Characters / Samurai Jack - Ashi

Index: Samurai Jack | Scotsman & Family | Other Allies | Aku | Cult of Aku | Ashi | Other Enemies | Comics

"I just want the truth."

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Voiced by: Tara Strong

A young lady who was a member of the Daughters of Aku, a team of assassins who served an Aku-worshiping cult. After the Daughters tried and failed to kill Jack, Ashi is captured by the samurai, and finds herself getting dragged into his adventures.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower: After breaking free of Aku's control via the Power of Love, she keeps Aku's powers, allowing her to hold him off. She then realizes this includes Aku's time travel power...
• Action Girl: Starts out as a Dark Action Girl, but becomes this post Heel–Face Turn. While not as good as Jack, she's still sufficient to wipe out an entire army with zero effort.
• Act of True Love: Once regaining control over herself, Ashi decided to use her powers to help the man she loves by going back in time and allow Jack to finally destroy Aku in the past, even though she seems fully aware doing so will mean the end of her existence.
• All Amazons Want Hercules: Along with the fact that Single Woman Seeks Good Man, her lover, Jack, is the World's Best Warrior.
• Alpha Bitch: Being the leader of the (literal) Daughters of Aku, she somewhat behaved like this even after Jack spared her life once he killed all of her sisters (at first, at least).
• Ambiguously Human: The way she curb stomped the entire bounty-hunter army in "Episode XCVII", followed by the way she never got a scratch and was only briefly winded, and then had enough stamina to fight off her mother, has left many people wondering if she is fully human. And then "Episode C" confirmed that she is a literal "Daughter of Aku".
• And I Must Scream: Once Aku discovers that Ashi is his biological daughter, he wastes no time using the piece of his essence inside her to take direct control of her body to force her to fight Jack. Ashi is fully conscious and aware of her actions, but is unable to fight Aku's control.
• And This Is for...: A variant; she acknowledges Jack was the one who killed her sisters, but she doesn't blame him; she blames her mother for essentially sending them to a Suicide Mission.
• Animal Motifs:
  • She seems to have ladybugs as one to reflect her lost innocence.
  • Her demon form's appearance and behavior, what with tall, slim body and limbs, and the way she uses her arms as stabbing weapons, resemble a praying mantis.
• Anime Hair: She has short black hair that is teased up to a point up top. This is probably a reference to Sym-Bionic Titan with main character Ilana, another Genndy Tartakovsky work, only this one is black instead of blonde. When washing off her charcoal suit in a river, she wets her hair and it stays down, implying that she uses gel to keep it up as Aku’s soldier.
• Anti-Anti-Christ: She was born as a literal daughter of Aku, she eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn. Unfortunately, Aku exploits the Antichrist part for personal gain. Fully becomes this in the series finale "Episode CI", when, after breaking Aku's control of her, uses her powers to hold off Aku and create a portal to the past for her and Jack, allowing Jack to defeat him moments after Aku sent him into the future.
• Anti-Hero: After her Heel–Face Turn. While firmly on Jack's side and desiring to do what's best for the world, she's way more vicious than Jack, and has zero qualms about killing other humans (as shown with the Dominator and her own mother) who are her enemy.
• Anti-Villain: Like her sisters, Ashi grew up under the warped beliefs of her abusive, Ax-Crazy mother that Jack was a villain while Aku was a hero. After learning the truth, she developed into an Anti-Hero.
• Apologetic Attacker: Ashi is visibly surprised to find herself attacking Jack in "C" after her lineage is revealed. She makes every effort to tell Jack it's not really her before Aku's influence consumes her.
• Artificial Family Member: She's literally part Aku as she was conceived from her mother after she drank Aku's dark essence.
• Arrow Catch: One of Ashi's trademark moves is to snatch an arrow out of the air and kill the archer with it.
• Ascended Demon: After breaking free of Aku's control via The Power of Love, she maintains full control over his powers and can use them against him. Interestingly enough: she is no longer harmed from outright grabbing the blade of Jack's sword when a small nick from it before was enough to injure her prior, implying her Made of Evil nature changed in some way.
• The Atoner: After seeing what Jack really is and finds out about Aku's true nature, she then decides to help the samurai by saving him from other threats, which includes her mother the High Priestess.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Downplayed in that she doesn't seem to actually have ADD. She is, however, occasionally shown to get distracted by the beauty of the world around her, although this doesn't seem to hinder her goals as much as her mother makes it sound.
• Audience Surrogate: Can possibly be seen as one to the viewers who began watching the show from the fifth season. She started to know about Jack only through training and rumors, but as her journey continued she learned more about him from first-hand experience, as well as from people he met from over a large period of time.
• Avenging the Villain: More like Anti-Villain, but it still counts. The High Priestess' ultimate demise apparently wasn't just for the protection of Jack (when he was trying to get his katana back through meditation). It also meant that Ashi has indirectly avenged her sisters, as well, especially given their shared trauma from their own mother since youth.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: With Jack in the fight against the green tiger men in "Episode XCIX". It overlaps with Ship Tease, because they keep making physical contact with each other.
• Badass Adorable: Initially, she was designed to be a skilled, but also malevolent warrior, primarily in service for her father Aku. However, after her redemption thanks to Jack, she eventually became a lot kinder than what she was before, but her combat skills still remain.
• Badass Normal: Much like her other sisters, she's an expert in the martial arts. Subverted when we see her subtly display some outright superhuman speed and strength, as she was never normal to begin with.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Ashi and her sisters' Evil Cannot Comprehend Good attitude is born from this; they've been indoctrinated from birth to view Aku as a benevolent creator god and Jack as the monster destroying the planet. Since this means that Ashi actually does have a strong drive to do good, once Jack sets the record straight on who the real villain is, it's pretty easy for Ashi to switch sides.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Because she is a literal daughter of Aku, she possesses his powers and essence after birth. Claiming her own identity, she uses her own time travel powers to help Jack kill Aku in the past.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: As it turns out, Ashi's sneaking suit is actually glorified Body Paint that was attached to her body after she was shoved into "burning magical darkness" from the Pit of Hate. Exaggerated in the flashback showing it, where she's not shown having anything resembling naughty bits despite being stark naked, and her arms not covering her chest for a second (though probably because of it both needing to be tasteful enough to show on Adult Swim, and because she was a child at the time).
• Bare-Fisted Monk: After abandoning her kusarigama post Heel–Face Turn, she fights almost exclusively with her bare hands. Trust us, that's all she needs. Downplayed in that she'll pick up a weapon when she needs to.
• Battle Couple: She and Jack form this relationship in Episode XCIX. They fight enemies back to back before making out.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Post-Heel–Face Turn, to which she manages to shed her old skin off (even literally speaking) for her overall beauty to be shown much more than what it was before.
• Beauty Is Bad: Pre-Heel–Face Turn, especially since she was raised rather maliciously by the High Priestess alongside her sisters, given their familial ties with Aku.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Jack was the first person to treat her with any kindness and compassion in her whole life, which is a major reason for her turning to his side and developing feelings for him.
• The Berserker: Whenever sufficiently enraged enough to fight someone, she's absolutely brutal and ruthless to her opponents; as best seen when she battles, for example: Jack, the Dominator, or that Orc Army. Her possessed form is even worse.
• Berserk Button: After joining up with Jack we see that turning children into weapons has become a huge one for her.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Post Heel–Face Turn. Ashi is the kindest and sweetest girl you'll ever meet. But as the Dominator, the Orc Army, and her own mother learn the hard way, pissing her off may very well be the last thing you do.
• Big "SHUT UP!": A downplayed example. Once she realizes what Aku truly is through Jack's guidance in the 5th episode of Season 5, she then tells the samurai that she's convinced by his words, to which it was accompanied by a passionate "Enough!" expression from her, similar to Jack's own towards herself, only more toned down in comparison.
• Bishōnen Line: Her final form after regaining control of herself via The Power of Love is her with all of Aku's powers, but regaining her human form except wearing her black catsuit.
• Blood-Splattered Warrior: Thanks to the more mature details being integrated into the show, Ashi is shown being drenched in the arterial blood of the orc army she slaughtered, with her hair even matted down with blood. Of course, the next scene has her magically blood free continuing the show's tradition of heavily using symbolism as well as utilizing brutal violence to showcase a point. This is kind of odd given that later scenes show the blood was real leading this into a weird half-subversion of Beauty Is Never Tarnished.
• Body Paint: Ashi's outfit (and by extension those of her sisters) is made of magical darkness from the Pit of Hate, as shown in a flashback when the High Priestess shoves her into a heap of it. Ashi scrubs it off and switches to a dress made of leaves.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: In episode 4 of season 5, Ashi borrows Aku’s catchphrase when she rants to Jack:
  Ashi: By Aku's will, you will die in here! There is no hope for you, foolish Samurai!
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Forms this dynamic with Jack after her Heel–Face Turn. She is the one who ultimately helps Jack regain his resolve to end Aku and gives him love and support whenever he starts to lose hope.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Has been a skilled fighter since she was younger, but after her redemption, she became a lot more openly softer than before, with her combat skills now being used for the good of others.
• Bullying a Dragon: Even after Jack spares Ashi's life after the former kills her sisters without any hesitation (and she saw him do it), Ashi resorts to insulting Jack and making attempts to kill him. Justified, as she was born and raised to kill Jack at all costs.
• Calling the Old Woman Out: Ashi confronts and chews out her mother for subjecting her and her sisters to nearly two decades of absolute shithouse misery, and sending them on what was more or less a suicide mission.
  High Priestess: How could you betray your family?! He killed your sisters, and you let him live!
  Ashi: No, you killed them! We were made for one purpose: to kill! Our fate was sealed the day we were born!
• Cessation of Existence: After Jack and her erase Aku's Bad Future, she ceases to exist herself, as Ashi. Her love for nature and life however, remains, comforting a mourning Jack.
• Chain Pain: She's revealed to be the sister wielding the chain-sickle (kusarigama) in "XCIV".
• Character Development: After "XCV", she becomes much more willing to actually communicate with Jack after seeing him spare a ladybug. In "XCVI", she actively starts to question what she's been taught and begins to seek answers, even asking Jack to show her proof of what Aku's done with the world. By the end of "XCVII", she says she's a friend of Jack's and talks Jack out of his Heroic BSoD by reminding him of all the people he's helped that she personally met while searching for him and how he personally helped her Grow Beyond Their Programming. By "XCIX", the two have clearly bonded. Enough to start a romance.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • The punishments she suffered at the hands of her mother for getting distracted or doing something incorrectly led to her being able to power through extreme pain, allowing her get a Heroic Second Wind and fight back when getting electrocuted.
  • Her ability to grab arrows out of the air and throw them back at her opponent practically becomes her Signature Move in later episodes of the season. It's ultimately how she kills her mother during their final battle.
• Clingy Costume: Ashi's Daughters of Aku skin-tight suit is an ambiguously magical dark substance that has the ability to store and retrieve her kusarigama. It was the result of her training involving every Daughters of Aku member to submerge themselves into the fiery painful Pit of Hate. After she abandons her faith of the cult, she scrapes off the suit and adopts a nature inspired outfit.
• Combat Pragmatist: When not using her kusarigama and after abandoning it post Heel–Face Turn, Ashi uses everything as a weapon. Her surroundings, her enemies' own bodies, broken-off pieces of their weapons, arrows snatched from the air, etc.
• Cracks in the Icy Façade: In season 5 of Samurai Jack, Ashi was introduced as cold, cunning and blindly loyal to Aku as the last surviving daughter after Jack had to kill most of them in self-defense. But as she began to spend more and more time with Jack, she sees how caring he is for life on the planet, like seeing him care for a ladybug while her mother just squashed it. She also seemed to be intrigued by his stories when he talked about how the world actually came to be. And by the end of the season, she became willing to sacrifice her existence in time to help Jack finally kill Aku once and for all.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Her fight with the Dominator in episode XCVI. Once she gained her Heroic Second Wind, he was no match for her.
  • Her battle with the Orc Army in episode XCVIII. To merely call it a Curb-Stomp Battle would imply that they had a chance of winning.
• Cute Bruiser: A lot more so after her Post-Heel–Face Turn, but one should still not underestimate her, as she got her own combat skills to fight against enemies.
• The Cutie: She went from being just a very hateful minion to her rather careless father Aku to becoming a much more loving individual after interacting with Jack personally, to which she and Jack himself even got romantically together.
• Daddy's Little Villain: Is literally Aku's daughter, conceived from a bit of his essence her mother drank. And Aku definitely takes advantage of it.
• Damsel in Distress: A particularly epic example. Her body is being controlled by Aku, and she is trapped within herself.
• Dark Action Girl: She has been raised to be an assassin in order to serve the world's greatest evil. After her Heel–Face Turn, she becomes a standard Action Girl.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She (with her sisters) were raised since childhood to kill Samurai Jack. And "raised" included intense Training from Hell from their mother and cult members who wouldn't hesitate to beat them even though they were children.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Post Heel–Face Turn. In the finale, containing Aku's essence she is manipulated by him to fight Jack, but is able to overcome him as she is her own person able to make choices and uses the darkness powers she inherited from Aku to fight him.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: After she and Jack becomes an Official Couple, it's revealed that she actually really is Aku's biological daughter, conceived by his essence that her mother drank after he offered it for the cult to worship. Lampshaded by an amused Aku, when he uses the very same essence to make her fight Jack.
  Aku: "I mean you try to raise them right, then they run off with your mortal enemy."
• Defeat Means Friendship: Subverted. After Ashi is beaten, Ashi comes with Jack, not as a friend, neither a prisoner, but more of a reluctant tagalong. It takes a lot more than defeat to really win her respect, and Jack manages to get it in XCVI, when he shows her the world for what it really is.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: After her redemption, she not only swings from hating Jack to caring about him, but she also now looks up to him. She later even falls in love with him.
• Defusing The Tykebomb: After travelling with Jack and seeing firsthand what the world is like under Aku's rule, Ashi has a Heel Realization and starts to abandon the mission of killing Jack she was raised for. Her search only further cements things as she discovers all the good Jack has done for the world and all the people he's selflessly helped.
• Demonic Possession: In the climax of Season 5, Aku telepathically mind-controls Ashi into fighting Jack for him, before painfully morphing her into a true demon.
• Determinator: Ashi proves just how fanatically devoted she and her family are to serving Aku. Even after Jack finally defeats her and takes her along as a prisoner-of-war, she still keeps trying to fight him despite being chained down. After her Heel–Face Turn she shows the same determination in finding Jack and then fighting the Omen to prevent Jack from committing suicide.
• Deuteragonist: She serves this role in Season 5. Like Jack, she plays in important role in each episode; and after her Heel–Face Turn she becomes his companion and sidekick, following him so she can become a hero too.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Ends up fading from existence in Jacks arms (during their wedding no less) due to No Ontological Inertia.
• The Dog Bites Back: After Ashi realized how horrible and wrong her mother was for abusing her and her sisters, she harnesses her anger and hatred for a final confrontation that turns lethal for her mom.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: In the Golden Ending of Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, she survives being erased from existence, allowing her to marry Jack and live in peace with him in the past, free from her abusive upbringing and being controlled by Aku against her will.
• The Empath: After her Heel–Face Turn, she starts to help others who are on the good alignment, most notably Jack, in seeing the light.
• Empty Piles of Clothing: After she fades from existence due to No Ontological Inertia, she leaves behind her bridal kimono.
• Evil Counterpart: Inverted: after breaking free of Aku's control, she becomes his Good Counterpart: possessing all of his power, but, as indicated by her being able to touch Jack's sword without being harmed, having none of his evil.
• Evil Laugh: She tries this when she thinks that Jack's dead, but it sounds more like an adorable — if slightly evil — giggle.
• Evil Is Hammy: When Jack has her cornered and restrained, she spends most of her time screaming insults and threats at him at the top of her lungs.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Along with her Good Costume Switch, Ashi loses the Villainous Widow's Peak and lets her hair down.
• Eye Beams: One of the powers gained after breaking free of Aku's control is this, which she uses to negate Aku's own.
• Faustian Rebellion: Ashi's instances of Charles Atlas Superpower are justified because she's a Humanoid Abomination, and that the abomination part is because she's Aku's literal daughter. She eventually joins up with her father's nemesis. Unfortunately, Deconstructed because this allows Aku to take control of her. Reconstructed when the Power of Love allows her to regain control and turn Aku's powers against him...including time travel.
• Females Are More Innocent: When compared to her father Aku, Ashi herself is A LOT more sympathetic than him, especially after her Heel–Face Turn.
• Fire-Forged Friends: After killing her sisters, Jack spent the first few episodes taking her as his prisoner, before "accidentally" recruiting her.
• First Love: Ashi is the first woman Jack has come to truly fall in love with.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Exaggerated. She was able throw out her raw strength to not just one person, not even a small group but to what is considered to be a sizable battalion of a large army off their feet from upon layers of roadways on a mountain, then continues to deliver the same onslaught on the plains without even breaking a sweat.
• Foil: In part to the Scotman's wife. They both have romantic relationships with the two toughest warriors in this series; they both spend much of their initial speaking lines hurling insults at the heroes; they can both be very sweet, yet quick-tempered, and getting on either one's bad side is likely the last thing you'll ever do; and they're both shown to be one-woman armies, able to Curb Stomp entire actual armies and come out completely unscathed. However, Ashi is a slim and attractive brunette of (presumably) Asian descent whereas the Scotsman's wife is "stout", red-headed, not nearly as good-looking (besides to her husband), and is most definitely Scottish.
  • Most obviously, Ashi starts out as Jack's enemy, trying to kill him in a blind rage out of her programmed loyalty to Aku, and ends up befriending him; the Scotsman's wife, on the other hand, initially warms up to him, only to be last seen chasing him down in a blind rage after he innocently presses her Berserk Button.
• Four Is Death: After she's gone through three different looks, another change of appearance is forced upon her by Aku and leaves her stuck in the form of a demon that Aku has full control over and uses against Jack as an instrument of murder.
• Freudian Excuse: To say that her mother, the High Priestess, was a bad parent would be an understatement. The way that Ashi was raised turned her into an unstable killing machine. Fortunately, she becomes much better with Jack's guidance.
• Full-Frontal Assault: It's eventually revealed that the Spy Catsuit is actually soot charred onto her skin, and her initial getup was actually being nude beside the mask.
  • When her Garden Garment is eaten by a monster, she has no problem fighting in the nude, much to Jack's embarrassment.
  • And again later, when Aku takes over, her clothes are removed or subsumed by the darkness covering her body. In this instance, it doesn't really mean much.

G-L

• Game Changer: For the battle between Jack and Aku.
• Garden Garment: After removing the darkness covering her, she makes a lovely new outfit out of leaves and flowers. It's eaten by a monster two episodes later.
• Good Costume Switch: She eventually gets rid of her black getup (which was a burning magical substance burned onto her skin by her mother as tribute to Aku) and replaces it with an improvised outfit made from plants and flowers◊.
• Good Is Not Soft: Unlike Jack who at this point only kills when he has no other option, Ashi has no such restrictions, even post-redemption. In fact, she may have one of the highest body counts in the series (possibly exceeding even the Scotsman's wife); which includes several fellow cultists (back when she was still training), the Dominator, hundreds (if not thousands) of orc soldiers, and her mother.
• Grow Beyond Their Programming: She was raised from birth to believe Jack is evil, Aku is good, and that she must kill Jack above all else, even her own safety, and that death without killing him is failure. Spending time with Jack, seeing the truth of Aku's control of the planet first-hand, and meeting several people Jack's personally helped while searching for him allows her to grow past that training and see that Jack is a noble, selfless hero and Aku's a tyrant who brings only ruin and destruction and that he must be helped. She also grows beyond the cold, emotionless machine/Large Ham ranting enemy of Jack's into a kind, soft-spoken person and friend of Jack's who wants to save the world by stopping Aku's evil.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Kept the same hairstyle she had as a child. Until her Heel–Face Turn.
• Happily Married: In the Golden Ending of Battle Through Time, as a result of not ceasing to exist, she gets to marry Jack and live peacefully with him in the past.
• Heel–Face Turn: Recalling a memory of her mother killing a ladybug demonstrating Aku's order allows no such thing as compassion for life. She rediscovers her inner goodness when she notices Jack treating a ladybug with compassion, and makes the choice to let go of her hate.
• Heel Realization: Watching Jack let a ladybug go by his hand harmlessly convinces Ashi that the samurai isn't a threat to all life, Aku is. Finally driven home after Jack shows her the world and the evil that Aku has unleashed upon it, which is further cemented as she sees people that Jack has personally helped.
• Heroic Bastard: It's safe to assume since her mother considers emotional bond and attachment to be weak, and no father in the picture, Ashi is this out of her six sisters. Indeed, her biological father Aku never married her mother (it's not like he could anyways), and she resents both of her parents. Unlike typical examples of this trope, this wasn't due to Aku fooling around or anything of the matter.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Takes Jack back to the past with Aku's powers so he can kill past Aku. This erases her from existence, as without Aku surviving to give his essence to the cult to create her, she literally cannot exist.
• Hero-Worshipper: Once she finally starts seeing Samurai Jack as an actual force of good in the desolated future, as well as being a witness firsthand to the hardships he has endured in his fight against Aku as well as the impact he's had in other people, Ashi starts perceiving Jack as a larger-than-life savior, even going as far as to go looking for him when he disappears, sensing he's in trouble. Although unlike most examples, she seems to realize the kind of toll people with grand responsibilities receive with failure after failure, as well as the kind of support people need to thrive on.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: While still in her pre-Heel–Face Turn phase, and even though she was born and raised as a killer machine, she's not completely evil, since when she was much younger, she was fascinated with the natural surroundings outside of the Cult of Aku's tomb, only for it to be hindered by her mother the High Priestess. Years later, during the episode "XCV", when Ashi herself attempted to kill Jack, a ladybug wandered around the island they were both standing on, which reminded her of a past memory that she was fascinated by a previous ladybug, where it got ruthlessly killed by her mother. Once she saw him spare that other ladybug's life after it landed on Jack's (right) hand, she decided to completely change for the better by also sparing his life.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: An unorthodox example. When Jack thought that she was dead after their first fight (alongside her sisters), she then suddenly comes behind him to try to assasinate him once more with her kusarigama, only for him to use that weapon of hers against her, but not to eliminate her, but instead to constrain her with its chain, thus preventing her from killing him completely.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The "Tiny Girl" to Jack's "Huge Guy", which is further solidified when they became an official couple.
• Human-Demon Hybrid: Half human, half demon. In other words a hanyō in all but name.
• Humiliation Conga: Boy, Ashi really suffers a lot in Episode XCV. First, she suffers an embarrassing defeat from Jack where she ends up tied in her own chain struggling like an animal caught in a trap while having a Villainous Breakdown, is pitied and constantly rescued by her archenemy, is rendered almost completely helpless as she flails around screaming for revenge, and is carried all throughout Jack's journey like a baby on his back.
• Humanoid Abomination: Turns out she's half Aku, conceived via her mother drinking Aku's essence that he gave to the Cult. Exaggerated after Aku forces her to go One-Winged Angel against her will, turning her into what can best be described as a miniature, female Aku. Even after regaining control, she still keeps all of Aku's powers, including his Voluntary Shapeshifting.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: Begs Jack to kill her once Aku starts to completely take her over. Jack can't bring himself to do it.
• Iconic Outfit: Out of the ten episodes Ashi appears in, the green dress is only worn in three of them, and it has been embraced by the fandom as her natural look.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Ashi would make her introduction in Season 5, 13 years after Season 4 and 50 years in-universe. However, she ends up becoming the most important person Jack would meet in his journey.
• I Have No Son!: Inverted, as she instead pulls a You're Not My Father taunt towards Aku.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: After Aku exploits the piece of his essence that makes Ashi a Half-Human Hybrid to force her to fight Jack, Jack spends the entire fight trying to talk her out of it, even when she becomes a Humanoid Abomination. It ultimately doesn't take. However, once he declares his love for her, she finally regains control of herself.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Although Ashi is initially presented as being very formidable, after Jack defeats and captures her, she's reduced to being unintentional comic relief, as she keeps making stupid rants and more futile attempts at killing him.
• In Love with the Mark: She was raised from birth to kill Jack. Once the mission completely fails and Jack proves to be a better person than she thought, Ashi falls in love with him.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Seemed completely unaware of the fact she was basically naked the entire time, as the rest of the Cult seemed to be equally as dressed and her first real experience with anything different was Jack's rummaged together outfit. Even when she washes off the darkness, it takes it a minute to register that she's now nude, and her resulting outfit is pretty risqué in its own right, showing off a lot more skin. But she doesn't seem to notice. In general she has no problem fighting naked, and finds Jack's embarrassment weird when there's more pressing matters — like a monster — to deal with.
• Interspecies Romance: With Jack. He's a full human and Ashi is a Half-Human Hybrid conceived by Aku.
• I Owe You My Life: While trying to find Jack after the events of XCVI, one of the first things she says to some of his old acquaintances to convince them of her lack of evil intent towards the Samurai is that he "saved her". She eventually repays the debt.
• Ironic Name: The name Ashi means a number of things. These include smile, peaceful, reward, happy and love affection. Odd how her mother chose a name that means a number of things that go against what she and her master stand for. It becomes a Meaningful Name after her Heel–Face Turn.
• I Will Find You: Episode XCVII is all about her Walking the Earth to find Jack again, meeting people he helped along the way.
• Jerkass: Even when not trying to kill Jack, she continually hurls insults, death threats, and other verbal abuse at him. She becomes much, much nicer after defecting to Jack's side.
• Last of Her Kind: Jack kills all but one of the Daughters of Aku, leaving Ashi as their Sole Survivor.
• The Lancer: After joining Jack, she has become his de facto best friend and sidekick.
• The Leader: She seems to be in charge of her sisters as a team, possibly meaning she's better skilled and has more potential than the others.
• Lightning Bruiser: She, along with her sisters, were able to swoop and Speed Blitz around Jack with such frightening speed that Jack couldn't even see or where to even strike her. She can also tank a lot of hits from the seasoned samurai, survived a fall from a massive height, go through painful electrocutions, and was repeatedly thrown into tombstones. She's also powerful enough to fight Jack, an army of warriors, and her own mother, who ceaselessly trained her from birth.
• Literal Metaphor: Her nature-themed outfit can be correlated to the phrase "turn over a new leaf" (reflecting Ashi's own redemption).
• Lovecraftian Superpower: After Aku awakens her demon powers, she gains the same ones as him, including her physical body being basically a giant mass of darkness. After regaining control via the Power of Love, she keeps them despite regaining human form.
• The Lost Lenore: She becomes this to Jack after she disappears in front of him.
• Love Redeems: Combined with her Heel–Face Turn, Ashi also falls in love with Jack in "Episode XCIX".
• Love Interest: In "Episode XCIX", she becomes one to Jack.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: The title "Daughter of Aku"? That's Not Hyperbole, as Ashi finds out in "Episode C".

M-S

• Made of Evil: Despite making a Heel–Face Turn and becoming a good person, she's half Aku, and born from her mother drinking Aku's essence he left the Cult. As Aku is Made of Evil, this means Ashi was conceived from a human mother and...well, pure liquid evil. Seemingly subverted after she regains control with the Power of Love, as she's able to grab Jack's sword by the blade without being hurt.
• Made of Iron: She can take a lot of punishment courtesy of her Training from Hell. Be it being electrocuted to being smashed through stone structures, at worst she's just stunned momentarily before she gets back up for more. However, part of it is because she's definitely not a normal human.
• Matricide: A rare heroic example. Ashi ultimately kills her mother to protect Jack.
• Messianic Archetype: Evolves into this in the Grand Finale. Ashi stood with Jack against the Satanic Archetype Aku, and sacrifices her own existence by sending Jack to the past in order to save everyone. The whole world's salvation would not have been possible without her, and Jack will definitely make the most of her sacrifice.
• Mayfly–December Romance: She's in love with Jack, who is The Ageless.
• Meaningful Name: Invoked. "Ashi" can mean "evil" and given how her mother deeply admires Aku, the naming choice was most likely intentional.
• The Millstone: When Jack is carrying her out of the belly of a giant monster, she continuously tries to kill him despite knowing that if he dies, she will certainly follow. Justified since she has been trained since birth to kill Jack at all costs.
• Mirror Character:
  • She and Samurai Jack aren't that dissimilar. Both were trained from a young age to be deadly warriors for a purpose, are terrifyingly effective in most fights, and underneath are basically nice people once you get to know them. And even on the subject of a fight, they both sport similar expressions of intensity, and while it was brief, Ashi did resort to yelling during a fight (much as Jack himself frequently does).
  • She can also be seen as this to Princess Mira from the season 4 episode "XLIV", as both are significantly sympathetic huntresses whose tragic backgrounds are in relation to Aku, and were initially meant to target Jack before, but in the end, both decided to give up in doing so.
    • Ironically, Ashi herself was potentially going to be a princess consort through her marriage with Jack, who is a prince himself, after the demise of her father Aku (and she officially became one in the alternate ending of Battle Through Time).
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Her mother basically torturing her on a daily basis had a part on Ashi's Heel–Face Turn and eventual killing of said mother.
• Mook Lieutenant: Ashi is the only Daughter of Aku with a given name amongst the cult^note In the actual show, at least; at least two others are named in the credits. and appears to be trusted as the de facto leader of the squad.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Initially a villainous example (especially since she and her sisters were meant to kill Jack under their mother's orders, but ultimately failed in doing so), but later becomes a more heroic one in her later appearances, where she has since been targeting malevolent masculine beings, mainly for the sake of good (which includes her father Aku).
• Motor Mouth: Throughout "Episode XCV", she continually rants about how great Aku is and how awful Jack is.
  Ashi: "By Aku's will, you will die in here! There is no hope for you, foolish Samurai! Aku is the Master of Masters and will end you! No matter what you have planned for me, I will never buckle! Never waiver! Your death is certain! Aku desires it! Aku has made a world of wonders and you have soiled it! Aku is the father of all fathers! His greatness cannot be measured! You're a parasite, Samurai, feeding off Aku's generosity! Aku! My master! This fool knows not of your greatness, your kindness, your understanding!"
• Ms. Fanservice: Interestingly played with; she is introduced wearing a Clingy Costume made up of ash and charcoal bonded to her body under somewhat unpleasant circumstances. After her Heel–Face Turn she scrubs off the body painting and switches for a lovely plant-styled Mini Dress Of Power and plays this trope straight. Generally, Ashi is a very attractive girl and can be seen naked several times (albeit censored).
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Despite her petite appearance, she is incredibly strong, being able to literally punch out hundreds of armored soldiers. Being half-Aku might have something to do with this.
• The Napoleon: Even after her Heel–Face Turn, one should know that they must not attempt to mess with her nonchalantly.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Although it's a Justified Trope in this case. Once Aku discovers that she's his daughter, he embeds her with his powers. She doesn't realize the full extent of these powers until she's freed from his control, at which point she's able to send Jack into the past.
• Nice Girl: After her redemption, she's very sweet and kind to Jack and any good person the duo meet.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If she didn't go after Jack when he left her to pursue Aku alone, the latter wouldn't have discovered that she was his daughter, allowing him to take control of her and force Jack to give up his sword.
  • Of course, then she wouldn't end up getting Aku's powers, and Jack wouldn't have had any way to get back home after defeating Aku in the future.
• No Body Left Behind: Because of No Ontological Inertia, Ashi's body fades from existence in Jack's arms when they are about to get married, leaving only her wedding dress behind.
• Nominal Importance: When the Daughters are introduced in the Season 5 premiere, Ashi is the only one to be referred to by her name, and she gets the most focus as an individual character. After the deaths of her sisters, Jack spares Ashi, which allows her to develop further and become his closest ally...
• Non Human Lover Reveal: Just when her relationship with Jack is starting to blossom, Ashi is revealed to be Aku's Half-Human Hybrid daughter.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Ashi doesn't screw around in battle, going for the kill every time. The instant she realizes she shares Aku's powers, she uses them to retrieve the sword and then send Jack and herself back in time.
• No Ontological Inertia: Due to killing Aku, she ends up fading from existence right before she marries Jack because without Aku, Ashi could have never been born.
• Not Afraid to Die: She cackles when she realises she's within the belly of a beast, happy that Jack will die as well... As far as she knows.
  Ashi: (giggles) My lord and master Aku, may it please you for all eternity: the Samurai is dead.
• Not So Stoic: She remains cold and emotionless until truly beaten, and then resorts to the typical bad-guy threats and insults.
• Official Couple: Becomes one with Jack near the end of Season 5.
• One-Woman Army: She might not be strong enough to defeat Jack in a one-on-one fight, but her Training from Hell did pay off when she easily slaughters the orc army in "XCVIII" all by herself, with no injury whatsoever.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: One on one against Jack? She's able to put up some fight, but he's clearly got her outclassed. Against anyone who's not Jack? She's still someone trained from birth to kill things and is very good at it.
• People Puppets: Aku can move Ashi's body as he pleases due to the bit of his essence inside her.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Her understanding of intimacy seems to vary. She gets embarrassed when her hand touches Jack's, but doesn't understand why he finds it awkward to see her naked. She doesn't understand when she sees a stag and a doe rubbing noses instead of fighting, but needs no explanation to realize her feelings for Jack and kiss him.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: She's 5'3, so she's much smaller when compared to Jack, but still just as dangerous.
• Positive Friend Influence: She's actually making Jack much more openly emotional than he was before throughout the show. This is best proven during the climax of the final episode "CI", where his genuine declaration of love to her saved her from being completely consumed into darkness by her father Aku.
• Pragmatic Hero: After her Heel–Face Turn, she becomes kind to her friends and innocents... but if you cross her, she will kill you without a second thought. Just ask what's left of her mother.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Like all the Daughters of Aku, she lacks a lot of knowledge of the outside world. But it really shows in her Villainous Breakdown when she's ranting and screaming at Jack to die, much like a child upset at another child for beating her. When Jack finally has her bound by her own chain, she starts ranting again and kicking her feet like an actual child having a tantrum. It is equal parts sad as it is hilarious. This is all sadly justified; her mother never bothered to allow her to develop any real maturity.
  Ashi: Die! Die! Why Won't You Die?! Scum, Aku will be triumphant! I will undo the evil that is you, Samurai! I will kill you! As long as I have breath in my body, I will strike you down! Long live the glory of Aku!
• Punny Name: Her supposed spandex body suit was in actuality ash and soot stuck to her body from a ritual for Aku, thus making her literally "ashy".
• Rags to Royalty: Subverted. She starts off as the daughter of an insane cultist, but she ends up falling in love with Jack and finding out that her father is Aku. The latter results in her being used as Aku's puppet, and she and Jack never have the chance to get married since killing Aku in the past results in her getting wiped from the timeline during the wedding. Double Subverted in the Golden Ending of Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time when her existence was cemented during the events of the game to go through with her wedding to Jack.
• Redemption Equals Death: More like Redemption Equals Ret Gone, but still applies. She started out as a zealous follower of Aku, but pulls a Heel–Face Turn and kills her own mother. Then she becomes Jack's companion and gets taken over by her father Aku, only to overcome his essence, and in her final act of redemption, uses her new power to send Jack back allowing him to kill Aku in the past, knowing it would be at the cost of her own existence.
• Reused Character Design: She initially looks (and sounds) like a black-haired Princess Ilana from Sym-Bionic Titan. She still has the voice though.
• Rousseau Was Right: As a child, she had a curiosity for life outside of the cult but was never allowed to learn compassion for other life and was consumed by her terrible upbringing. When she sees Jack treating a ladybug with respect she rediscovers her inner goodness and chooses to end the violence.
• The Sacred Darkness: As Jack's declaration of love to Ashi helped her to overcome Aku's control and evil, the darkness powers she inherited from him turned in alignment within her. This allowed her to grasp the blade of Jack's sword directly, without any harm on Ashi, while her powers were manifested.
• Self-Made Orphan: She kills her mother to save Jack and helps Jack kill her father. Unfortunately, her existence is tied to Aku's, so she doesn't last long to live out this trope.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: A variant. While her Garden Garment makes Ashi somewhat more of a Ms. Fanservice than before, Ashi feels no shame over nudity until a Heel–Face Turn makes her realize it. When her clothes are eaten by a monster, she has no problem carrying on the battle in the buff.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Not that she had been unattractive before, but Ashi is clearly shown to be prettier (and a lot more Fanservicey) when she scrubs the magical darkness off of her skin, lets her hair down and fashions a floral dress for herself. Jack even compliments her after she saves his life.
• Ship Tease: She and Jack appear to be getting this quite a lot, especially after her Heel–Face Turn. Shades of this occur in XCVI, when Jack compliments on her new look. Their burgeoning attraction is the source of a lot of humour throughout Episode XCIX, at the end of which they share a kiss.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She falls in love with Jack, the man who saved her life and showed her the error of her ways. She also came to greatly admire him as a true hero when she saw all the good he has done for the world.
• Sinister Scythe: Before her Heel–Face Turn, Ashi's weapon was a kusarigama (a kama with a long chain attached).
• Skinny Dipping: Ashi swims naked in the river to cleanse her body from the magic darkness bonded to her skin.
• Sole Survivor: It would seem all her sisters perished in the second battle with Jack, leaving her the last one. After Jack destroys Aku, she herself passes.
• Sore Loser: Her reaction is downright pathetic even when compared to other villains of the series, the tone and attitude more like a childish tantrum than a dying threat.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the Golden Ending of Battle Through Time, Ashi doesn't get erased and lives her life with Jack in peace.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Just as they start to fall in love, Ashi is revealed to be Aku's daughter and she's forced to fight Jack against her will. Taken even further, once Ashi gains control of her new powers, takes Jack back to the past, he finally defeats Aku, and they are about to get married, when Ashi fades from existence.
• Stealth Pun: Her Good Costume Switch involves her creating a new outfit from leaves and grass. In other words, she turns over a new leaf.
• Superpowered Evil Side: When Aku controlling her body fails to subdue Jack, he proceeds to activate his essence within her, causing her to transform into a monster similar to himself. She tries to fight from the inside, but can only plead with Jack to kill her before she kills him.
• Superpower Lottery: Thanks to Aku giving his essence, and squickly, her mother drinking it, she possesses many of his powers, such as turning her limbs into blades, Extendable Arms, Eye Beams, and time-traveling.
• Super-Strength: Thanks to her training and distinctive combat skills, she has proportional strength as first demonstrated when she rips apart Jack's futuristic samurai armor and snatches away his machine gun right out of his hands. In episode XCVI, she's pummeled The Dominator with no effort and tosses him into the control panel so hard, his armor exploded. And just like Jack, she's proven herself to be a One-Man Army as she slaughters a colossal group of orc warriors by physically dominating them, grabbing their spears, breaking all of them in two, and chucks the pointed ends right into their skulls. One moment shows her literally disarming one of the orcs by tearing off one of his arms despite wearing armor. When her mother attempted to attack a vulnerable and meditating Jack off-screen, she holds up a large slab of concrete that's slightly larger than her body to shield him from a raining fleet of arrows and it shatters when she throws it onto the ground.

T-Z

• Talking Down the Suicidal: Ashi finds Jack about to commit seppuku, but the Omen refuses to let her interfere. So instead, she tells Jack of all the good he's done to talk him out of it, including his indirect contribution to the salvation of the tortured children in "XCVI" (mainly thanks to his guidance for her about Aku's true nature).
• Tomato in the Mirror: Finds out that the Daughters of Aku title wasn't just for show, but rather that Aku is literally her father by way of essence he left over for his Cult that her mother drank to get pregnant with her and her sisters. Being that she discovered this after her realization of good and evil and rejection of the Cult of Aku, she's understandably horrified to learn this.
• Tomboyish Voice: Her original voice is very cold and raspy, and even after she undergoes a Heel–Face Turn she still retains a bit of dryness in her voice, though it is much more sweet.
• Took a Level in Badass: Out of all of her sisters, Ashi may have been the worst student when they were children. (The High Priestess describes her as "the strongest, but most unfocused", though it is unclear whether she means that Ashi was Unskilled, but Strong or whether she was just striving for a life beyond the Cult, which to the Priestess was itself a weakness.) At any rate, as adults, she is the fastest and strongest of them all.
• Took a Level in Idealism: Upon seeing the goodness within Jack and that there can be other paths beyond simply what was imposed upon her, as well as the need to believe in something beyond what she's told. It's only cemented further when she starts getting curious about the world around her and desires to explore more of it (as well as fight for it).
• Took a Level in Kindness: After her Heel–Face Turn, she starts becoming nicer and more compassionate.
• Tragic Hero: Especially after her Heel–Face Turn, where she initially had doubts about her past as one of the Daughters of Aku.
• Tragic Villain: At least before her Heel–Face Turn, although she veers more into the Anti-Villain category (much like her sisters).
• Transformation Horror: Aku exploits Ashi's inhuman genes by forcefully and painfully turning her into a demonic being much like himself.
• Tsundere: She swings wildly across the spectrum after meeting Jack. She starts off tsuntsun (Type A), harshly critizing Jack and questioning him. She then goes tsundere when she hesitates to even call Jack a friend despite obviously caring about him. Then she settles in at deredere (Type B), openly admiring, protecting, and encouraging Jack. Justified as she lacks all social skill and has massive anger issues due to her upbringing and that she has a lifetime of samurai loathing to get out of her system.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Granted, it's true that Jack was forced to kill in self-defense, and the Daughters were raised as Laser Guided Tyke Bombs who were discouraged into helping one another out. Ashi bears no resentment towards Jack for killing her sisters. She puts the blame far more on her mother for raising her children for a suicide mission.
• Tyke Bomb: Like all the Daughters of Aku, she was raised from birth to worship Aku and kill Jack.
• Undying Loyalty: After reforming, she's devoted to Jack. She was willing to end her own existence to help him.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Throughout "Episode XCV". To the point of attacking Jack after being freed! Justified considering, in her perspective, she's being saved by someone she was brainwashed to believe was evil and devote her whole life to hating and killing beyond reason, even at the cost of her own life. Her response after Jack rescues her from a crab creature says it all:
  Ashi: "I'd be happier as that creature's excrement, than be grateful to you!"
  • By episode XCVII, she's come around and is genuinely and openly grateful to Jack for saving her from the indoctrination of the cult, allowing her to choose her own path and give her hope for the future.
• Unstoppable Rage: When the guy working at the weapons factory gloats about how Jack is weak because he would Never Hurt an Innocent, and telling Ashi about what he's doing to turn the alien children into weapons, she gives the guy a hell of a Death Glare then proceeds to free herself from the clamps holding her. She then goes absolutely medieval on the guy after freeing herself.
• Vague Age: Her exact age is not stated, but it was heavily implied in "Episode XCVI", when Ashi was able to hear the red note that caused the blue furry alien children to go berserk, while the older Jack was unable to hear the high frequency sound due to his age, which pinpoints she is in her late teens or early twenties.
• Variable-Length Chain: The apparent length of her kusarigama can vary considerably depending on what capacity it's being used in.
• Vocal Evolution: As the episodes progress, her voice goes from cold, tough and rigid, to being sweet and soft spoken. Even when she's aggressive, her tone is more controlled. It came to a point where in episode "XCVII", her shouting feels so unusual.
• Villainous Breakdown: After Jack defeats her, Ashi is reduced to a ranting, screaming mess, which mostly consists of her screaming for Jack to die.
  Ashi: "You worthless scum! I will kill you! You can never escape from Aku! You will die! You will die a horrible death! And then Aku will sing, for he is free from the parasite that you are! Die, Samurai, die! Die, you scum, die! Die! Die, Samurai! You will DIIIIE!"
• Villainous Widow's Peak: Her hairstyle seems to evoke this. Her Good Costume Switch results in her losing this.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: While this happens in the episode before their Relationship Upgrade, Ashi literally tears apart an entire army to protect Jack, followed by her defeating her own mother.
• Walking Spoiler: Her being the sole survivor and her Heel–Face Turn are minor spoilers, but her being Aku's biological daughter was a major one.
• Waterfall Shower: She spends a whole night in a pond scrubbing away the soot coating her body. Unfortunately she's not wearing anything under that "suit". Then improvises an outfit from nearby foliage.
• Waif-Fu: Don't let her short, slim stature fool anyone. She was able to fight Samurai Jack with her team for days before being left as the only survivor of her pack, was able shrug off an army of thousands, and held off her equally skilled mother and killed her personally. Which, along with the fact that she possibly broke the Scotman's wife's record for highest body count by a female fighter in this cartoon, is saying a lot.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: She wishes for the approval and attention of her god and father, Aku. She's also means to make her demanding mother proud. This eventually becomes inverted, as she finds out the truth about her mother and Aku being evil and turns against them.
• White Sheep: While her sisters seem to have little personality or emotion (because of their negative influence from their mother the High Priestess), Ashi stands out, being curious, inquisitive, and possibly even suspicious, running off on her own and questioning her surroundings.
• You're Not My Father: Firmly disowns her own father Aku after she fully had control over his bad influence on her.