Sasaki Kojiro (佐々木 小次郎, Sasaki Kojirō), born Yagyu Munenori (柳生 宗矩, Yagyū Munenori) is the main antagonist of Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan!. He is a swordfighter working against the Tokugawa Bakufu.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
Sasaki's face is modeled after his voice actor, Shota MatsudaWP. He is a young man in either his late 20's or early 30's with an oval-shaped face and boyish good looks. He keeps his long, black hair in a high ponytail which goes down to his mid-back.
Attire[]
Sasaki wears a dark purple kimono with a red jinbaori with a distinctive pale green patterned trim on top. On his legs he wears blue hakama with maroon suneate guarding his shins. He always carries his odachi with him, which he keeps on a red and black scabbard strapped across his back.
Personality[]
Sasaki is a deeply ambitious and proud man. Having spent his life training in his father's legendary swordfighting style, he has become quite proud of his skills as a fighter, considering himself practically unrivaled after years of beating most foes with ease. Despite this pride, Sasaki does not act boastful about his skill, rather carrying himself with a quiet confidence.
Like many samurai, Sasaki considers that power belongs to those who can take it for themselves. Correspondingly, his pride in his family's legendary fighting prowess led him to believe that they ought to have a higher standing in Japan's feudal system; driving him to conspire to increase the Yagyu Clan's influence through a plot orchestrated by Imperial Emissary Tenkai against their masters, the Tokugawa Clan. However, as the plot wore on and required more bloody, unscrupulous actions and as he became more and more of a puppet in Tenkai's machinations, Sasaki began to regret his actions and feel conflicted about his ambitions.
Background[]
Sasaki was born Yagyu Munenori, the eldest son of Yagyu Sekishusai, the patriarch of the famous Yagyu Clan, a samurai family of important vassals to the Tokugawa Clan. Munenori grew up training in his father's Shinkage swordfighting style and became incredibly skilled with it, possibly even more proficient than his father. This skill earned him a position as the chief sword-fighting instructor for the Tokugawa Clan once he came of age, where he met and apprenticed under future Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
However, Munenori's prowess with swordsmanship made him become proud and ambitious. He sought to expand the Yagyu Clan's power, even at the expense of their masters, the Tokugawa Clan. To that end, he formed an alliance with Nankobo Tenkai, the Imperial emissary to the Tokugawa court in Edo, who also wished to expand his own personal power. Using the alias of "Sasaki Kojiro", Munenori undertook secret missions at Tenkai's behest to undermine the Tokugawa and strengthen the Yagyu. However, unbeknownst to him, Tenkai had kept evidence of Munenori's crimes against the Tokugawa and eventually started to use it to blackmail him into serving his personal interests exclusively. Fearful of being executed for betraying the Tokugawa and tarnishing the Yagyu Clan's reputation because of his misdeeds, Munenori abandoned his birth name, taking on the persona of Sasaki and becoming little more than a puppet in Tenkai's schemes. As part of one such scheme, Sasaki ends up murdering Ito Ittosai's family after he refused to comply with one of Tenkai's requests.
Involvement[]
Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan!: 1600-1605[]
In 1600, on the eve of the Battle of Sekigahara, where the Tokugawa Clan were to face off against the Toyotomi Clan's armies to determine who would hold control over Japan, Tenkai used another one of his allies, General Marume Nagayoshi, to arrange the assassination of Yuki Hideyasu, the heir to the Tokugawa Clan. Tenkai wished to kill Yuki so that his much more naïve younger brother, Tokugawa Hidetada, who was Tenkai's pupil, would be the heir to the Tokugawa instead. After Miyamoto Musashi and Majima Gorohachi were tricked into killing Yuki, Tenkai ordered Sasaki and Marume to kill the two unwitting assassins so that they couldn't be questioned by the Tokugawa.
Sasaki and Marume led two battallions of men to the temple where Miyamoto and Majima had been ordered to wait. Marume and his men entered the temple first and attacked both men, but were unable to kill them. The two betrayed assassins tried to flee the temple, only to be ambushed outside by Sasaki and his men. Miyamoto faced off against Sasaki's men using his two sword style of combat, beating them all singlehandedly, as Majima had been injured while fighting Marume. Impressed, Sasaki drew his odachi and attacked Miyamoto personally, besting him after a quick duel. However, before Sasaki could kill Miyamoto, Majima jumped in to defend him, only to also get beaten and lose an eye in the process. Badly wounded, both men escaped Sasaki by jumping into a nearby ravine and crawling under the thick brush to stay out of sight.
In 1605, Tenkai learns the Yuki Hideyasu had secretly fathered a daughter called Haruka, who had been given to another family to keep her safe following Yuki's murder. Since Haruka's mere existence posed a threat to Hidetada's succession, he ordered Marume to kill her. Marume initially complied and killed Haruka's foster parents but, when the time came to kill the girl, he couldn't go through with it and allowed her to escape. Due to a series of misunderstandings, Haruka came to believe that the man who killed her family was Miyamoto Musashi. Due to the intervention of Sasaki's father, Sekishusai, Haruka travelled to Kyoto to seek out the real Miyamoto Musashi (who was now living under the alias of "Kiryu Kazumanosuke") and ended up selling herself as an indentured maid to a brothel called Tsuruya in order to pay Kiryu to find and kill this "Miyamoto Musashi" who had killed her family.
Tenkai eventually learned of Haruka's location and once again tasked Marume, now also aided by Sasaki, with finishing the job. To that end, Tenkai arranged for both men to be invited to a banquet in Tsuruya celebrating Itakura Katsushige's five years as governor of Kyoto. Prior to the banquet, Sasaki met with Tsuruya's number one courtesan, Yoshino, and paid her 500 ryo to set a fire in the brothel during the banquet to serve as a distraction while he and Marume carried out their task. Yoshino was led to believe that Sasaki only intended to kill Itakura, so she agreed to set the fire, since she wanted to buy her freedom from the brothel.
During the banquet, Sasaki waited for Yoshino to set the fire and then burst into the feast and attacked the samurai guarding the officials present, only to find that neither Itakura nor Haruka were there. As it turned out, Itakura had been commissioned by the Tokugawa Bakufu to find Haruka during the banquet and deliver her to their agents outside the banquet, since they'd also learned she was working at Tsuruya. Before Sasaki could leave in search of Haruka, he was attacked by Kiryu and Ito Ittosai, who had been spying on the banquet from the adjoining room in order to ambush Sasaki when he showed up. Kiryu and Ito team up against Sasaki, but they soon notice the fire and Kiryu departs to search for Haruka while Ito faces off against Sasaki alone. Despite his best efforts, Ito is unable to defeat Sasaki and is heavily wounded during their duel. As the fire consumed too much of the building, Sasaki departed the brothel without having found Haruka. As he would later learn, Marume had managed to kill Itakura but had not managed to capture Haruka. Unbeknownst to Sasaki, Marume had once again allowed Haruka to escape, since he was now actively working against Tenkai.
Months later, Majima Gorohachi kidnaps Haruka to lure Kiryu into a confrontation at Kiyomizu Temple. After Kiryu and Majima have resolved their dispute and Yoshino has helped clear up the misunderstanding that led to it, Sasaki makes his presence known. He mocks the three for their interpersonal drama and then, just to try and sow further discord among them, he reveals that it had been Yoshino who'd set the fire at Tsuruya during Itakura's banquet. Sasaki then attempts to kill Haruka, whom Majima had chained to a pillar, but Majima stops him with his kusarigama, claiming he wants revenge for Sasaki taking his eye five years prior. Unable to wrest his sword loose from Majima's kusarigama chain, Sasaki draws his wakizashi and throws it into Majima's chest, wounding him and causing him to fall backwards off the cliff the temple is built on.
Kiryu draws his sword and prepares to fight Sasaki, but they are interrupted by the strange old man Kiryu had escorted around town the previous day, who unbeknownst to him was Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu in disguise. Given their previous bond as master and pupil, Tokugawa talks Sasaki into standing down and leaving. Before departing, Sasaki promises Kiryu that they'll have their rematch for their battle from five years prior.
In time, Hidetada begins to grow aware of Tenkai's duplicitous nature, causing the treacherous emissary to begin scheming against him as well. Wishing to replace Hidetada with a more amenable puppet ruler, Tenkai begins to gather allies to go to war against the Tokugawa and instructs Sasaki to stop trying to kill Haruka and to instead kidnap her, so that they can marry her to another lord in order to legitimize their claim to the Shogunate throne. Sasaki waits until Kiryu leaves Kyoto to visit Yagyu village to meet with Sekishusai, whereupon Sasaki sneaks into Tsuruya and kidnaps Haruka.
After delivering the girl, Sasaki and Tenkai are close to amassing all the resources and allies they need to launch their rebellion against the Tokugawa. However, Sasaki has grown unsure about the path he's been walking and wishes to test himself as a swordsman one final time before committing to pursuing his political ambitions. To that end, he wants to have a his rematch against Kiryu, whom he has learned has become a vastly more proficient swordsman in the five years since their last fight. Sasaki travels to Kyoto again and confronts Kiryu on the street outside Tsuruya, telling him that he was responsible for Haruka's disappearance and issuing a challenge: Sasaki wishes to duel Kiryu on the beach in Ganryu Island, which is also Tenkai's base of operations. If Kiryu wants to rescue Haruka, then he must defeat Sasaki there first.
On the appointed day, Kiryu travels to Ganryu Island and meets Sasaki on the beach. The two rivals draw their swords on each other and face off once again in a grueling, extended battle which culminates in Kiryu being the victor. Humbled and impressed, Sasaki gives up on his political ambitions and swears to atone for his misdeeds and to dedicate himself to perfecting his skill as a swordsman.
However, the pair are interrupted by Tenkai and a group of riflemen, who shoot and wound Sasaki. The treacherous emissary mocks Sasaki for being swayed to turn against him so easily and orders his men to kill them both. However, Kiryu fights and defeats Tenkai's soldiers, prompting him to flee into his nearby base. Kiryu pursues Tenkai throughout the fortress, eventually rescuing Haruka and knocking Tenkai off a cliff and back onto the beach where Kiryu had dueled Sasaki. A heavily wounded Tenkai struggles to flee, only to be confronted by Hidetada, who'd learned of his secret machinations and has come to personally slay his two-faced mentor. It's only through Kiryu's intervention that Tenkai is temporarily spared, as he convinces Hidetada that, in order to leave behind the violent ways of the warring states period, Hidetada must subject Tenkai to a fair, public trial before executing him. Just as Kiryu, Hidetada and Haruka prepared to depart, ships carrying the army of Tenkai's allies appear off the coast and prepare to disembark. Tenkai gloats about his impending victory, only to be killed by a vengeful Sasaki.
Faced with the imminent threat of facing off against Tenkai's allies, Kiryu offers to stay behind and hold them off while the rest flee to safety. After Kiryu and Haruka bid their goodbyes to each other, Sasaki and Hidetada take her away while Kiryu charges at Tenkai's men.
Ten years later, in 1615, a now reformed Yagyu Munenori is leading Tokugawa Clan troops during the Siege of Osaka, alongside an also reformed General Marume. Munenori and Marume explain their plan to rescue Shogun Hidetada's adoptive daughter from the Toyotomi Clan forces who hold her captive in the castle, but say they require two volunteers to take on the most difficult part of the mission. Subsequently, several soldiers volunteer, inspired by the legend of Miyamoto Musashi.
Fighting Style[]
Sasaki is an agile fighter and a skilled practitioner of Yagyū Shinkage-ryū, wielding a massive, two to three-foot-long odachi. He holds his sword in a tachi no tori no kamae, and attacks with slow but heavy-hitting slashes. His moveset consists of:
- a Rush Combo made up of a rightward horizontal slash, a spinning downward vertical slash, and a spinning upward diagonal left slash;
- switching to a low stance with his sword behind him and his left arm in front, executing an upward diagonal left slash-downward vertical slash combo if Kiryu gets to close;
- a lunging leftward horizontal slash,
- a lunging downward diagonal right slash,
- spinning around into a lunging downward diagonal left slash,
- a downward vertical slash,
- a lunging underarm low sword-thrust,
- an upward diagonal left slash as a guard reversal,
- a right-foot stomp as a downed attack, and
- a taunt where he stands upright and holds his sword out, pointing the blade at Kiryu.
His aura in Heat Mode is pale red, and his attack trails are orange.
Gallery[]
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