life.

The brothers ask Sanosuke to fight Kenshin and promise to pay him. Sanosuke does not know that they plan to kill Kenshin during the course of the battle. Kihei draws a pistol and fires it at Kenshin. The bullet hits the sword instead of Kenshin. Kihei then points the gun at Kaoru, and tells Gohei to ensure that Yahiko and Kaoru do not escape. When Gohei informs Kihei that he has no rope, Kihei asks him to break the legs of the two captives. Sanosuke and Kenshin turn on Kihei and Gohei; Sanosuke hits Gohei with his sword and Kenshin defeats Kihei with the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryū Doryūsen ("Earth Dragon Strike") before resuming their fight.

Watsuki described the creation of the brothers as a "direct function of the story." Watsuki wanted "interesting villains to start things off with a bang." He wanted one as "brainy" and one as "wild." He decided that the story involving the two coming together was taking "too many" pages, so he made the duo as brothers instead of being "circumstantially-related." He used a manager and director of Takeshi Obata's Chikarabito Densetsu as a model for Kihei. Watsuki used a character he found in a magazine that he thought "Ooh, impact!" for Gohei. Watsuki states that, unlike the faces of Kenshin and other characters, the faces of Kihei and Gohei are of basic shapes. In Watsuki's view, drawing the Hiruma brothers was "easy" as a result; Watsuki says that he drew the brothers in two minutes. He says that he became fonder of the brothers as his deadlines approached.

Takeda Kanryū

A cunning money-minded industrialist, Takeda Kanryū (武田観柳?) started the opium dealing business in Tokyo and forces Takani Megumi to make the drug after the death of his previous opium maker. The opium is a stronger, faster-working recipe called 'Spider's Web'.The purpose of his opium business is to generate enough profits to bring in modern Westernized weapons such as the Gatling gun and sell them as an arms dealer. He builds his own private squad in Tokyo, as well as the infamous Oniwabanshū. He thinks he has the Oniwabanshū under his thumb but when Himura Kenshin shows up at his mansion to save Megumi, he finds himself demoted by Shinomori Aoshi. He resorts to using his Gatling gun to kill all his enemies in the mansion including Aoshi. He manages to kill the four Oniwabanshū as they protect Aoshi with a suicide charge. During this last charge, the group thwarts Kanryū's plan to kill Aoshi. In the manga Kanryū uses all of his bullets to kill the four members. In the anime the group jams the feeding ramp of his gun with one of Beshimi's darts after which Kenshin renders him unconscious to be arrested by the police.

Watsuki modeled Takeda Kanryū after Takeda Kanryūsai, the captain of the Shinsengumi's Fifth Unit. Since the historical Takeda Kanrūysai was known to be homosexual, Nobuhiro Watsuki planned to make Takeda Kanryū homosexual. Watsuki decided not to use the trait as he saw the trait to be irrelevant to the plot and he thought the trait would "unnecessarily complicate things." The Rurouni Kenshin author wonders how the story would have developed if he created Takeda Kanryū as a homosexual. Watsuki says that there is no model in terms of design; he describes Takeda Kanryū as a "carryover" of Nishiwaki, a character in the second standalone Rurouni Kenshin story. Watsuki colored Takeda Kanryū's outfit white since he believed that Kenshin and Aoshi generated "too much black already." Watsuki believed that, by placing emphasis on Megumi and Oniwabanshū, he failed to make Takeda Kanryū "the character I wanted him to be." [10]

Isurugi Raijūta

Leader of the 'Knights of Shinkoryu' faction. Raijūta's personality and motives differ in the manga and anime. In the anime he aspires to form a "kingdom" of Japanese swordsmen with a rebel group of Samurai, starting at Tsukuyama Yūtarō's home in the province of Izu by using Yūtarō's admiration of Raijūta to his advantage. In the manga he is dissatisfied with the current state of swordsmanship in Japan and plans to revive the old style of swordsmanship (the killing sword) with his Shinkoryu by traveling around Japan and shutting down shinai dojos by force, gathering the strongest swordsmen he's met along the way. He uses the Tsukuyama family's money to fund his campaign. Although Raijūta appears to be a tough fighter, proficient in the Shinkoryu Izuna style, the Izuna techniques are all show and no true power. Although he severed the nerves in Yūtarō's right arm, he could only scratch Kenshin. Two of Raijūta's Izuna techniques are demonstrated in the series. The first is Matoi Izuna (Wrapping Around Izuna), which is a strike directed along the ground, similar to Kenshin's DoryuSen. The second is Tobi Izuna (Flying Izuna), in which the sword creates a vacuum in the air, and directed towards its target. It's largely ineffective, despite his claim that it's his "ultimate killing technique". In the manga Kenshin figures out that despite all his talk of the killing sword, Raijūta has never killed anyone himself and is in fact a total fraud (this aspect of Raijuta's character was omitted in the anime). In the anime Raijūta is defeated by Kenshin after his men and the police start fighting. In the manga Kenshin defeats him but also destroys his confidence as a swordsman and as a result he is never able to pick up a sword again.

It should be noted that Raijūta was Watsuki's first "macho" character in build aside from Shikijo, and apparently his least favorite.

Udo Jin-e

Kurogasa, otherwise known as Udō Jin-e (鵜堂刃衛 Udō Jin'e?) (in Western order, Jinei Udoh), is a fictional character in the anime and manga series Rurouni Kenshin (appearing in episodes 6 and 7). (JA)

Kurogasa's Japanese voice actor is Akio Ohtsuka, and his English voice actor is Dave Mallow.

Watsuki used Okada Izō as the motif of Udō Jin-e. According to Watsuki, Jin-e looks less like Okada Izō than Kenshin looks like Kawakami Gensai. Watsuki says that he designed Jin-e, a satsujin-ki ("murderous ogre"), to be the "polar opposite of Kenshin." Watsuki describes Jin-e as a "complicated fellow" who is "crazy-crazy" and not merely "crazy-acting." Watsuki struggled with the concepts for ending the Jin-e storyline before committing to the suicide ending. According to Watsuki Jin-e's outfit originates from Serizawa Kamo, the main character of a Shinsengumi manga published around 14-15 years prior to the Japanese publication of Rurouni Kenshin Volume 2. The "Uhu-hu-hu" laugh originates from Ukon, a character in Kenka-ya Ukon (Fight Merchant Ukon) portrayed by Ryōtarō Sugi. Watsuki summarizes Jin-e as, in a sense, the only character to defeat Kenshin even though he did not defeat the Battōsai.

Kurogasa was a manslayer during the Revolution, and there is evidence he continued killing people well after the end of the Revolution. He attacked high-ranking Imperialist officials of the Meiji government (leading some to believe he fought for the Tokugawa shogunate during the war, since he did state that he was a member of the Shinsengumi), killing anyone who stood in his way. He appears as a man dressed in a long scarf, straw hat, and long kimono, and has a unique ability to project his "swordsman's spirit" toward people, hypnotizing them with his eyes (this is known as the Shin no Ippo). It can also be used to strengthen himself. Kurogasa is obsessed with defeating the famous Hitokiri Battōsai (Himura Kenshin) when he meets him during Kurogasa's attempted assassination of Mr. Tani, a government official. Kurogasa says that Kenshin is his new target.

Following the proclamation of Kenshin being his new target, Kurogasa attacks Kenshin, and it becomes clear during the fight that Kurogasa has an advantage over Kenshin. He leaves, stating that if Kenshin cannot fight him to his fullest potential, then he is not worth fighting at all. Kurogasa ends up kidnapping Kamiya Kaoru the next day, in an effort to force Kenshin to once again become a manslayer (in Kenshin's case, this makes him a better swordsman, though one without care for life). Kenshin follows Kurogasa's trail to the forest, where the two duel once again. Kurogasa paralyzes Kaoru so she cannot breathe using his Shin no Ippo, and the two resume the battle, now with Kaoru's life in danger. Kenshin eventually becomes angry enough to turn back into the Hitokiri Battousai, and attacks Kurogasa, fighting him to a standstill. Kurogasa hypnotizes himself to become stronger, but is beaten regardless, his elbow is crushed and his ligaments are severed so he can no longer hold a sword to fight with. Kenshin raises his sword to kill him, as Kurogasa looks on gleefully (he wanted to die by the sword, especially if it were by the sword of someone who managed to beat him), but Kaoru's pleading for him to stop releases Kenshin from his Battōsai spell. Kenshin then frees Kaoru, while Kurogasa picks up his sword with his other hand, and stabs himself in the heart. As he lays dying, he tells Kenshin that "A manslayer is always a manslayer." A few moments later as the other two look on, Kurogasa dies. Kenshin later remembers his words during a later arc of the series, and he is also seen speaking to Kenshin multiple times in the Kyoto arc from beyond the grave.

 

 

 

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