[ooc] Profile meme
[Character Name] Cho Hakkai
[Canon] Saiyuki
[Age] About 23 or so
[Gender] Male
[Sexual Orientation] Straight until proven otherwise
[Eye Color] Green
[Hair Color] Brown
[Height] 181 cm
[Other] One fake eye, generally wears a monocle over it. Also has a scar on his stomach.
[Clothing] Do I have to? Black long-sleeved shirt, green short-sleeved shirt over it and a white... sash-looking thing over that, brown pants. Has three cuffs on his left ear that serve as power limiters.
[Background] Not much is known about Hakkai's early life; he was born as a human with the name Cho Gonou and raised in an orphanage. As a child, Gonou generally kept to himself sullenly; a few of the other children were afraid of him because of the way he never smiled. The next time we see Gonou is when he's 19-20 or so; he's much happier now, has a job as a schoolteacher, and lives together in a small village with his twin sister and lover Kanan (who was raised in a separate orphanage). They are happy together, until disaster strikes. Gonou comes home from work one afternoon to find that the people of the village have given Kanan to the passing youkai tribe of Hyakuganmaoh as a sacrifice for appeasement. In his rage, Hakkai... goes on a rampage and kills first all the people in the village, and then everyone in the youkai tribe and Hyakuganmaoh's castle. He then goes down to the dungeons to rescue Kanan; his beloved, however, has already been raped and impregnated by Hyakuganmaoh, and, unable to bear this, she kills herself and her unborn baby. Gonou is devastated. He is then approached by Chin Yisou, the last remaining demon of the tribe, who wants to see if the legend that says that a human who "bathes in the blood of a thousand youkai" is true-- he cuts his own wrist and lets his blood pour out onto Gonou. He then finds out the hard way that the legend is indeed true, as Gonou then becomes a youkai and kills Chin Yisou.
Having been wounded deeply in the process of all this, Gonou wanders away in the rain until he collapses in the forest. He is then found by Sha Gojyo, who just happens to be passing by; Gojyo takes him back to his house, calls a doctor, and lets Gonou stay with him until he's recovered. Meanwhile, one priest Genjyo Sanzo has received orders to capture and bring in one mass murderer Cho Gonou, so that he can be judged for his sins. Sanzo receives word that Gojyo has taken him in, and goes over to his house to confront him about it; when Gojyo denies knowing anyone named Cho Gonou (and technically he doesn't lie-- he did never ask for his name), Sanzo gets angry, and shoots at Gojyo, and the result is a fight that draws Gonou out of the house. After fighting with Goku (who tagged along to help Sanzo), Gonou runs off. He intends to go back to Hyakuganmaoh's castle to take care of Kanan's remains, but is interrupted by a youkai seeking revenge for his slaughtered kinsmen. He demands retribution for his brother, whose eyes Gonou ripped out; taking this a bit too literally, Gonou decides to rip out his own eyes in penance. He gets as far as ripping out his right eye before he's interrupted by the other three, who encourage him to live instead of giving up hope and dying. Taking this advice to heart, Gonou shoots the youkai with Sanzo's gun, deciding instead to live. After this, Sanzo allows him to do the one last thing he needed to do before taking him to the temple; Gonou then travels with the others back to Hyakuganmaoh's castle to find it has been burned to the ground and he cannot lay Kanan's remains to rest. Instead, the others can only watch in silence as Sanzo chants a sutra ("But when I read a sutra, it's not for the dead"). After this, Gonou goes willingly to the temple, where he is absolved of his past sins and changes his name to Cho Hakkai, and so begins a new life.
Hakkai then becomes Gojyo's permanent roommate, staying there and making food and cleaning up and generally making Gojyo feel uncomfortable (though also getting him out of some fights and sticky situations). He becomes Goku's teacher, and occasionally helps Sanzo out with missions; overall, the four of them form an odd sort of (though they'll never say it) friendship.
Nothing much changes until three years later, when the youkai woman Gyokumen Koushou tries to resurrect the demon lord Gyumaoh and ends up starting a calamity, as they call it, that causes desert to spread and all youkai (save for children and a few oddball adults) to go berserk. Then the four of them are sent on a mission by Kanzeon Bosatsu to travel to India and stop the calamity. The events of the series itself are pretty episodic, so I won't go into too much detail on those, but basically: lots of stuff happens. Considering they're on the road together for over a year by the point in canon he's taken from, the four of them inevitably grow pretty close over the course of their journey. There are several significant episodes for Hakkai throughout all this; the first is when the supposedly dead youkai Chin Yisou (who now is actually a shikigami he created from his own corpse) appears and starts messing with Hakkai's head. He attempts to force Hakkai to kill his friends with his own hands, in order to basically make him go batshit insane. He almost succeeds, too-- but with the help of the others he manages to defeat Chin Yisou. The second significant event-- in fact significant for all of them-- is the arrival of Hazel Grosse. Hazel is a bishop from the west who uses dead youkai souls to revive dead humans as an indirect method of wiping out all youkai. While other episodes and people have had an effect on him, Hazel is really one of the first characters that Hakkai significantly dislikes and is angered by. At one point, just before his arrival in Somarium, Hazel asks the group if they've ever thought about bringing someone back to life; this forces Hakkai to reflect on bringing people back to life and moving on from Kanan's death.
[Personality] Hakkai, oh Hakkai, where to start with you. At first glance he seems to be just another nice guy-- and he is, to a certain extent. Hakkai is kind of like the mother of the group: he's the one who cleans up after the others, does the shopping for anything they might need (except when he doesn't-- see below), and pacifies the other three (and apologizes for them) if their fighting gets out of hand. He's good with children (especially Goku, whom he treats kindly overall), and patient, and generally polite to people. If you didn't know better you'd probably say he's just another nice guy.
But while this is a significant part of his personality, if you think that this is all there is to Hakkai, you could not be more wrong. Perhaps the above may have been all there was to it before Kanan's kidnapping and subsequent death, but while it's hard to tell what exactly he was like beforehand, the trauma of that incident left deep scars in Hakkai's mind. For a while afterwards, Hakkai was quite suicidal; although this is no longer the case, memories of both Kanan's death and his murdering spree will inevitably bring up a kind of sadness that he'll probably never be able to leave behind. Certain incidents can trigger flashbacks and nightmares-- especially near the beginning of the series. By the time he gets to the current point in canon I'm taking him from, he's begun to be able to get over Kanan's death and think about what he'll do when he finds someone else-- but at the same time those old memories still inevitably linger.
Furthermore, while he can seem kind and harmless, Hakkai is actually quite vicious and scary. His creepiness comes partly from the fact that he almost always smiles and appears calm when he gets irritated. Moreover, when he truly gets angry, he gets dangerous, and he has a terrifying amount of power to back it up. (See: a thousand slaughtered youkai-- and this was when he was still human.) Basically, if you make this man truly angry, get out of his way if you value your life. Another defining point of his personality is the way he treats the other three in their traveling party. While he is to some extent the caring mother of the group, he also can be just as bad as the other three-- just in a very different way. While he generally gets along with all of the others, he can also be just as petty and insulting as the rest of them. The difference is that while the others are up-front and in-your-face about their insults and petty bickering, Hakkai is rather passive-agressive about it. He'll say something that implies an insult without losing his perfectly calm demeanor. Throughout the series he's managed to indirectly insult Sanzo, Goku, and Gojyo all in this manner. (He'll also occasionally do things like forcing Gojyo to do the shopping for him with that creepy smile of his.) This is indicative of his underlying personality that is somewhat cynical and rather vicious. Although he treats the other three as annoying-but-loveable brothers in this way, if he really just doesn't like you, he'll be ruthless in making sure you know that he doesn't, all the while smiling.
So, to sum up: nice and motherly, but has an air of sadness, and actually rather creepy as hell.
[Specialties/Abilities] First of all, Hakkai is apparently very very good at fighting and killing people with his bare hands. That said, as a youkai, he also has some pretty damn awesome powers. With power limiters on, Hakkai can release chi attacks that are capable of injuring/killing others; he can also use chi techniques to create temporary barriers and heal people. Once his power limiters come off, it's an entirely different story; he only takes them off when absolutely necessary, and in the few times he does he has enough power to rival the Seiten Taisei, Goku's true form (who could otherwise, if he wanted, slaughter all of them without much of a fight). His speed and attack power are greatly increased when he does this. In addition, in his youkai form, he has vines all over his body that look like simple tattoos or markings; in actuality, they are vines that he can control and extend from his body to help him fight. (What also doesn't help is the fact that he is also susceptible to the calamity in this form, and would have certainly gone crazy with bloodlust and murdered Goku had Gojyo not stopped him.)
Aside from fighting, he also has these random abilities, such as lock-picking and winning every hand of poker and never getting drunk, ever.
[Affection] He'll generally be polite to you unless he really really dislikes you for some reason. Feel free to lay on affection, though it's debatable whether he'll actually return any romantic affection, considering all the crap that happened in the past.
[Fighting] ...Yeah, don't pick a fight with this guy. Unless you know you can match him. In which case he'll fight you if he has to, though he'll hardly like it.
[Other Facts] Has a little white dragon named Jeep. Jeep can turn into a Jeep. Hakkai needs his Jeep ;o;
[Canon] Saiyuki
[Age] About 23 or so
[Gender] Male
[Sexual Orientation] Straight until proven otherwise
[Eye Color] Green
[Hair Color] Brown
[Height] 181 cm
[Other] One fake eye, generally wears a monocle over it. Also has a scar on his stomach.
[Clothing] Do I have to? Black long-sleeved shirt, green short-sleeved shirt over it and a white... sash-looking thing over that, brown pants. Has three cuffs on his left ear that serve as power limiters.
[Background] Not much is known about Hakkai's early life; he was born as a human with the name Cho Gonou and raised in an orphanage. As a child, Gonou generally kept to himself sullenly; a few of the other children were afraid of him because of the way he never smiled. The next time we see Gonou is when he's 19-20 or so; he's much happier now, has a job as a schoolteacher, and lives together in a small village with his twin sister and lover Kanan (who was raised in a separate orphanage). They are happy together, until disaster strikes. Gonou comes home from work one afternoon to find that the people of the village have given Kanan to the passing youkai tribe of Hyakuganmaoh as a sacrifice for appeasement. In his rage, Hakkai... goes on a rampage and kills first all the people in the village, and then everyone in the youkai tribe and Hyakuganmaoh's castle. He then goes down to the dungeons to rescue Kanan; his beloved, however, has already been raped and impregnated by Hyakuganmaoh, and, unable to bear this, she kills herself and her unborn baby. Gonou is devastated. He is then approached by Chin Yisou, the last remaining demon of the tribe, who wants to see if the legend that says that a human who "bathes in the blood of a thousand youkai" is true-- he cuts his own wrist and lets his blood pour out onto Gonou. He then finds out the hard way that the legend is indeed true, as Gonou then becomes a youkai and kills Chin Yisou.
Having been wounded deeply in the process of all this, Gonou wanders away in the rain until he collapses in the forest. He is then found by Sha Gojyo, who just happens to be passing by; Gojyo takes him back to his house, calls a doctor, and lets Gonou stay with him until he's recovered. Meanwhile, one priest Genjyo Sanzo has received orders to capture and bring in one mass murderer Cho Gonou, so that he can be judged for his sins. Sanzo receives word that Gojyo has taken him in, and goes over to his house to confront him about it; when Gojyo denies knowing anyone named Cho Gonou (and technically he doesn't lie-- he did never ask for his name), Sanzo gets angry, and shoots at Gojyo, and the result is a fight that draws Gonou out of the house. After fighting with Goku (who tagged along to help Sanzo), Gonou runs off. He intends to go back to Hyakuganmaoh's castle to take care of Kanan's remains, but is interrupted by a youkai seeking revenge for his slaughtered kinsmen. He demands retribution for his brother, whose eyes Gonou ripped out; taking this a bit too literally, Gonou decides to rip out his own eyes in penance. He gets as far as ripping out his right eye before he's interrupted by the other three, who encourage him to live instead of giving up hope and dying. Taking this advice to heart, Gonou shoots the youkai with Sanzo's gun, deciding instead to live. After this, Sanzo allows him to do the one last thing he needed to do before taking him to the temple; Gonou then travels with the others back to Hyakuganmaoh's castle to find it has been burned to the ground and he cannot lay Kanan's remains to rest. Instead, the others can only watch in silence as Sanzo chants a sutra ("But when I read a sutra, it's not for the dead"). After this, Gonou goes willingly to the temple, where he is absolved of his past sins and changes his name to Cho Hakkai, and so begins a new life.
Hakkai then becomes Gojyo's permanent roommate, staying there and making food and cleaning up and generally making Gojyo feel uncomfortable (though also getting him out of some fights and sticky situations). He becomes Goku's teacher, and occasionally helps Sanzo out with missions; overall, the four of them form an odd sort of (though they'll never say it) friendship.
Nothing much changes until three years later, when the youkai woman Gyokumen Koushou tries to resurrect the demon lord Gyumaoh and ends up starting a calamity, as they call it, that causes desert to spread and all youkai (save for children and a few oddball adults) to go berserk. Then the four of them are sent on a mission by Kanzeon Bosatsu to travel to India and stop the calamity. The events of the series itself are pretty episodic, so I won't go into too much detail on those, but basically: lots of stuff happens. Considering they're on the road together for over a year by the point in canon he's taken from, the four of them inevitably grow pretty close over the course of their journey. There are several significant episodes for Hakkai throughout all this; the first is when the supposedly dead youkai Chin Yisou (who now is actually a shikigami he created from his own corpse) appears and starts messing with Hakkai's head. He attempts to force Hakkai to kill his friends with his own hands, in order to basically make him go batshit insane. He almost succeeds, too-- but with the help of the others he manages to defeat Chin Yisou. The second significant event-- in fact significant for all of them-- is the arrival of Hazel Grosse. Hazel is a bishop from the west who uses dead youkai souls to revive dead humans as an indirect method of wiping out all youkai. While other episodes and people have had an effect on him, Hazel is really one of the first characters that Hakkai significantly dislikes and is angered by. At one point, just before his arrival in Somarium, Hazel asks the group if they've ever thought about bringing someone back to life; this forces Hakkai to reflect on bringing people back to life and moving on from Kanan's death.
[Personality] Hakkai, oh Hakkai, where to start with you. At first glance he seems to be just another nice guy-- and he is, to a certain extent. Hakkai is kind of like the mother of the group: he's the one who cleans up after the others, does the shopping for anything they might need (except when he doesn't-- see below), and pacifies the other three (and apologizes for them) if their fighting gets out of hand. He's good with children (especially Goku, whom he treats kindly overall), and patient, and generally polite to people. If you didn't know better you'd probably say he's just another nice guy.
But while this is a significant part of his personality, if you think that this is all there is to Hakkai, you could not be more wrong. Perhaps the above may have been all there was to it before Kanan's kidnapping and subsequent death, but while it's hard to tell what exactly he was like beforehand, the trauma of that incident left deep scars in Hakkai's mind. For a while afterwards, Hakkai was quite suicidal; although this is no longer the case, memories of both Kanan's death and his murdering spree will inevitably bring up a kind of sadness that he'll probably never be able to leave behind. Certain incidents can trigger flashbacks and nightmares-- especially near the beginning of the series. By the time he gets to the current point in canon I'm taking him from, he's begun to be able to get over Kanan's death and think about what he'll do when he finds someone else-- but at the same time those old memories still inevitably linger.
Furthermore, while he can seem kind and harmless, Hakkai is actually quite vicious and scary. His creepiness comes partly from the fact that he almost always smiles and appears calm when he gets irritated. Moreover, when he truly gets angry, he gets dangerous, and he has a terrifying amount of power to back it up. (See: a thousand slaughtered youkai-- and this was when he was still human.) Basically, if you make this man truly angry, get out of his way if you value your life. Another defining point of his personality is the way he treats the other three in their traveling party. While he is to some extent the caring mother of the group, he also can be just as bad as the other three-- just in a very different way. While he generally gets along with all of the others, he can also be just as petty and insulting as the rest of them. The difference is that while the others are up-front and in-your-face about their insults and petty bickering, Hakkai is rather passive-agressive about it. He'll say something that implies an insult without losing his perfectly calm demeanor. Throughout the series he's managed to indirectly insult Sanzo, Goku, and Gojyo all in this manner. (He'll also occasionally do things like forcing Gojyo to do the shopping for him with that creepy smile of his.) This is indicative of his underlying personality that is somewhat cynical and rather vicious. Although he treats the other three as annoying-but-loveable brothers in this way, if he really just doesn't like you, he'll be ruthless in making sure you know that he doesn't, all the while smiling.
So, to sum up: nice and motherly, but has an air of sadness, and actually rather creepy as hell.
[Specialties/Abilities] First of all, Hakkai is apparently very very good at fighting and killing people with his bare hands. That said, as a youkai, he also has some pretty damn awesome powers. With power limiters on, Hakkai can release chi attacks that are capable of injuring/killing others; he can also use chi techniques to create temporary barriers and heal people. Once his power limiters come off, it's an entirely different story; he only takes them off when absolutely necessary, and in the few times he does he has enough power to rival the Seiten Taisei, Goku's true form (who could otherwise, if he wanted, slaughter all of them without much of a fight). His speed and attack power are greatly increased when he does this. In addition, in his youkai form, he has vines all over his body that look like simple tattoos or markings; in actuality, they are vines that he can control and extend from his body to help him fight. (What also doesn't help is the fact that he is also susceptible to the calamity in this form, and would have certainly gone crazy with bloodlust and murdered Goku had Gojyo not stopped him.)
Aside from fighting, he also has these random abilities, such as lock-picking and winning every hand of poker and never getting drunk, ever.
[Affection] He'll generally be polite to you unless he really really dislikes you for some reason. Feel free to lay on affection, though it's debatable whether he'll actually return any romantic affection, considering all the crap that happened in the past.
[Fighting] ...Yeah, don't pick a fight with this guy. Unless you know you can match him. In which case he'll fight you if he has to, though he'll hardly like it.
[Other Facts] Has a little white dragon named Jeep. Jeep can turn into a Jeep. Hakkai needs his Jeep ;o;