Maseo Yamashiro
36 years ago - Maseo Yamashiro is born in Japan, the brother of Takeo Yamashiro.
26 years ago - 10-year-old Maseo & Takeo Yamashiro are taken in by the Choju-Ryu Dojo
23 years ago - 13-year-old Maseo & Takeo Yamashiro become students of Master Tadashi.
21 years ago - 15-year-old Maseo & Takeo Yamashiro meet Tatsu Toro when she becomes a star pupil of Master Tadashi. They both fall in love with her.
18 years ago - 18-year-old Maseo's brother Takeo Yamashiro begins associating with the local crime gangs.
16 years ago - 20-year-old Maseo & Takeo Yamashiro fight over Tatsu Toro. Takeo disregards the rules of the fight and almost kills his brother. Tatsu chooses Maseo, and Takeo leaves the dojo.
13 years ago - 23-year-old Maseo & Tatsu Toro are married.
11 years ago - 25-year-old Maseo & Tatsu Yamashiro's twins Yuki & Reiko Yamashiro are born.
10 years ago - 26-year-old Maseo is murdered by his brother Takeo Yamashiro in the middle of the night, killing his children and burning his home.
7 years ago - Maseo's spirit is summoned from the Soultaker by Takeo Yamashiro to fight Tatsu Yamashiro & the Outsiders.
2 years ago - Maseo finally moves on when Tatsu Yamashiro journeys into the Soultaker with the help of Jason Blood to free the souls of her family.
Part of what makes Katana a far cooler character than she ever gets credit for is her unbelievably tragic backstory. It's the sort of thing that could easily fuel a character a whole franchise is built around. Her deceased husband is a major player in that story, so we wanted to make sure he got a page of his own, but given how often he winds up interacting with her even after his death, it actually becomes pretty vital that we keep track of him.
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Maseo Yamashiro's StoryWhen Katana was originally introduced she didn't reveal her origin story right away. She obviously HAD one; part of what really worked in the original Outsiders was that all the individual characters had such complex indivual histories, but for a while Tatsu simply had a mysterious past that she seemed haunted by. It was a full year into the series, in issue #11, when Tatsu's magical sword was stolen and a ritual was used to summon several spirits slain by the blade to fight Tatsu and the Outsiders, including... big reveal... her husband!
We learned her tragic backstory featuring her husband's death, and the deaths of her twin children, ad the hands of Takeo, her husband's brother. The ensuing battle, as Katana was immediately overwhelmed by seein Maseo again and then overcome with emotion as he was forced by the magic that summoned him to try to kill her, begging her to kill him again first... It was a LOT, and it really drove home just how complex Katana's story was. Maseo is of course a major part of Tatsu's tale, and often actually proves to be a pretty prolific story beat. Katana has interacted with his spirit more than once over the years, and we wanted to make sure we included that, because it is a really great, rich element of her lore. We did decide that we wanted her to ultimately actually free him from the Soultaker, allowing him to move on, because this story actually feels like one that is better when it's allowed to resolve. |