(no subject)
Let's see... Midou Ban.
First off, I'm actually pretty fuzzy on the exact details of... anything about Ban. I never finished the anime and the manga is only translated to volume nine. I know many details of parts of the manga further than that, but the info is all second hand at best. Thus, anyone who has solid information that correct anything I've been assumng, I'd be glad to hear it.
Ban's Past:
Ban was born in Germany. I believe he is half German, I play him assuming that his mother was german and his father Japanese. His mother kicked him out when it was discovered that he had the "Jagan", calling him a devil child, and Ban went to live with his grandmother (on his mother's side, I imagine) who also had the Jagan.
The Jagan, along with Ban's super strength and speed, comes from the Ophiuchus. The Ophiuchus is the thirteenth constallation of the western Zodiac: The Snake. It falls at the end of December.
His grandmother taught him how to use the Snake's power, we know that from a very young age he had a 200kg per square centimeter grip in his right hand.
Ban left his grandmother at some point. I'm really fuzzy about what happened between then and when he went to live with Yamato and Himiko. I know he lived with an old witch and probably several other people. I tend to assume he spent a lot of time wandering around.
Somewhere along the line Ban learned to play a violin, he also learned quite a bit about art history and rumor, I imagine his knowledge spans many other subjects as well.
Ban eventually moved in with Yamato and his younger sister Himiko. I believe he was about sixteen and the time and that relationship lasted for about six happy months. It ended when Yamato asked Ban to kill him. The details of WHY Yamato asked Ban to kill him are very muddled, but it involved protecting Himiko's life. Ban did it, strangled his friend to death with the Snake Bite and Himiko discovered it. Ban never told her why (I believe Yamato swore her to secrecy until she turned eighteen) and so Himiko spent a while bent on revenge.
Ban met Ginji in the Mugenjo (Infinity Fortress) some indeterminate time later. They tend to assume that Midou Ban and the Reitai (Thunder Emperor) had some great battle and then left together, I personally assume that if they fought at all it wasn't all out. Somehow they left and they became best friends, Ginji almost completely repressing the personality of the Reitai to relive his childhood for the first time.
Now for me... I made a lot of assumptions with Ban's character. Here they are and the reasons why:
Ban is stupidly powerful. Seriously, he's a Marty Stu in that sense. Early in the manga Ban gets beaten up all the time but ultimately triumphs, however, he almost never wins by actually striking anyone. But later when he is forced to fight with people who move faster than the eye can see, or have steel limbs he still manages to pretty much brush them aside when he decides to. But in between these street punks that beat Ban bloody and these almight super powers that he takes out without blinking, Ban never does any training. On top of that, Ban lacks any fighting technique. He doesn't use martial arts or even common street fighting. Ban's attacking style consists entirely of moving really quickly and hitting people with his right hand. Basically, Ban apparently lacks any form of training to increase his strength, nor is anything else apparently making him stronger.
Ban isn't exactly a pacifist, but he constantly whines about having to fight people and will usually completely avoid fighting anyone too far 'below his level' unless he has to. Usually he will use the Jagan as much as possible to avoid a fight entirely. In the event that he does have to fight someone he never uses more strength than is necessary, and never in a place where people can see him use it.
For example: There is a time when Ban is fighting Fudo. He can't use his Jagan because of some thing too stupid to explain. Ban is getting beat bloody but Fudo but still having enough of a good time to be an asshole and not look worried. Then his Ginji Senses (YES THEY ARE CANON) tingle and he realizes Ginji is reverting to Reitai. Ban FREAKS THE FUCK OUT and does this chant that 'summons' Ophiuchus.
There is a part in Ban's memory when his old grandmother grabs him and basically starts to strangle him with her Snake Bite. She tells him then something to the effect of "Don't be afraid to call on the Snake. With it's power even if I could not move a muscle I could still not be stopped."
Basically, there is no apparent concequence for summoning the Snake. Ban does it easily, it doesn't apparently tire him out at all. The Snake appears, Ban attacks, Fudo is pretty much ripped to shreds in the blink of an eye and Ban doesn't give two shits.
As far as I know Ban has never lost a physical fight. Thus it's impossible to gage his true 'power' since if he really wants to he can call the Snake at any time and apparently waste anyone.
Which bares the question of why he doesn't do that:
I personally think Ban has some deep rooted issues regarding who he is. He openly detests the Snake, in the few moments we ever see him refer to it directly. Even more then the fact that the Snake made him the 'demon' that his mother abandoned, I think Ban seriously doubts where he ends and the Snake begins.
Ban uses the Snake's abilities all the time. A man can't possibly have a 200kg grip, nor can he show people 'dreams' with his eyes. So Ban doesn't need to actively summon the Snake to use it's power. He's also stupidly fast, since Ban has a moment where he repeatibly punched someone who was about fifteen feet away and fifteen feet higher than him, only you couldn't SEE him punching because he got over there, hit the guy and returned to exactly the same position so fast the human eye couldn't track his movements. It looked like he wasn't moving at all.
But it's not just physical stuff. Ban can play a violin, is apparently a genius, can hack government computers and knows so much random stuff about art for a guy not into that kind of stuff that I wouldn't be surprised if he had something on the level of a photographic memory. I don't doubt that it has crossed Ban's mind many, many times that if the Snake can make him so physically powerful, maybe it made him so amazingly smart as well. So really... the Snake gives him everything, but none of it is really his... perhaps.
Ban treats the abilities differently: in fighting he is a braggart, even while putting in some effort to NOT whomp people as badly as he could half of the time. Where as in smart-ish things he often shrugs it off and appears uncomfortable. I think this is perhaps because Ban is resigned to the fact that the fighting is really the snake, and bragging is as much self mockery as anything, but part of him still wants to believe that the talent for learning anything he puts his mind to is his own.
Anyway, Ban IS a very smart guy. He's also a very nice and generous guy but only if you catch him when no one is looking. He very intentionally acts the asshole and it's rather obviously geared to push people away. Ginji is the only person he really admits to being friends with, and honestly Ginji wasn't intended to be that way, Ginji just... figured him out. And really, once Ban is cornered with the fact that he's actually a good guy... well... he's still deny it ^^; But uh... you'll know he knows that you know.
I tend to think that Ban was a wangsty little teenager, since we all go through identy crises at about age 14 and Ban had a pretty fucking valid reason for one. The fact that I think Yamato picked up Ban and showed him how to get the fuck over it and live the way he wanted to is purely fanon. However, I justify this theory with two things: Ban DOES live the way he wants to. I think it's interesting, but because he's such a clever guy he consciously makes all these choices. He chooses to hit on girls in a way that drives them away. He chooses to keep a careful balance between friend and foe with everyone so they don't get too close or too far. He chooses not to explain himself and let people think the worse of him, yet at the same time he chooses to take hits he could probably dodge, and he chooses to show people bad dreams when he could easily twist their head off, or at least beat them unconscious. He chooses to not summon the Snake unless he's really fucking pissed off about something. He chooses to brag about his greatness in such a way that no one would ever take him seriously. And he chooses a profession that leaves him penniless more often than not, even when he's clearly smart enough to land a decent paying job pretty much anywhere.
I like to think this is what he showed Ginji that made him leave Mugenjo. There are a million other perfectly good theories, but the commonly assumed one, that they beat each other to near death, never really sat well with me. Neither Ban nor Ginji are the type to seriously decide anything with a brawl. I imagine they fought, but I don't think that was what made Ginji leave, or what made them friends. I think... Ban saw something of himself in Ginji, and Ginji saw that Ban was the same but that Ban had found happiness (from his time with Yamato and Himiko) and Ginji followed him because of that.
Personality wise Ban is a bigger asshole when around Ginji. I reverted him back to the way I believe he was when with Himiko and Yamato when he came to camp. Basically, Ban doesn't mind being disliked but he's not seeking to be actively hated by everyone. When Ginji is around Ginji acts as the counter-balance to Ban's meanness. Ban can turn down moral jobs because he knows Ginji is going to talk him into it and they have this ideal Bad Cop/Good Cop relationship going on all the time. When he first arrived at camp he didn't have that, so after a little while he adjusted to be just nice enough to make a few companions, and just enough of an asshole to keep those companions from getting too attached.
That's nearly it. Finaly note though:
Due to the way my knowledge of the manga canon is like, spread out all over the place, Ban is taken from an indeterminate point in the canon. He doesn't referance his past very much, especially not in detail, so I'm not too worried about it.
First off, I'm actually pretty fuzzy on the exact details of... anything about Ban. I never finished the anime and the manga is only translated to volume nine. I know many details of parts of the manga further than that, but the info is all second hand at best. Thus, anyone who has solid information that correct anything I've been assumng, I'd be glad to hear it.
Ban's Past:
Ban was born in Germany. I believe he is half German, I play him assuming that his mother was german and his father Japanese. His mother kicked him out when it was discovered that he had the "Jagan", calling him a devil child, and Ban went to live with his grandmother (on his mother's side, I imagine) who also had the Jagan.
The Jagan, along with Ban's super strength and speed, comes from the Ophiuchus. The Ophiuchus is the thirteenth constallation of the western Zodiac: The Snake. It falls at the end of December.
His grandmother taught him how to use the Snake's power, we know that from a very young age he had a 200kg per square centimeter grip in his right hand.
Ban left his grandmother at some point. I'm really fuzzy about what happened between then and when he went to live with Yamato and Himiko. I know he lived with an old witch and probably several other people. I tend to assume he spent a lot of time wandering around.
Somewhere along the line Ban learned to play a violin, he also learned quite a bit about art history and rumor, I imagine his knowledge spans many other subjects as well.
Ban eventually moved in with Yamato and his younger sister Himiko. I believe he was about sixteen and the time and that relationship lasted for about six happy months. It ended when Yamato asked Ban to kill him. The details of WHY Yamato asked Ban to kill him are very muddled, but it involved protecting Himiko's life. Ban did it, strangled his friend to death with the Snake Bite and Himiko discovered it. Ban never told her why (I believe Yamato swore her to secrecy until she turned eighteen) and so Himiko spent a while bent on revenge.
Ban met Ginji in the Mugenjo (Infinity Fortress) some indeterminate time later. They tend to assume that Midou Ban and the Reitai (Thunder Emperor) had some great battle and then left together, I personally assume that if they fought at all it wasn't all out. Somehow they left and they became best friends, Ginji almost completely repressing the personality of the Reitai to relive his childhood for the first time.
Now for me... I made a lot of assumptions with Ban's character. Here they are and the reasons why:
Ban is stupidly powerful. Seriously, he's a Marty Stu in that sense. Early in the manga Ban gets beaten up all the time but ultimately triumphs, however, he almost never wins by actually striking anyone. But later when he is forced to fight with people who move faster than the eye can see, or have steel limbs he still manages to pretty much brush them aside when he decides to. But in between these street punks that beat Ban bloody and these almight super powers that he takes out without blinking, Ban never does any training. On top of that, Ban lacks any fighting technique. He doesn't use martial arts or even common street fighting. Ban's attacking style consists entirely of moving really quickly and hitting people with his right hand. Basically, Ban apparently lacks any form of training to increase his strength, nor is anything else apparently making him stronger.
Ban isn't exactly a pacifist, but he constantly whines about having to fight people and will usually completely avoid fighting anyone too far 'below his level' unless he has to. Usually he will use the Jagan as much as possible to avoid a fight entirely. In the event that he does have to fight someone he never uses more strength than is necessary, and never in a place where people can see him use it.
For example: There is a time when Ban is fighting Fudo. He can't use his Jagan because of some thing too stupid to explain. Ban is getting beat bloody but Fudo but still having enough of a good time to be an asshole and not look worried. Then his Ginji Senses (YES THEY ARE CANON) tingle and he realizes Ginji is reverting to Reitai. Ban FREAKS THE FUCK OUT and does this chant that 'summons' Ophiuchus.
There is a part in Ban's memory when his old grandmother grabs him and basically starts to strangle him with her Snake Bite. She tells him then something to the effect of "Don't be afraid to call on the Snake. With it's power even if I could not move a muscle I could still not be stopped."
Basically, there is no apparent concequence for summoning the Snake. Ban does it easily, it doesn't apparently tire him out at all. The Snake appears, Ban attacks, Fudo is pretty much ripped to shreds in the blink of an eye and Ban doesn't give two shits.
As far as I know Ban has never lost a physical fight. Thus it's impossible to gage his true 'power' since if he really wants to he can call the Snake at any time and apparently waste anyone.
Which bares the question of why he doesn't do that:
I personally think Ban has some deep rooted issues regarding who he is. He openly detests the Snake, in the few moments we ever see him refer to it directly. Even more then the fact that the Snake made him the 'demon' that his mother abandoned, I think Ban seriously doubts where he ends and the Snake begins.
Ban uses the Snake's abilities all the time. A man can't possibly have a 200kg grip, nor can he show people 'dreams' with his eyes. So Ban doesn't need to actively summon the Snake to use it's power. He's also stupidly fast, since Ban has a moment where he repeatibly punched someone who was about fifteen feet away and fifteen feet higher than him, only you couldn't SEE him punching because he got over there, hit the guy and returned to exactly the same position so fast the human eye couldn't track his movements. It looked like he wasn't moving at all.
But it's not just physical stuff. Ban can play a violin, is apparently a genius, can hack government computers and knows so much random stuff about art for a guy not into that kind of stuff that I wouldn't be surprised if he had something on the level of a photographic memory. I don't doubt that it has crossed Ban's mind many, many times that if the Snake can make him so physically powerful, maybe it made him so amazingly smart as well. So really... the Snake gives him everything, but none of it is really his... perhaps.
Ban treats the abilities differently: in fighting he is a braggart, even while putting in some effort to NOT whomp people as badly as he could half of the time. Where as in smart-ish things he often shrugs it off and appears uncomfortable. I think this is perhaps because Ban is resigned to the fact that the fighting is really the snake, and bragging is as much self mockery as anything, but part of him still wants to believe that the talent for learning anything he puts his mind to is his own.
Anyway, Ban IS a very smart guy. He's also a very nice and generous guy but only if you catch him when no one is looking. He very intentionally acts the asshole and it's rather obviously geared to push people away. Ginji is the only person he really admits to being friends with, and honestly Ginji wasn't intended to be that way, Ginji just... figured him out. And really, once Ban is cornered with the fact that he's actually a good guy... well... he's still deny it ^^; But uh... you'll know he knows that you know.
I tend to think that Ban was a wangsty little teenager, since we all go through identy crises at about age 14 and Ban had a pretty fucking valid reason for one. The fact that I think Yamato picked up Ban and showed him how to get the fuck over it and live the way he wanted to is purely fanon. However, I justify this theory with two things: Ban DOES live the way he wants to. I think it's interesting, but because he's such a clever guy he consciously makes all these choices. He chooses to hit on girls in a way that drives them away. He chooses to keep a careful balance between friend and foe with everyone so they don't get too close or too far. He chooses not to explain himself and let people think the worse of him, yet at the same time he chooses to take hits he could probably dodge, and he chooses to show people bad dreams when he could easily twist their head off, or at least beat them unconscious. He chooses to not summon the Snake unless he's really fucking pissed off about something. He chooses to brag about his greatness in such a way that no one would ever take him seriously. And he chooses a profession that leaves him penniless more often than not, even when he's clearly smart enough to land a decent paying job pretty much anywhere.
I like to think this is what he showed Ginji that made him leave Mugenjo. There are a million other perfectly good theories, but the commonly assumed one, that they beat each other to near death, never really sat well with me. Neither Ban nor Ginji are the type to seriously decide anything with a brawl. I imagine they fought, but I don't think that was what made Ginji leave, or what made them friends. I think... Ban saw something of himself in Ginji, and Ginji saw that Ban was the same but that Ban had found happiness (from his time with Yamato and Himiko) and Ginji followed him because of that.
Personality wise Ban is a bigger asshole when around Ginji. I reverted him back to the way I believe he was when with Himiko and Yamato when he came to camp. Basically, Ban doesn't mind being disliked but he's not seeking to be actively hated by everyone. When Ginji is around Ginji acts as the counter-balance to Ban's meanness. Ban can turn down moral jobs because he knows Ginji is going to talk him into it and they have this ideal Bad Cop/Good Cop relationship going on all the time. When he first arrived at camp he didn't have that, so after a little while he adjusted to be just nice enough to make a few companions, and just enough of an asshole to keep those companions from getting too attached.
That's nearly it. Finaly note though:
Due to the way my knowledge of the manga canon is like, spread out all over the place, Ban is taken from an indeterminate point in the canon. He doesn't referance his past very much, especially not in detail, so I'm not too worried about it.