info

[awakingmessiah]

kouji ibuki Age 23 Gender Male Height ~5'10" Build Wiry, underweight first impressions Name: Ibuki is one of a few Vanguard characters who Aggressively goes by his family name, even to his closest friends. While he doesn't usually have an issue with giving out his full name, calling him Kouji is likely to (at best) get an uncomfortable reaction. Visual: A combination of "man who spends most of his time locked in various offices subsisting on Caloriemate and not enough sleep" and "man who is also a highly skilled martial artist for some fucking reason despite being from a card game anime". Ibuki is worryingly thin due to his questionable dietary habits, but has a strong frame and can bring out a shocking amount of power for a regular human when he needs to. He's quite pale and his hair has gotten progressively lighter over the years, going from silver-grey in his original villainous appearance to silver-white in early G, to almost straight-up white in G NEXT/Z. His eyes are red and fairly angular/sharp, and he has that general energy around them of never having slept enough because The Horrors will do that to a guy. Probably has a few scars on one side of his chest from that time he got punched through the air by a giant metal tiger. Fashion: Tends towards the straightforward, typically a button-up and neat pants with some kind of jacket over. The image on the left is his current canonpoint design, and his earlier Vanguard G design is essentially his villain design but with a colour palette swap to represent him being a good guy now (evil teen, good guy adult). He will occasionally wear more casual items, such as sweaters or t-shirts. Demeanour: Often comes off as curt or standoffish on first brush, as he's the type who generally doesn't say more than he needs to and prefers to keep himself to himself. However, once someone gets to know him better it becomes clearer that he's just painfully socially awkward/inexperienced and somewhat shy, often choosing to keep quiet or just walk off if he doesn't quite know how to respond to something. He's reasonably affable once someone gets through that initial shell and occasionally even a little joking, though it's much rarer in comparison to his far more frequent fun police behaviour/failing to understand why other people are getting Up To Shenanigans. He's deeply passionate about the things he values and will visibly throw his whole self into those topics much more - he can become Extremely Dramatic when the situation calls for it. This isn't always just for things he's passionate about, as he has a competitive streak, and certain insults will get under his skin enough to set him off if they're coming from someone whose opinion he gives some degree of a shit about. Has a tendency to either be frustratingly secretive or actively challenge people to prove themselves if he's worried about them getting involved in something he thinks will endanger them. Sound: Generally quite calm, direct and level, as shown here. However, when roused he demonstrates his CV Mamoru Miyano bona fides and becomes the largest ham in any room he's in, one of the funnier samples for this being this scene where Chrono calls him a stalker and he goes ballistic. His voice actor also sings two of the Vanguard G OPs (Break It and Shout), which are both very good. info Once a shy child who reached for Vanguard to help find friends, losing the only two he had when he was young led into bullying and disillusionment that made him a target for the Deletors, residents of a wandering planet that consumes other planets. Wiping or withholding his good memories and letting the bad ones fester, the Deletors moulded Ibuki into a puppet for their aims - Ibuki focusing on destroying the Vanguard card game so nobody else would have to "suffer" due to it, the Deletors knowing it would take both Earth and Cray (the real planet the Vanguard game is based on) down with it due to its role in connecting the two worlds. Coming closer to ending both worlds under the control of Daunting Deletor, Oksizz than just about any other Vanguard villain managed, he ultimately loses his final battle, and while this restores his childhood memories and makes him realise he was being used, most of his teenage years were still lost to being puppeted by eldritch space horrors. Thankfully, Aichi, the OG Vanguard protagonist, decides to leave him with a different eldritch space horror - Harmonics Messiah, the card representing the god of Cray. She changes form into Neon Messiah, a representation of rebirth, upon being handed to Ibuki, and he goes on to wander the world in search of atonement and purpose. After learning that the head of the Vanguard Association is actually using it for a potentially world-ending scheme, he returns to Japan a few years later, considering his atonement for once trying to destroy the game and the worlds connected to it to save it. Leading the Vanguard G protagonist, Chrono, to Vanguard and checking in on his growing strength every so often, he works with his now-friends (or at least allies) from the original Vanguard cast to fight back against and gain information about the unfolding plan. After almost sacrificing his life to return Chrono the key to saving the world, Ibuki takes over leadership of the Vanguard Association, combining it with his status as Messiah's Vanguard (giving him a dream link to Harmonics Messiah that she sometimes sends warnings through) to look into new threats and try to intercept them before the situation becomes critical. Due to his messy history and trauma, Ibuki is quite withdrawn and often keeps people at arm's length, in part because he doesn't want to get them caught up in the dangers he throws himself into without hesitation. Carries a weight on his shoulders from his "sin" that he's never allowed himself to let go of, and takes his mistakes extremely heavily, despite having helped save the world(s) twice now. While he often comes off as aloof, he's deeply caring at heart, and struggles with the idea of being cared for or cared about, though he enjoys spending time with the people he cares about in turn. For those who can get past the shell, he's a loyal and protective friend who will throw his life on the line (and probably throw a few other people while he's at it), whether someone wants him to or not. abilities Ibuki is frankly Shockingly Normal for a guy who's the earthly conduit for an eldritch space god, but people who have a sense for that sort of thing might notice the energy/spiritual fingerprints of something that's very high cosmic power class on him. Possibly multiple things, depending on how far back they can see, as the Deletors unfortunately left rather a strong impression on him. On a more human level, Ibuki is trained in martial arts (wushu specifically) and has the physical power to punch someone into the air several feet, because apparently being able to fistfight in a card game anime contractually obliges you to be weirdly strong. On a similar note, he's frankly ridiculously physically resilient, lucky for him considering the amount of actual beatings he takes during the show. He survives being punched across a room and into a large, mounted statue hard enough to knock it over by a several-metres-tall robotic buffalo with little more than a broken arm (and is discharged from hospital within a few days, contrasting the several people who were in the same attack, but only one of whom took anything like as direct of a hit as he did, who were all hospitalised for at least several weeks), and later survives (though barely, and seemingly with some compound fractured ribs) a similar punch from another unit that destroys a thick, solid metal gorget he used to wear on his chest. Outside combat, he's an experienced enough motorcyclist to ride one off a cliff and land it safely, as well as fairly skilled at defensive driving in a car. He's also a particularly strong organiser/administrator type who is used to commanding or guiding large groups, even if it often comes at the cost of regular sleep (because who needs that anyway). permissions code credit