kiseki // application

[creamsouji]

Your name: Knight
Personal LJ/IJ/DW/Tumblr/Plurk (if any!): Plurk: KnightIsDarkest
Contact info:
AIM/MSN/other: AIM: HanamichiOnStage
E-mail: oblivion.soldier [at] gmail

Character's name: Souji Rippukan
Character's age: 16
Series the character is from: Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger
Point in canon they're being taken from: Post-Episode 43



Background: Souji was born to Reiko Tanba and Genryu Rippukan, the latter being the head of the Rippukan School, a dojo focused on styles of sword-fighting. While Souji was young, his parents went through a bitter separation. Souji was caught in the middle of everything and wasn't sure which parent to go with until he witnessed his father's reaction to the separation and the guilt his father bore from it. Souji's desire to comfort his father's sorrow was the reason Souji chose to stay with his father instead of his mother, leading to more tension between his parents over the years. Over time, Souji forgot why he had stayed with his father, leading to Souji harboring a great deal of bitterness towards his father's strict and controlling attitude.

As he grew older, Souji attended Kirisaki Private High School and became part of the kendo club, training as hard at school as he did at home. After all, his father intended for Souji to take over the school one day and continue in training others. Unfortunately, Souji's desire to keep everyone at a distance left him with few, possibly no real friends. The only classmate he's really ever seen with is one of the kendo team's managers (and contact is almost exclusively initiated by her because of her feelings for him).

At the beginning of the series, Souji defeated Zakutor in Japan and was given the power to transform into Kyoryu Green to work alongside the other Kyoryugers. Initially, all members of the team worked to keep their identities secret from each other simply to make things easier on all of them. While King (Kyoryu Red), the somewhat-leader of their team at the time, had been open about his identity, Souji chose to continue to hide his. Souji only showed his face to the rest of the team after challenging King to spar, saying he wouldn't respect King until the other could prove he was better than Souji. After his defeat, Souji reversed his transformation and revealed himself to the team for the first time.

Throughout the series, one of Souji's primary roles was to act as support for Ian Yorkland (Kyoryu Black). At first, Souji felt Ian was lazy and reckless, making other members of the team test out new abilities while Ian would sit back and take notes. It wasn't until after King made Ian's true intentions clear to Souji that he was willing to admit his faults and apologize, coming to respect Ian more once he understood him. At one point, Souji took advantage of an enemy's distraction to recover an artifact that had been stolen from the body of Ian's deceased best friend and safely returned it to Ian.

Souji remained a background character for most of the series, the focus on him dealing primarily with his support of those around him and occasionally the problems he got himself into involving the manager of his kendo club, who had an unhealthy fixation with him.

In the later part of the series, Souji's plotline focused on learning Torin's special attack. When the Kyoryugers changed bodies, Ucchi (Kyoryu Gold) realized Souji's wrist had been injured from repeated training to replicate the attack. While Torin had advised Souji against training, Souji's recreation of the attack saved them in one of their battles. The respect Souji gained from doing so caused Torin to take the other under his wing and personally train him to inherit the ability.

Recently, Souji's mother had appeared back in his life, clashing with his father. While his father wanted his mother to respect Souji's decisions, Souji's mother wanted to take him away from his "brute" of a father and away from the harsh training and life of a hero. After repeated arguments between his parents, a human Torin arrived to temporarily smooth over the issues between them. After his parents were attacked, Souji rememberd his desire to heal his father's sorrow and gained the passion needed to fully wield the power of Torin's special attack to defeat the enemy. His mother promised not to give up on getting Souji to join her, but his parents considered putting aside their differences in the future when they would need to discuss something.



Personality: When we first meet Souji, he comes off as the stereotypical silent and serious cool guy, sitting alone at a corner table in a cafe while reading a book about swordsmen. The first action he takes is to defend Amy (Kyoryu Pink) from Ian's (Kyoryu Black) flirting, nearly starting a fight with Ian on the spot to keep them apart. This is the first clearly defined personality trait of Souji's, which is his desire to defend others. For as much as he keeps himself closed off in the beginning of the series, Souji has a very strong sense of honor. He demonstrates this desire to protect by also helping to evacuate civilians and standing in front of his teammates (usually Ian) to shield them at a moment's notice. Much later in the series, Souji remarks on why he became a swordsman, and later, a Kyoryuger: "The thing that sent me down this path... It was the desire to protect people from sorrow."

For as passionate as Souji is about protecting others, he is also a stereotypical tsundere. Amy remarks early on in the series that she had never seen him smile. Souji does learn to loosen up a bit as time goes on, but his smiles remain rarely seen. He mentions he had been cold-hearted at least since middle school and used to be the type of guy who would simply ignore others and their feelings, even if they would cry in his presence. During his first major interaction with Ian, when Souji realized he was wrong about Ian's personality and apologizes to him, Souji is too embarrassed to even look at him and keeps his gaze off to the side as he extends his hand to help Ian up from the ground. Souji also dislikes other people going out of their way for him, muttering once, "You don't have to do all that..."

Souji's soft, childish side is rarely seen, but he is still a teenager at sixteen years old and part of that slips through from time to time. He is one of only two characters whose favorite choice of drink is known (the other being Ian's penchant for black espresso). Souji's happens to be cream soda, a melon-flavored soda with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Nearly any time he or the group as a whole is drinking something, this is Souji's drink of choice. When he is consumed by thoughts of learning a new technique, he will sit and stare dreamily into space for hours without regard for anyone else, playing with the straw of his drink. He also embarrasses easily, such as when he was hugged by his mother in front of the team and panicked, yelling, "Not in front of other people, Mother!!" When his parents seemed to temporarily resolve their differences, King called him out on crying, to which Souji tried to hide his face and went, "Don't be stupid! Why would I cry?"

Souji is also completely oblivious to the attention and affection of women, even when the rest of the team is painfully aware of what's going on. He is pursued multiple times during the series by his kendo team manager Katsuyama. At one point, Souji asks Amy to help him choose a present for Katsuyama to show his appreciation for everything she's done for him over the years. Amy is excited at the possibility of him finally expressing affection to Katsuyama in some way -- only for Souji to have bought the same present to also give to the other kendo team manager.

During the course of the series, Souji's father complex is always at the root of his growth as a character. Souji's first focus episode opens on his father rushing into the cafe the Kyoryugers hang out in, only to grab Souji's arm and drag him outside to lecture him. His father initially chastises him for his deteriorating swordsmanship and the personal style Souji has started to practice (holding his sword in a reverse grip), saying, "Only a wild beast would fight like that!" When presented with a monster attack, Souji's father moves forward to fight instead of him: "i've had enough of your hideous techniques! Let me show you how it's done!" Eventually, after his father is captured and Souji fights to free him, his father comes to accept Souji's personal style, which is a blend of Souji's own fighting techniques and those he learned from his father.

As the series progresses, Souji's relationship with his father seems to improve. They continue to train together in the dojo and Souji even begins receiving compliments. When Souji begins learning from Torin, he approaches his father and apologizes for learning from another teacher, only for his father to tell Souji that it's okay to learn from another teacher, especially as Souji had already mastered their family's techniques.

Much later in the series, we get the opportunity to meet Souji's mother and see his parents together, which explains a great deal about the cold and closed-off personality he had while growing up. Souji's mother calls him cruel for always taking his father's side, chastising: "I thought you didn't like him because he was always so strict! That's the reason we started fighting in the first place, but when we split up, you chose him for some reason!" His parents begin to fight, yelling at each other (mostly over the way either of them wants to raise Souji). Souji responds by putting himself between them, pushing them away from each other and yelling at them to stop. His words at the time make his feelings clear: "How many times are you going to do this? You're both idiots... With parents like this... how could I like either of you?!"

While Souji had initially forgotten why he had chosen his father over his mother when deciding who to go with, he remembers the reason while defending his father from a monster attack. After his mother had decided to leave, Souji had seen his father break down crying, who blamed himself for being unable to keep his wife or son near him and lamented how all of his training was no good to him if he couldn't keep them close. Seeing his father, Souji had run into the room and embraced him, intent on saving his father from such sorrow by staying with him.

Souji has spent all of his life being raised to take up to sword, which makes him rather obsessive about his training. His father runs the Rippukan School and Souji has grown up with the expectation that he will inherit it and train others in their fighting style. With how much time Souji has dedicated to his training, he becomes very upset when anyone insults it (including his father).

He is always pushing to train against other people, such as Ucchi (Kyoryu Gold) and Torin, working to learn their techniques once he has mastered his own. Souji also enjoys taking other fighting styles and molding them in his own way. When he first sees Torin's special attack, Souji starts training to recreate it. Torin advises him against it, noting a human's body is not meant to handle the stress of the attack. Despite this, Souji continues training to the point of injuring his wrist. Because of his stubbornness, Souji manages to recreate a weaker version of the attack which helps to defeat one of their enemies. After seeing the display of dedication and not wanting Souji to injure himself further, Torin volunteers to teach him the special attack. This is the only time we ever see Souji giddy with excitement, practically bouncing up and down with a grin on his face in excitement. He's so excited over the idea of being trained on a new attack and becomes so distracted that he turns around and promptly runs into a wall -- at which point he simply continues to laugh.

Souji is a member of his school's kendo club, while also training at home as often as possible, on top of being seen practicing in the Spirit Base when he has free time. One of the managers of his kendo club remarks that Souji is talented enough (and attractive enough) to be able to compete in a national championship. His reflexes are honed enough that he is usually the first one to react in a surprise attack.

One of Souji's weaknesses is his habit to beat himself up when he can't reach a goal. Knowing a surprise attack had to be utilized on an enemy using one of his sword techniques, Souji trained all night to find the correct way to attack, practicing to hit a specific point on his target.

Souji's primary weakness is his anger issues. When Dogold insults his swordsmanship early in the series, Souji rages and attempts to charge him, being held back by King (Kyoryu Red). Souji immediately turned on King and started to attack him, only being stopped by Ian shoving the two apart. At that point, Souji had said he would never follow King until the other proved he was better than him, challenging him to a fight. When Souji felt he was being mocked by Ian, Souji chased him around the base and tried to attack him. When Ian attempted to use him as a human shield (having much purer intentions than Souji realized), Souji snapped that he didn't need Ian telling him what to do. Souji's hot-headedness always seems to be what gets him in trouble and he has difficulty holding himself back once it bubbles up.

However, Souji is willing to admit when he is wrong (once he calms down). After he challenged King and lost by being shot (when Souji initially made it seem to be a battle of swords), Souji admits he had never stated the rules of his challenge and accepts defeat. When Souji realizes he had been wrong about Ian's personality, Souji apologizes to him and offers to work together. Souji is also aware of and will acknowledge his weaknesses. His primary fear is shown in the series that others would think of him as being weak and cowardly. He also dislikes the idea of being a burden to others.

There are many traits in others that Souji will not tolerate. He dislikes laziness and people who take things lightly, which is why he initially clashed so much with Ian when he felt the personality Ian shows to others was Ian's true personality. Liars are another type Souji will not tolerate. He hates when people don't communicate what they want and despises selfishness and those who are close-minded, who refuse to see things from the point of view of others. However, even if he hates someone, Souji will do everything he can to defend them, saying: "I'm not childish enough to be picky about who needs saving. Fighting to protect people is what we Kyoryugers do!" It would take a lot for Souji to hate someone enough that he would not fight for them.

Despite all of these negative traits, Souji is shown to be capable of genuinely caring about those around him: he admires King's carefree attitude and respects him as a leader and joins the rest of the team in casually teasing Nossan about his age. Souji and Amy are shown to get along well, such as the time when he asked her to help him pick out a present for his kendo team's manager and accepting her teasing about how he never smiles. With Ucchi, the two bond over their swordsmanship and train together regularly. Torin is highly respected by Souji (not only for being Souji's teacher), which is also evidenced by Souji being the first one to cry and touch Torin's body after the team believed he was dead.

Souji's interactions with Ian deserves its own section, as most of Souji's growth and personal plotlines during the course of the series have to do with him. A great deal of Souji's less obvious personality traits are also seen in his interactions with Ian.

In the beginning, the two clashed strongly because of Souji's belief that Ian had no regard for him or anyone else on the team and that he simply had others do the hard work. Once King mentioned to Souji that Ian's intentions were pure and he simply wasn't expressing himself openly, Souji apologized to Ian, offering: "You know you can't do it alone. So, let's fight together." From this point forward, Souji always seems to know what Ian is thinking or feeling, moreso than Ian himself at times (which is something Ian notes later on.) When Ian is having a hard time motivating himself, Souji is right there to give him encouragement to keep moving forward, telling Ian not to beat himself up so much.

If Ian is King's right hand within the team, then Souji is the right hand to Ian, openly volunteering to help him when he needs it. Over time, Souji develops an uncanny habit to show up at just the right time to shield Ian from enemies. Souji's desire to defend Ian isn't just a physical thing either, as evidenced by the time his kendo team manager started to trash Ian for the way Ian had treated her. Souji immediately jumped to Ian's defense: "He would never [mock you]. He may seem irresponsible, but he's really too kind to hurt someone like that." Ian is shocked to hear Souji's words, partially because Souji had never stood up for one of his teammates like that before.

When it comes to Aigaron, Ian's Deboss rival throughout the series who had been responsible for the death of Ian's best friend Shiro, Souji occasionally helps Ian fight against him, but (almost) never fights Aigaron on his own. When Ian loses control and tries to recklessly charge forward in his anger, Souji has been known to hold Ian back or simply tackle him out of the way to keep him from attacking too recklessly. The only time Souji attacked on his own was when Ian had a difficult time controlling himself while being taunted by Aigaron. Souji, however, saw that Aigaron was distracted and used Ian's weapon to fire at him, knocking the stone Aigaron had stolen from Shiro out of Aigaron's hand to recover it for Ian. At this point, it is important to note that Souji had no idea what significance the stone truly held for Ian at the time, only that Aigaron was taunting Ian over it and that it was something Ian wanted. Souji casually noted, "I'll be taking Ian's memento back." once he regained the stone and passed it off to Ian.

Souji endures a lot of teasing from Ian over the course of the series, though he ends up being able to give it right back as time goes on, such as teasing Ian with, "You just can't be honest, can you?" The primary teasing Souji deals with comes from the nickname 'boy', which is the way Ian exclusively refers to him for 99% of the series. (Ian's nickname for Souji is also the only nickname regularly used in the team that is not spoken by all members, such as how the team regularly refers to Nossan, Ucchi, and King as such.) While Souji is bristly at first when the nickname starts out as 'Green boy' and Souji feels he is being mocked, Souji never seems to have an issue with it once Ian simply calls him 'boy'. During what they think may be their final battle together is when Ian finally drops the nickname and refers to Souji by name, resulting in a rather shy and embarrassed smile from Souji.



Sample Journal Post: [The video begins to reveal a young looking Japanese male in a high school uniform, who is staring intently at the journal as though he expects it to literally blow up in his face. His voice is flat and unemotional.]

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here. If there is enough time, I would enjoy meeting some of you in person. I've just arrived and it would be nice to have someone show me around, if at all possible.

[His speech is starting to sound more forced, so he takes a moment and manages a small smile that actually looks somewhat genuine.]

I'm going to try to explore a little bit on my own first. I'm still not entirely familiar with how this thing works, so you'll have to forgive me...

[For the first time, his eyes move away from the screen, before he forces himself to look back again.]

Maybe there's something fun going on. This place could use a Western-style carnival, don't you think?

[And this is where Souji's expression starts to falter again, showing a hint of exactly how scared and worried he is.]

Thank you for listening. I hope to speak with you soon.

[With that, the video promptly turns off.]



Additional samples: As soon as the video recording had finished, Souji threw the journal onto the ground, removing his sword and pointing it towards the book. His breath was shaking, his hands were shaking, everything was shaking. He couldn't get himself to calm down. The fact that the journal wasn't doing anything in response to throwing it just made him more uncomfortable. This had to be a nightmare. It had to be something like the time he'd been forced to sit through date after date with Katsuyama-san and had stayed awake for days on end to avoid the nightmare his enemy had concocted for him.

But... why was no one attacking him? Was the enemy's intention to catch him off guard? Souji couldn't remember what he'd been doing before he'd woken up. The day before had been when his parents had fought and Souji had mastered the Trinity Strazor. Maybe this was some sort of unexpected side-effect. After all, Torin had warned Souji against the dangers of using such an ability with a human body. Had he pushed himself too far and ended up in a coma?

Sure, the Welcome Center ladies had tried to explain things to him, but Souji had simply nodded and forced a smile, far too uncomfortable with all of the attention and implications of a strange place to listen to everything they were saying. All he had been focused on was finding a way out of the room and the best way to defend himself.

Souji was wary of touching the journal again. He was sure as soon as he touched it, the journal would spring to life and attack him or something awful would happen. It took a minute of Souji silently threatening the book with his sword before he put his sword away, carefully picking up the book and shoving it into his schoolbag. He zipped the bag shut to put an extra layer of defense between him and the book.

What was he supposed to do now? He supposed the only thing to do was explore. Despite not wanting to check the journal again, Souji remembered just enough of the Welcome Ladies' speech that he knew he would have to look at it if he wanted to know any of responses. Souji hoped someone he knew had been listening and picked up on his subtle but-not-so subtle hints with the names of the form he shared with Ian and the name of King's power-up. It worried him that his friends, if they were there, might not be able to communicate with him freely.

Taking a deep breath and attempting to calm his breathing, Souji picked a direction and started walking. Despite the bright, cheery atmosphere, nothing about this place seemed good.



( Chad-chan keeps shivering kittens warm. )