Characters / Ninja Scroll: The Series

Main characters

Jubei Kibagami

Voiced by: Rikiya Koyama (JP), Dave Rasner (EN), Paco Gázquez (SP)

• Adaptational Badass: This version of Jubei is The Ace instead of the Action Survivor he was in the movie. Here he mows down his way through both the Kimon and Hiruko clans.
• Flanderization: Compared to the series, he is much more sardonic, jolly and cool, as well as skilled; traits he already had in the movie, but not to this extent.
• Friend to All Children: He befriends the Child, even although she is an enemy kunoichi.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: His trusted katana.
• Signature Headgear: His signature kasa hat.
• The Slacker: He is first seen sleeping under a tree, and the first thing he does when he meddles in the nearby battle is blaming the ninjas for waking him up.
• Sword Beam: Can emit "a gale of slicing wind" from his sword, according to Rohga.

Dakuan

Voiced by: Yuzuru Fujimoto

• Adaptational Heroism: While he was a heartless bastard in the movie, he is now a much more decent guy.
• Adaptational Wimp: This version of him lacks his camouflage/elasticity powers.
• Badass Normal: Has no supernatural skills in this series, or at least never uses them, unlike Jubei, who has his own skills amped up.
• Ceiling Cling: This version of Dakuan has the interesting habit of hanging upside down of things like a bat in order to think or sleep, all without losing his hat.
• Demolitions Expert: His main asset on the battlefield is his ability to set explosives without his enemies noticing.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: He barely reaches Jubei's waist.
• Ninja Log: Used endlessly to catch enemies off guard. He often rigs the logs with explosives.
• Non-Action Guy: Played with. He is not a hand-to-hand fighter and have no more offensive weapons than his extensible staff, but he is agile and tricky enough (and carries enough gunpowder) to overcome this weakness.

Shigure

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (JP), Daisy Torme (EN), Nuria Trifol (SP)

• Damsel in Distress: To her chagrin, her modest fighting skills are nothing for the ninjas who are behind her, so she ends invariably in this role.
• Dull Surprise: Most of the time has a slightly vacant expression, although it's unclear if this is due to her character design.
• Girlish Pigtails: Has a large version of this hairdo.

Tsubute

Voiced by: Romi Park (JP), Scott Menville (EN), Albert Trifol Segarra (SP)

• Ambiguously Brown: More tanned than most characters.
• Street Urchin: Only he lives apparently on the woods instead of the streets.

Kimon Clan

• Nebulous Evil Organisation: They are a ninja clan which serves the Shogun of Darkness.

Yamidoro

Voiced by: Seizō Katō (JP), Jack Fletcher (EN)

• Bald of Evil: A shaved head.
• Big Bad: Takes this mantle, even though he technically serves the Shogun of Darkness.
• Cyborg
• Fat Bastard: His design evokes a creepy Fat Buddha.
• Make Them Rot: Has a special device installed on his palms which emits a field capable to make things rot.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "dark mud," quite appropriate for the leader of a clan which serves the darkness.

Magai

Voiced by: Nozomu Sasaki (JP)

• Bondage Is Bad: He wears what seems to be an anachronistically modern sadomasochist leather costume.
• Depraved Dwarf: A quite evil midget.
• Fragile Speedster: He is very agile, not to mention capable to fly around in his parasol, but cannot take many hits.
• The Hyena: Laughs and grins like a madman while peddling in his flying thing.
• Makeup Is Evil: He either wears eye shadow or his character design evokes it.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "evil shell," possibly referring to his helmet and wickedness.
• Parasol of Pain: His main tool and weapon is a large parasol which also acts as a peddle-powered helicopter.

Ubume

Voiced by: Masako Katsuki (JP)

• Body Horror: Her own son, Yadorigi, is fused with her body and can navigate through her flesh.
• Dark Action Girl: A powerful kunoichi from the Kimon clan.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: She has long dark hair which contrasts with her sickly pale skin, giving her a sinister look even before she reveals her Body Horror.
• Elemental Weapon: Wields a metal whip which can be covered in flames.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Fights nude after throwing aside her kimono, wearing only the gauntlet she stores her whip in and a plate mail which seems grafted onto her groin and stomach.
• Fusion Dance: Her spawned creatures can fuse together and form a much bigger one.
• Giving Them the Strip: She wears initially an ornated robe, but discards it after it gets attacked with Mozuku's glue.
• Godiva Hair: Her hair covers her nipples when naked, although you can still see them at some points.
• Lady in Red: Initially wears a fancy red kimono with the Kimon's insign on her obi.
• Lamprey Mouth: Her creatures have it.
• Meaningful Name: Her name means "parturient" (specifically a creature of Japanese folklore with this name), referring to her ability to spawn creatures.
• One-Man Army: Aside from being literally a one-woman critter pack, she gets to kill both Mozuku and Rohga by herself.
• Playing with Fire: She is shown to have some control over fire.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has red eyes.
• Smug Snake: Likes to watch with a smile while her rodents rip someone apart. Her son, Yadorigi, is more overt.
• Weaponized Offspring: She can generate rodent-like creatures out of her flesh.
• The Worf Effect: She gets to eliminate alone the first two rival ninjas in singles battles and make them both look easy, but is cut down by Jubei in her duel to show how strong he is.

Gouten

Voiced by: Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (JP)

• Cyclops: Has a single red eye on his visor.
• Giant Mook: His body is made to resemble a giant man in an armor suit.
• Mecha-Mook: He is basically an armed mecha over wheels piloted by an old guy.
• Lightning Bruiser: Incredibly over its wheels and incredibly tough in his armor.
• Schizo Tech: The technology used by him is clearly very futuristic.
• Silent Antagonist: He never talks, aside grunting and screaming.

Jyashi

Voiced by: Takehito Koyasu (JP)

• Arm Cannon: His artificial arm contains a crossbow.
• Artificial Limbs: His left arm is mechanical.
• Cyborg: Has a mechanical limb and an artificial eye, and the latter shows that part of his skull is empty.
• Eye Remember: Can insert a dead enemy's eyeball into his own artificial socket in order to watch the dead's last moments, which also destroys the eyeball in the process.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Inverted. He is a villain, but uses a katana, and is almost as good at it as Jubei.
• Hypnotic Eyes: His artificial eye can enthrall enemies in an illusion world in order to confuse them while Jyashi attacks them.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "wicked vision," referring to her eye abilities.

Rengoku

Voiced by: Mari Yokoo (JP)

• Ax-Crazy
• Meaningful Name: Her name means "purgatory," which explains by itself.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Has several long, thin arms, and later grafts some more.

Kitsunebi

Voiced by: Norio Wakamoto (JP)

• Bald of Evil
• Body Horror: His body is made of a glass-like substance and is animated by a blue flame in his chest.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "Will-o'-the-Wisp," and he is pretty much a living ghost flame.
• Pest Controller: Can control a swarm of moths.

Tobizaru

Voiced by: Mitsuaki Madono (JP)

• Cool Sword: Wields a sword with an interestingly shaped blade.
• Maniac Monkeys
• Meaningful Name: His name means "flying monkey", referring to his monkey nature and agility.

Aizen

Voiced by: Toshihiko Seki (JP)

Kawahori

Voiced by: Kazuki Yao (JP)

• Meaningful Name: His name means "bat."
• Our Vampires Are Different: He is more probably a human enhanced to resemble a vampire than one itself.

Utsushiei

Voiced by: Urara Takano (JP)

• Shapeshifter
• The Vamp

Hiruko Clan

• Animal Motif: Almost all its members have a natural/animal theme. Rohga is the wolf, Mozuku is the spider, Nekome is the cat, Azami is the plant, Dakatsu is the scorpion, Hakurou is the lizard, Rokai is the worm, and Zoufu could be an intestinal parasite (no kidding in this).
• Anti-Villain: The clan's goal is using the treasure to build a new nation in order to get out of the darkness. That said, although there are many honorable and sane people among its members, others are still vicious killers.

Mufu

Voiced by: Hideyuki Tanaka (JP), Dwight Schultz (EN)

• Barrier Warrior: Can create force fields.
• Cool Mask: Wears an ornated golden mask with a Third Eye.
• Interrogating the Dead: Has the ability to reactivate dead brains in order to interrogate them, as well as extract images and shapes from their memories.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "windless weather", which reflects his serene demeanor.

Rohga

Voiced by: Joji Nakata (JP)

• Absurdly Sharp Claws: His fingernails, once extended, can slice logs in a single hit.
• Clothing Damage: Averted. Uncharacteristically for a werewolf, he is heavily clothed and doesn’t get his outfit damaged upon transforming, except for his mask and shoes.
• Cool Mask: Wears an iron mask. He never takes off – it breaks when he uses his full transformation.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "wolf's fang", referring to his werewolf abilities.
• Our Werewolves Are Different
• Super-Strength: His strength increases after transforming.
• Wolf Man: At the first stage of his transformation, his fingernails grow, his teeth become fangs and some of his skin turns into fur. At the second stage, his head enlarges and becomes a complete wolf man.

Mozuku

Voiced by: Isamu Tanonaka (JP)

• All Webbed Up: His specialty, which he accomplished by excreting web from a implant/organ in his forehead.
• Bald of Evil
• Femme Fatalons: Has long clawed nails, which he tries to stab Ubume with.
• Looks Like Orlok: Barely looks human.
• Informed Ability: Mufu can't believe somebody managed to defeat Mozuku, which clearly doesn't go with him being quite obviously one of the weakest and dumbest ninja in the series.
• Spider People: Only symbolically, as he seems to be a disfigured humanoid with an implant capable to generate webs in his face.

Nekome

Voiced by: Rica Matsumoto (JP)

• Action Girl: A kunoichi from the Hiruko clan.
• Cat Girl: She has cat like physical traits.
• Expy: You would get forgiven for thinking Pumyra had found her way into an anime series.
• Fragile Speedster: She is extremely fast and nimble, but not so tough.
• Kick Chick: Utilizes a lot of kicks. Her fighting style almost resembles Capoeira.
• The Leader: She leads a squad of unnamed inhuman ninja, including a chamaeleon-like infiltrator and a demonic centipede in an armor suit.
• Meaningful Name: Her name means "cat's eye".
• She-Fu: Does plenty of backflips and high jumps.

Nubatama

Voiced by: Mami Koyama (JP)

• Made of Iron: She inexplicably survives to a blade impaled through her body, and later requires two of them and a snapped neck to die.
• Meaningful Name: Her name means "one thousand bullets," referring probably to her hair being used as a weapon.
• Not Quite Dead: Returns after being apparently killed by Rengoku, albeit only to be defeated by her again and this time killed for real.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Her character design is pretty distinctive, as she is curvaceous yet vaguely caricature-sque.
• Prehensile Hair: Her specialty is using her long hair as Combat Tentacles.
• Unexplained Recovery: It's not revealed how she survived to the fatally-looking blade through the breast she received.

Azami

Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (JP)

• Full-Frontal Assault: Loses all her clothes through her mission, though she still has some wood-like substance covering her nipples and groin.
• Girlish Pigtails: Has this hairdo.
• Giving Them the Strip: She tosses away her robe in order to escape from Kitsunebi, ending up completely naked after he rips away her nightgown in order to attempt to rape her.
• Green Thumb: Can control plants by fusing with them.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "thistle", referring to her plant nature.

Dakatsu

Voiced by: Toshihiko Nakajima (JP)

• All of the Other Reindeer: He claims that people often run away from him due to his looks, and it's not difficult to believe once you look at him.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: His main and possibly only weapon is a fleshy tail with an incredibly poisonous stinger.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He wants Rengoku's limbs stitched to his body instead of his because he believes they will make him more beautiful. Naturally, it goes without mentiong that from any human perspective, they don't. It, along his general idiocy (see Too Dumb to Live below), possibly implies that the guy is insane or mentally disturbed for real.
• Body Horror: The shape of his body, head and face is incredibly bizarre, making him look like a disfigured doll.
• Evil Laugh: Has a pretty impressive one.
• Evil Hand: Dies when Rengoku telepathically controls her limbs after stitching them to his body and forces him to drown in a river.
• The Grotesque: He is not much uglier than other characters in this series, actually, but he sees himself in this light.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "detestable", referring to his feelings of loneliness, but also can mean "scorpion".
• Too Dumb to Live: He makes a pact with Rengoku without any caution or information about her skills beyond her talent for surgery, which gets him killed when she takes advantage of it and forces his new body to die. Worse yet: even if he didn't know she could do that, he also traded his only weapon, his tail, which Rengoku could have killed him with in a second if she didn't want to use her own abilities.

Hakurou

Voiced by: Issei Futamata (JP)

• Lizard Folk: A lizard man who is also a ninja for the Hiruko clan.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "white wax."

Nenmu

Voiced by: Yuuichi Nagashima (JP)

• Body Snatcher: He is esentially a disembodied eyeball which can possess people to do his bidding.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Is killed when his last host, a mother who travelled with her son, resists his control out of love and commits a Heroic Sacrifice to kill him.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Literally.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "sticky bug."

Zoufu

Voiced by: Yuji Ueda (JP)

• Affably Evil: He is very polite and soft-spoken. It turns out that he is not evil after all.
• BFS: Carries a Western longsword.
• Body Horror: Has a demonic worm parasite living inside of his abdomen, and actually sports a triskelion-shaped scar on his stomach which opens to free the thing.
• Challenge Seeker: He has respect for the goals of the Hiruko clan, but his personal motivation is finding a fighter strong enough to help him rid of his parasite, and it's implied that he joined them only for that reason.
• Cursed with Awesome: Is possessed by a parasite which in turn defends him fiercely. Zoufu doesn't see it as an advantage, however, and is horrified by it.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Played somewhat straight: he wields a sword and is more honorable than other Hiruko ninjas.
• Looks Like Cesare: With extra long hair.
• Meaningful Name: His name means "entrails."
• Non-Standard Character Design: His hair and face design, along with his longsword, imply he is a Western man and not a Japanese, although his flasbacks show him wearing kimonos and living in Japanese houses.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: He gets to kill the parasite which has haunted for most of his life, albeit only to discover that he was alive only thanks to said parasite.
• Sword Beam: Has a version of Jubei's ability.
• The Symbiote: A mutualistic example. The parasite lives inside Zoufu's stomach, probably feeding on what he eats, and in exchange it goes out to protect them every time it senses Zoufu's live is threatened. Not only that: at the end, it turns out that the parasite was keeping Zoufu alive.

Rokai

Voiced by: Kobuhei Hayashiya (JP)

• Abhorrent Admirer: He is fat and ugly, lacks teeth and has some unpleasant manners, and is also a Priestess of Light fanboy.
• Berserk Button: Harming Shigure.
• Balloon Belly: His special technique enables him to expand massively his frame, turning into something resembling a slug, as well as fusing his flesh together to form a wheel.
• Big Eater: Almost to Horror Hunger levels. He eats any thing edible and many things which are not, like rotten rice, which utterly disgusts Shigure. It seems, in his first encounter with Jubei, that he cannot work his techniques while hungry (but he later uses them anyways).
• Big Fun: He is quite jolly.
• Dumb Muscle: Rather dim-witted, but very strong and with surprising physical abilities.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: It's never revealed why was he imprisoned in the Hiruko cave, but it gets quite implied that it was for being an annoying simpleton.
• Gonk: His character design is pretty... original.
• The Heart: He is actually very good natured, and desperately wants Shigure to know that not all the Hiruko ninjas are vicious fiends. His focus episode is even named "The Heart of Hiruko."
• Heroic Sacrifice: Gives his life to shield Jubei from Yamidoro’s attacks.
• Kevlard: When in wheel form, kunais rebound harmlessly against his skin. He later takes an impressive effort by Yamidoro to be finally killed.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When he gets angry, he turns scary.
• Lightning Bruiser: After turning his body into a wheel, he becomes a unstoppable force.
• Loony Fan: Towards Shigure.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Though fat, he is very short, being outheighted even by Shigure; and yet, he casually picks her up in military press and runs away to save her from the Kimon mooks.
• Super-Senses: Has an incredibly sense of smell.
• Rolling Attack: Turns into a human wheel to reach Shigure's captors and rescue her. Subverted in which he doesn't use it offensively, but only for defense and mobility purposes.

The Child

Voiced by: Yuko Sasamoto (JP)

• Body Horror: Can generate a second, witch-like face on the back of her head.
• Cheerful Child: At least until her transformation...
• Cuteness Proximity: Exploited. She is introduced being chased by a man, presumably for having discovered her ill intentions, and seeks cover behind Jubei. He, being the Friend to All Children he is, doesn't even question what is going before scaring the guy away. Then it turns the girl was a Hiruko ninja.
• No Name Given: Her name is never given, not even in promotional materials, which give out many name characters that are not mentioned on screen.
• Razor Floss: Fights using a portion of her clothing as a cutting weapon.
• Redemption Equals Death: After she gives up her Hiruko ways and befriends Jubei, she dies.
• Split Personality: It is possible, though not stated explicitly, that her second face has a personality of its own which takes over in order to fulfill her mission.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: She is accidentally killed by Renya when she tries to break up his fight with Jubei.
• Two-Faced: When her evil mode takes over, a monstruous second face grows in the back of her head.