Wakizashi
37 years ago - Takeo Yamashiro is born in Japan.
36 years ago - 1-year-old Takeo's brother Maseo Yamashiro is born.
26 years ago - 11-year-old Takeo & Maseo Yamashiro are taken in by the Choju-Ryu Dojo
23 years ago - 14-year-old Takeo & Maseo Yamashiro become students of Master Tadashi.
21 years ago - 16-year-old Takeo & Maseo Yamashiro meet Tatsu Toro when she becomes a star pupil of Master Tadashi. They both fall in love with her.
18 years ago - 19-year-old Takeo begins associating with the local crime gangs.
16 years ago - 21-year-old Takeo & Maseo 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 and begins working for the Yakuza, trading in rare antique weapons.
12 years ago - 25-year-old Takeo comes into possession of the Soultaker. He becomes the infamous Yakuza assassin Wakizashi.
10 years ago - 27-year-old Takeo murders Maseo Yamashiro in the middle of the night, killing his children and burning his home. He is unable to kill Tatsu Yamashiro, who steals the Soultaker and flees.
7 years ago - 30-year-old Takeo uses the Helleater Odachi to summon the spirits of those trapped inside the Soultaker, including Maseo Yamashiro, forcing them to fight Tatsu Yamashiro & the Outsiders. He and Tatsu fight to a standstill, forcing him to run.
5 years ago - 32-year-old Takeo unlocks the magic of the Helleater and summons the corrupt soul of Yamata-no-Orochi, the eight-headed sea dragon, to destroy his rivals including Tatsu Yamashiro. She defeats the dragon and finally kills him.
Takeo Yamashiro is actually a huge opportunity for us to create a character specifically designed to be the nemesis of a very particular hero who absolutely deserves an archenemy of her own. The story between these two is toweringly dramatic, ripped right out of a Shaw Brothers movie. A hero is often only as good as their villain, and I really think that Takeo has all the makings of a really great one.
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Takeo's Comic HistoryTakeo first appeared in Batman and the Outsiders #9 in 1984 as a cool, modern Japanese guy flying into the states, transporting a sword identical to Katanas. Within a few issues, we see him sneaking into her home in full ninja garb to steal the Soultaker. She then tells the rest of the Outsiders her incredibly tragic backstory, while elsewhere Takeo uses a ritual to summon spirits of those slain by the Soultaker, including his brother and Tatsu's husband Maseo, forcing her to have to fight and possibly kill her husband.
It was a pretty fantastic concept. If this exact story was presented as a standalone tale in it's own series, or a movie, it would really work. As it is, it played out over the course of a few issues within a single story arc. Takeo and Maseo are part of Katana's backstory and as such get referenced fairly often, but he never really became a great recurring villain, and that feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. So for our timeline, we're absolutely going to use the basic story beats as laid out in the comic, but we're going to do a little work to try to build up Takeo into a more classic nemesis for Katana. |
Our Takeo StoryTo begin, we're keeping the essential parts of Takeo and his role in Katana's backstory; he and his brother were rivals for her affection when they were younger, but how in the end, when they fought over her and Takeo was dishonorable, she chose Maseo. Takeo was already on a dark path, but when he leaves their dojo he starts associating with organized crime, and in particular trafficing in valuable antique weapons. When he comes into possession of the Soultaker, he weilds it to become a notorious Yakuza Assassin. We wanted to give him his own sobriquet here, and while we imagine him ultimately weilding an odachi, or a greatsword katana usually more than three feet long, we gave him the name Wakizashi, which is another sometimes slightly smaller type of katana, just because the name sounded so much cooler.
The Soultaker drives Takeo mad because if did not choose him, and soon he attacks his brothers home and kills him and his children, but fails to kill his wife Tatsu, who is able to disarm him, steal the Soultaker, and flee to go on to become Katana. This is really where our concept of the character starts to kick in, because we really want Wakizashi to be a bigger part of her story. To do this we really didn't want there to only be one magical sword at play. While he could be wielding any one of the many magical weapons various enemies of Katana have introduced, we decided to give him his own, and invented the Helleater. This weapon would allow him to summon spirits to fight alongside him, which would allow the events of the comic story to take place when Takeo summons his brother and forces Tatsu to fight him. Of course, we need on big climactic battle between Tatsu and Takeo before she can ultimately claim vengeance for the murder of her family, and we decided to make it as big as possible, so we had him fully unlock the magic of the Helleater and summon the soul of Yamata-no-Orochi, the eight-headed sea dragon from Japanese mythology. This means that Tatsu has to battle a literal dragon before she can finally defeat him. |
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