Genjuro Kibagami

Genjuro Kibagami is a recurring Samurai Shodown character who debuted in Samurai Shodown II. He replaces Ukyo Tachibana's role as Haohmaru's official rival in the series.

Development
Genjuro's design is centered on the scar on his back. Developers wanted to make him a character with "adult appeal" who would leave a lasting impression for the female players. Garou: Mark of the Wolves planner and The King of Fighters XIV producer Yasuyuki Oda states that Genjuro and his rival Haohmaru are his favourite characters from the Samurai Shodown series.

Personality
Genjuro is a brutal warrior who only fights for the pleasure of killing. He likes to dominate over others and hates people who are weak. As such, he has made it his livelihood to take on the dirty business of eliminating targets for just compensation, as he grew up knowing violence and deviance.

There are times when he occasionally feels regretful and shows mercy for his actions; he once let Haohmaru live at Oshizu's pleading. However, he maintains his brutality, counteracting these instances of leniency with more acts of cruelty. Other times, he won't hesitate to be civil with Haohmaru if the situation calls for it, like the old times.

He is often called a "demon/ogre" by his victims, usually moments before he slays them. He also enjoys carnal pursuits and gambling, spending the majority of his days cavorting in brothels and gambling dens.

Powers

 * Energy Projectile - Genjuro can fire a projectile of energy from his sword.
 * Energy Attacks - Genjuro can fuel his sword with ki energy.
 * Stun - Genjuro can trap his opponents and leave them completely vulnerable for a limited time.

Fighting Style
Though they both trained underneath Nicotine, his fighting style greatly differs from Haohmaru in execution. His fighting stance is one of the few where his back faces towards the foreground as opposed to the other way around (via the developers wanting emphasis on his scar), being a bit of an inverse of Haohmaru's stance with his sword pointing more downward in comparison. While Haohmaru's style is rough, wild and simple, Genjuro's is more-likely streamlined and refined to focus on more clean strokes, with slight streaks of brutality, as shown during his connected Hyakki Satsu (Hundred Ogre Killer). It reflects in gameplay where he compared to most other characters, is more oppressive in playstyle and in one's face to dominate over them with one slip-up his foes make.

While many of his special moves are named after various flowers mixed in with a light-motif, they all have visual direct references to the Japanese cards known as Hanafuda (Flower Cards) as well as towards a number of games played with the said cards.


 * Depending on whether a move hits or misses, the move will temporarily project the images of a "winning" combo of cards and/or a "miss" based on the featured Hanafuda set.


 * His signature special move as one example out of many, the Sanren Satsu (Triple Killing) also has him yell out "Inoshikachou!" (lit. Boar Deer Butterfly) when each hit properly connects, being yet another hanafuda reference only it refers to the card combo in the game Koi-Koi.


 * While difficult to notice, his Touha Kouyoku Jin (Paulownia Supreme Light Wing Blade) displays an image of one of the cards on its slashing trail.


 * His "pet" of sorts is an unnamed orange frog, a reference to the card, Yanagi ni Ono No Tōfū.

His win poses from his first appearance made several heavy references to the deck; his later win poses tone down the references.

Genjuro in later tiles is one of the characters who also combines both aspects of his Shura/Slash and Rasetsu/Bust forms in his movesets. Prior differences between both his Shura and Rasetsu versions were somewhat subtle in terms of specific moves having different names yet functioning the same, but each move had a different hanafuda motif from one another.

Music

 * Oni (Demon/Ogre) - Samurai Shodown II
 * Oni no Uta (Demon/Ogre's Song) - Samurai Shodown III
 * Oni no Uta - Kai (Demon/Ogre's Song - Revise) - Samurai Shodown IV
 * Oni no Uta ~ Beast + Divine Ferocity - Samurai Shodown 64
 * Oni no Uta ~ Asura Zanmaden - Samurai Shodown 64-2
 * Onibayashi - Samurai Shodown (2019)
 * Daimen's Nite Groove (Hot Sake Mix) - Samurai Remix VA (shared with Nicotine)
 * Feel It (Mr. Organ Mix) - Samurai Remix VA

Voice Actors

 * Kong Kuwata - Samurai Shodown II~64 series, Sen, Samurai Shodown (2019); SNK vs Capcom, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, The King of Fighters: All Star
 * Tōru Ōkawa - Samurai Shodown VI
 * Kenji Nomura - Samurai Spirits Oni
 * Akio Ohtsuka - Samurai Shodown II Dengeki drama CD

Appearances
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Games

 * Samurai Shodown II
 * Samurai Shodown III
 * Shinsetsu Samurai Spirits: Bushidou Retsuden
 * Samurai Shodown IV
 * Samurai Shodown 64
 * Samurai Shodown!
 * Samurai Shodown 64-2 - players will only encounter his Bust form as a CPU opponent
 * Samurai Shodown! 2
 * Samurai Shodown V
 * Samurai Shodown V Special
 * Samurai Shodown V Perfect
 * Samurai Shodown VI
 * SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos
 * Neo Geo Battle Coliseum
 * Samurai Shodown Sen
 * Samurai Spirits Oni
 * Samurai Spirits ~Kengou Hachi-ban Shoubu~
 * Samurai Shodown (2019) (also in Retro 3D graphics and Puzzle & Dragons Fagan's DLC costume [only in Asia])

Mobile

 * Days of Memories (third and seventh titles) - NPC
 * Samurai Spirits - Shimensouka (enemy character)
 * Samurai Spirits - Makai Rineki
 * SNK’s DARTS: Three In The Black
 * Granblue Fantasy
 * YAMATO Chronicle
 * KOF x Fatal Fury
 * Samurai Shodown Online
 * Kingdom Story
 * Kimi wa Hero
 * Samurai Shodown: Oborozuki Densetsu
 * Samurai Shodown Tenkadaiichi Kenkakuden
 * The King of Fighters: All Star
 * Dark Avenger X
 * SNK Fighting Age
 * Puzzle & Dragons

Cameos

 * Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage - passing mention
 * SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium - in the background of one of the start-up screens
 * The King of Fighters XV - mentioned indirectly by Haohmaru in his win quote vs. Iori (Story Mode)

Anime
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 * Samurai Spirits 2: Asura-Zanmaden (OVA)

Similar Characters

 * Sankuro Yorozu

Etymology

 * The name Genjuro means "phantom, vision, illusion, dream, apparition" (幻) (gen), "ten" (十) (ju) and "son" (郎) (ro).
 * Genjuro's surname Kibagami means "fang, tusk" (牙) (kiba) and "god, deity" (神) (kami/gami).

Trivia

 * Voice samples of Genjuro's recruitment scenarios can be heard when the RPG disk is inserted into a music player. This suggests that there were plans to make him a recruitable character at one point in the game's development.
 * In Days of Memories, Genjuro is implicitly bisexual as indicated by his lines about "discrimination between the flesh" and a bad ending the protagonist can achieve if you only train with him and don't speak to women.
 * When asked "The path of the sword is?", Genjuro's response is "A skill for killing people."
 * His favourite type of mate is a woman with strong defenses.
 * Despite popular belief, he has no relation to Iori Yagami.
 * He was the character inspiration for the younger design of Shishio Makoto from the manga/anime series Rurouni Kenshin.
 * In Gamest's 1997 Heroes Collection, he was ranked the staff's eighteenth favorite character and was the number one favorite character (from the development team and fans) at the time of his debut.
 * His grip on the sword in his in-game sprites and models is incorrect, as (on the left side of the screen) he holds the sword with his right hand grabbing the bottom of the hilt, when it should be the left hand.

Cards




Sprites