Fuu (フウ)) is a 15-year-old girl and the leading lady of the show. In her childhood before the beginning of the series, her father left her and her mother for an (initially) unknown reason. Without her father around to support them, Fuu and her mother led a difficult life until her mother died of illness. After a not-so-successful stint as a teahouse waitress, she saves Mugen and Jin from execution and recruits them as her bodyguards to help her on a quest. She is searching for the “Samurai who smells of Sunflowers”, but never explains what a sunflower smells like or what the man looks like. Mugen and Jin are often reminded of their life-debt to her when they wish to fight each other, much to their chagrin.
Her relationship with Mugen and Jin is apparently sororal. She is a surprisingly big eater (in one episode she entered an eating contest and was one of the last two remaining, shocking all the spectators), has a bright and trusting personality, and is strongly prone to accidents, getting lost, and trouble although she is quite practical. She often puts on a front of being more worldly and experienced than she actually is so as not to appear completely ingenuous in front of her bodyguards. Fuu wears a deep pink kimono with a pattern of flowers and carries a matching tantō. Attached to the tantō are three netsuke: a skull (a Christian pendant from her father), a pair of dice and a dog. Her name, Fuu (フウ) is short for fuukinchou (フウキンチョウ), which is Japanese for “tanagers”.
Her voice actress in the Japanese version is Ayako Kawasumi. She is voiced by Kari Wahlgren in the English version.
Jin (仁 (ジン)) is a 20-year-old man who wields a Katana, Wakizashi and spent the majority of his life training in kenjutsu dojos. Unlike Mugen, it is legal for him to carry a daisho, as he is of thesamurai class. His swords have a lightning and twin-eyed design on the tsuba. He wears traditional hakama and gi in indigo blue patterned with a white diamond kamon made up of four small white diamonds. His kamon closely resembles that of the great Takeda Clan, leading to speculation that his family origins may be of nobility.[3] He wears glasses but Fuu states that they are “for show”, indicating Jin wears them as an accessory rather than actually needing them.
When he was eighteen, he was to be assassinated in his sleep by his sensei, Mariya Enshirou, at Kariya Kagetoki’s insistence. However, Jin killed Mariya in self-defense and fled the dojo, becoming aronin. His death is sought by former classmates and other fame-seekers. Mujushin was a real sword-fighting dojo, and Mariya Enshirou is known to have been the third master — although the circumstances of his death are unclear.[4]
Jin is highly devoted to upholding Bushido and is in fact named after jin (justice), one of the seven samurai virtues. Jin is usually taciturn and unusually collected. He is an extremely skilled swordsman, using swift, refined, orthodox moves of the Mujushin Kenjutsu discipline, making him the perfect foil for Mugen.
In the last episode of the series, he confesses to both Fuu and Kariya that he has spent his entire life with no devotion to anyone. He lived only for his sword and no master; saying that the lords of that time have no sense of honor, only caring about self-preservation. But he seems to change during his travels with Fuu and Mugen, saying that they are his “first friends.”
His seiyū is Ginpei Sato. His voice actor in the English version is Kirk Thornton.
Mugen (無限 (ムゲン)) is a 19-year-old man and was born in a penal colony on the Ryukyu Islands, which, in the Edo period was a separate kingdom with close ties to Japan’s Satsuma domain. Incidentally, he writes his name using the infinity symbol (∞), a pun on his name, ‘無限’ which is a homophone of the Japanese word for eternity. His Japanese is quite rough and “Yanki”; and he is illiterate until later in the show. Little is known about Mugen’s childhood and he states that it has been a long time since he can remember what it is like to have parents in episode 20, “Elegy of Entrapment, Verse 1.” The blue tattoos on his wrists and ankles indicate that he was once in prison.[citation needed] The circumstances of his imprisonment are initially unclear, but it is later verified that he was to be executed for engaging in piracy.
Rude, lewd, vulgar, and nihilistic, Mugen is something of an antihero. He is fond of fighting and has a tendency to pick fights for petty reasons. In several episodes it is made clear that Mugen is a womanizer, and his libido often gets the better of him. Character designer Kazuto Nakazawa stated in an interview: “When I was doing character design, the most difficult one was Mugen, as I expected. I’m pretty sure that as far as the director’s image went, he probably was thinking of someone like a ‘rapper who acts like a bad guy.’ But the way Mugen acts is relatively based on his core conviction.”[1]
Mugen’s highly unorthodox swordplay and a fighting style based on breaking - dubbed “champuru kendo” (Champloo Kendo in English) and ostensibly developed by himself - taking bits and pieces from all forms of martial arts and making up the rest on-the-go as he fights his opponents, make him a force to be reckoned with.[2] He carries two blades, his principal weapon a unique sword with a curved blade and a hilt with two prongs sheathed across his back and the other a small tantō concealed at the end of his scabbard (only resorted to as a trump card). His main weapon appears to be an amalgamation of the Okinawan sai and Japanese katana. Mugen also has a tendency to parry attacks with the steel base of his geta.
Mugen often states his desire to fight and kill Jin once their quest is over, and Jin returns this desire and on the numerous occasions where Mugen is going to face a strong opponent and possibly risk his life, Jin reminds Mugen that ‘I will be the one to kill you’. Mugen does likewise. In the final episode, exhausted and near death, Jin and Mugen finally do have their battle, but both their swords break when they clash. Afterwards Mugen states that he doesn’t want to kill Jin, another sentiment that Jin returns.
His seiyū is Kazuya Nakai. His voice actor in the English version is Steven Blum, credited as Daniel Andrews to circumvent union regulations. However in the English version of the game for PS2, he is voiced by Liam O’Brien.
