Muroga Hyouma is my favourite cartoon character ever. Close runners-up are Batman and Optimus Prime.
Hyouma is a major character from award-winning manga Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls, which is about the star-crossed love between the handsome leader of the Koga ninja clan, Gennosuke, and the beautiful leader of the Iga clan, Oboro. The Koga and Iga have been at war for 400 years. Hyouma is the senior second-in-command of the Koga clan, answering only to Gennosuke. He is in fact Gennosuke’s uncle and teacher in the martial and ninja arts.
Hyouma’s ninja ability is a technique called the Dojutsu. The Dojutsu is based on hypnosis. It reverses the homicidal intent of anyone who meets the stare of its user directly. So if anyone expresses hostility toward him, Hyouma is able to will his enemies into killing themselves simply by looking into their eyes (scary…). Hyouma taught Gennosuke this technique, making them the most powerful ninjas in the Koga clan. Hyouma’s Dojutsu is so powerful that it is always in effect, so he is forced to always keep his eyes closed so he doesn’t accidentally kill anyone. He will only open them when his nephew gives him permission to (making Hyouma the ultimate trump card in combat). To compensate for his “blindness”, Hyouma has a cautious personality and an even more powerful six-sense, able to hear footsteps miles away and engage in swordfights with his eyes closed.
Hyouma distrusts the Iga, but he is among the few ninja who are actually not insane/mentally disturbed/bloodthirsty. He wholeheartedly supports Gennosuke’s efforts in marrying Oboro in the hope that peace between the Koga and Iga clans might finally be realized. It was thanks to Hyouma’s philosophy that Gennosuke realized the futility of the bloodshed between the two ninja clans. Even with his immense power, throughout the series until his death, he only killed two Iga clan members, and even then he had tried his best to dissuade his enemies from attacking. Apart from Hyouma, the only ninja who could truly see past the 400 year old hatred were Gennosuke and Oboro.
Naturally I like the Koga clan more because Hyouma is from Koga, and the Koga seem to have more complex and interesting characters than the Iga clan (many of the Iga characters are simply bloodthirsty Koga-haters).
If you are interested in The Kouga Ninja Scrolls, just read about it on Wikipedia. The entries on all the major characters are surprisingly concise.
*spoilers perhaps*
I’m in the midst of watching Basilisk every week on TV now and I agree that Hyoma’s dojutsu is spiritually relevant, as is the episode in which he teaches Gennosuke as a child.
I hadn’t read it anywhere, but I intuited as you said, that the dojutsu redirects the killer intent of an opponent at himself. I later rejected this idea as being too poetic of an explanation and settled on the assumption that Gennosuke was simply using an overwhelming spiritual power to force his opponent’s hand. However, there’s moment in child Gennosuke’s tutelage where he uses his eyes on a crazed dog who attacks him. All he had to do was look at it using those eyes and the dog turned tail and ran — that moment, once again, brings me back to your thinking, that the dojutsu reflects hostile energies back at the adversary.
Around the same time I saw a karate movie in which a young man faces an older master and is paralyzed by his “menacing aura.” The old master reveals that the young man’s aggressive strength moves in a straight line toward him, and as the movement of a line is subject to that of a circle, it’s a simple matter for him to redirect that energy back at him. In other words: the menacing air was being generated by the young karateka, not the master.
I also wanted to say that I think the pivotal moment in the entire series (so far, I still haven’t seen very far past this point — so no spoilers please!) is when Gennosuke witnesses the sun-rise while blind-folded and says that the sun shines on both the iga and the koga without regard. I don’t take this as a grace-note; I feel this is an accurate illustration of the opening of the wisdom eye in the most hardcore buddhistic sense. Nature has a terrible power when it comes to our illusions, but the eyes are the greatest deciever in the world — the only sense experience that can be twisted to convey “remoteness.” To see the sunset blind-folded and witness the vastness of its warmth in simultanaity with nature, with your family, with your enemies — without any preference — is a powerful message.
It’s a really compelling series. My favorite character, funnily enough, is Saemon.
Some deep reading into the anime there Jacob, thanks. Most informative and a lot to chew on. To me Hyouma is proof that you can be powerful without being evil/insane/sadistic. If anything Hyouma “wasted” his powers because he didn’t use them unless absolutely necessary. If he was as aggressive as the Iga who were more combat-orientated rather than the sneaky assassin style of the Koga, the Iga would have gone down long ago.
Saemon-dono is without doubt the most complex character of the series. Which episode are you on?
*spoilers again*
I’m at the episode where Saemon, disguised as Tenzen, is met by Lady Ofuku’s guards and the real Tenzen (presumably) on a bridge. I still don’t know what’s going to happen yet, but I’m fearing for Saemon.
That’s a good observation you make about the Koga favoring stealth more than the Iga. I also agree that the Iga do seem to have a greater number of sadists in their charge than the Koga. As for, Hyoma, it seems possible that he could’ve wiped out almost the entire Iga Ten if he used his eyes on them during their battle at Koga Manjidani, but as soon as Hyoma arrived at the battle, the Iga — if I recall correctly — had sheathed their weapons, or at least decided to no longer fight. My cousin noted that Hyoma didn’t cast his gaze on Tenzen until after he had drawn his sword. It is perhaps the nature of, not only his temperment, but his dojutsu as well, that it can only be used to kill in self-defense. I have no clue though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this theory was blown away by the end of the series. Getting it in once-a-week installments is tough.
Regardless of that, it’d be a simple measure for him to walk into Tsubagakure and look at everyone who angers at his presence. That would also be a tremendous waste of life, though. You get the impression of someone who feels the vibrations of life too poignantly for him to use his skills with a heavy-hand. The model of the ninja as a Taoist warrior is not a common one, but it’s probably the most accurate and I like how Hyoma conveys that.
Well, whether Hyoma can only kill in self-defence is up in the air, although I personally think that is the case. He keeps his eyes closed at all times, even amongst his comrades, and I thought that he could accidentally kill anyone if he opened them, but now I am assuming he has grown used to living and fighting with his heightened hearing rather than his eyesight. In his battle with Koshiro once he realized his Dojutsu was useless he simply closed his eyes again. I guess while Gennosuke and Hyoma are the most combat-oriented of the Kogas, even their technique is relatively defensive in contrast to the Iga aces like Koshiro or Yashamaru.
I personally don’t think Tenzen is the most powerful of the Iga. The hardest to kill, yes, but nowhere near the power of Oboro or Koshiro. That and he’s a right bastard. It’s ironic that he is, rank-wise, the counterpart to Hyoma. Tenzen is the second-in-command to Oboro, yet tries to rape her. He is the sensei to Koshiro, yet doesn’t give two hoots about him. And his technique requires no skill, it’s just a cowardly method of staying alive. Whereas Hyoma is second-in-command and sensei to Gennosuke, and the strength of their bond is evident all the way till Hyoma’s death.
The dialogue between Hyoma and Tenzen in episode 17 only made me like Hyoma all the more and despise Tenzen all the more.
I can’t help but see Tenzen as a vaguely sympathetic character, which is odd, because he’s done nothing to warrant any such feelings. He really does not seem to be much more than your average psycho. He’s far-older than Ogen (maybe older than anyone in the series), but in all that time he has gained no sense of other people’s feelings (as evidenced by Akeginu’s fruitless conversation with him about Oboro and Koshiro.) He’s one of the only ninja near the end of the fighting who has not even a single doubt about the conflict. He expresses seemingly convincing regret over his fallen comrades, but he never reflects on their deaths like the other ninja do. He just presses on like a stubborn child, forcing everyone to play his game, oblivious to the fact that his comrades have reached their limits.
In his flashback with Ogen, it seems clear that he somehow betrayed the Iga during or before Nobunaga’s attack on Tsubagakure. He can’t stand following people “weaker” than himself so he plots behind their backs and takes action independently. I think it’s that contempt and his stubborness which makes him resonate at a sympathetic level with me.
He can’t know others and he’s useless in times of peace. The world is quickly outgrowing him, but he’s forced to live in it. He can’t die in battle, the way he was meant to so many times before — he can never stop fighting — it’s a matter of spiritual survival for him that all attempts at peace between Iga and Koga be thwarted.
Yes, Tenzen is officially the oldest character in the series. I suppose he is insane, and he probably knows this too. It’s that he does not want to change (he enjoys it!) that pisses me off.
That, and apart from his skill with a sword, he wasn’t a fighter who excelled, unlike Koshiro or Okoi.
Well, I don’t have as much to say as Jacob did. haha But I will say that Hyouma is my most favorite character as well out of all of them!!! ^_^ Peace (^^)v