Rando (乱童 Randō?) (translated as Child of Chaos), also known as Shorin (少林 Shōrin?) (translated as Place of New Trees) and Shaolin in the English manga, is the main antagonist during the Disciple Selection Trials of the Genkai Tournament in the Spirit Detective Saga.
Appearance[]
When disguised as Shorin, his appearance is akin to that of a small child with a shaved head, who wears a black cap, blue Buddhist monk attire, and a simple necklace. Shorin has dark eyes and eyebrows coupled with an innocent, almost doll-like appearance. Apparently, the concept art for this form was a reference to the Shaolin monks, famous for indoctrinating disciples at very young ages. It is assumed that Rando took the form of Shorin in order to remain inconspicuous when he wasn't hunting his human prey. This likely contributed to Shorin's relatively plain looks, and unassuming attire.
However, in his true form, Rando is very tall and his hair is a long, bright cherry red color, similar to Kurama's in his human form. He has orange eyes. His skin is chalk-white and he has an odd-looking scar on his chest that appears to spread across his torso. He also bears blue tribal markings on his face that resemble a spider.
Personality[]
Rando is a sadistic mad man, mainly concerned with creating as much physical pain and suffering to his victims as possible. When in combat Rando likes to extend the duration of the fight in order to further torture his victims, taking pride in his stolen techniques as he experiments with them mid-combat. However, Rando seems to have a small level of respect for strong opponents, unintentionally giving praise to Genkai and Yusuke when the latter forced him to transform for the first time in decades.
Despite his sadistic nature, he is incredibly intelligent and rarely goes in guns blazing. For example, instead of quickly attacking and copying Genkai's Spirit Wave Technique, he instead decided to join the tournament as a legitimate contender so as to not simply be killed by her. Along with his intelligence he does have a great understanding and desire for spirit power. Actively hunting down specific abilities that he deemed useful enough to warrant obtaining and only went after Genkai when the opportunity arose.
He does not care about trivial things such as looks and takes his goals very seriously. Even going out of his way to severely limit his own energy and take on the form of an unimpressive monk solely to not be caught. When his disguise was found out he almost immediately became annoyed and determined he had to kill everyone who had seen his true form as to not allow other spirit detectives to come after him later on.
Synopsis[]
History[]
Not much is known about Rando's backstory prior to his first appearance aside from the fact that he was responsible for the deaths of many humans and actively hunted psychics and martial artists for hundreds of years. He would additionally experiment with these techniques on humans to gain a greater understanding of the soul and the secrets behind it, with him being believed to be responsible for a good number of missing people reported.
During this large span of time, he at some point fought Genkai and somehow managed to escape. It is quite possible this was earlier in her career which would explain how he managed to get away. It is also possible that it was this event that resulted in him becoming far more careful with his identity and staying in the shadows so he wouldn't be put into another life and death situation again. After his near death experience with Genkai, he would kill well known martial artists who were talented enough that Genkai was aware of them and would even gain the attention of Younger Toguro, eventually amassing a large collection of 99 stolen techniques.
Spirit Detective Saga[]
He originally joined the Genkai Tournament under the disguise of Shorin. Spirit Detective Yusuke Urameshi was tasked with locating and capturing him. During the quarter finals he fights Chinpo and wins, although he suffered some injuries. As he reached the finals, it started to become clear he was Rando because of the dwindling number of fighters. He was paired against Kuwabara, who initially seems to have the upper hand in their battle, using his Spirit Sword to deflect Shorin's Spirit Energy fireballs onto Shorin. However, Shorin then used the Shrinking Curse technique to shrink Kuwabara down to the size of a doll, where he sadistically taunts Kuwabara before breaking his arms, legs, and rib cage, much to Yusuke's fury and Genkai's disgust. Genkai revealed that the spell hadn't been used in centuries while Yusuke confirmed that he was the demon he was searching for. After Kuwabara's defeat, Yusuke steps up as Shorin's final opponent and an intense battle ensues. Shorin unveils another technique during this battle that involves violently draining the blood out of Yusuke's wounds, once again revealing Shorin's sadistic nature.
However, to everyone's surprise, Yusuke was able to endure Shorin's painful attacks without passing out and renders Shorin unconscious with a counterattack. Yusuke believes he had won the fight and walks over to Genkai to gloat, only for her to inform him that his fight wasn't over and states a demon like Rando would not be defeated so easily. Rando then reveals his true form and battles Yusuke once more. Completely drained from his fight against Rando's human form, Yusuke's attacks do not harm Rando at all and only results in Rando taunting Yusuke about how it will give him time to decide what technique with which to torture his opponent. He then uses the Life-Force Thread technique to subdue Yusuke and swings him wildly around the forest before hanging Yusuke above a lake. Rando decides to show off another technique which involves summoning and controlling creatures known as Hate Fish from the depths of the Spirit World, which he summons into the lake below where Yusuke is hanging. He summons another smaller demon, and then tosses it into the lake to be devoured with the purpose of taunting Yusuke about his impending gruesome fate.
Rando concludes by using his recently-learned Spirit Gun technique, adapting it into the Demon Gun (modified to use a portion of his Demon Energy rather than his entire supply of Spirit Energy) to blast the branch holding Yusuke above the water, sending Yusuke into the lake to be devoured. Kuwabara, barely conscious, is able to use his last bit of Spirit Energy to help bring out Yusuke's latent Spirit Energy, which Yusuke then fills the entire lake with to destroy the fish and escape his restraints. While initially surprised, Rando's resolve remains unfazed and he attempts to use his Spirit Gun to kill Yusuke the moment he sees him emerge from the swamp.
Anticipating this, the young Spirit Detective emerges behind Rando instead as they made a similar technique showdown, Yusuke fires the Spirit Gun and Rando the Demon Gun, in a clash of powers. Rando's overconfidence causes Yusuke's full-power attack to overpower Rando's, knocking him into the lake that Yusuke emerged from. In the manga however, instead of using his Spirit Gun against Rando, Yusuke simply smashes him to the ground with a powerful punch after emerging behind him from the lake.
Rando, severely angered by the attack, uses his Demon Energy to vaporize the entire lake and savagely beats Yusuke who is once again weakened from using all of his Spirit Energy.
Furious, Rando uses his demonic energy and starts a punch and kick barrage against Yusuke, finally knocking him down. However, injured by Yusuke's attack and low on demon energy, Rando attempted to shrink Yusuke by using the same chant he used against Kuwabara (though in the manga Rando used it to simply torture Yusuke rather than having a lack of energy), but the technique backfires and results in Rando shrinking himself instead. Amused by Rando's lack of understanding of his own stolen techniques, Genkai explains that any spoken chant has to be heard by the victim or it will result in the user being afflicted instead.
Surprisingly, Yusuke then pulls algae out of his ear, revealing that he had unintentionally made himself deaf. Rando furiously declares that he can simply reverse the chant, but Yusuke renders him unconscious by dropping his elbow down on the shrunken Rando. Rando is then arrested by Botan, who takes him to Spirit World.
Later, Younger Toguro discussed with Tarukane about rumors of humans who had defeated Rando and The Saint Beasts, acknowledging that if the "intruders" (Yusuke and Kuwabara) were these humans, Toguro's own demon minions would be no match for them.
Powers and Abilities[]
Fighting Style[]
Versatile Sadist: As a user of 99 techniques (100, if the Spirit Gun is counted), he is far above any normal human martial artist master with heightened spiritual awareness, as he had been implied to have easily beaten people of that category with those techniques. Due to the large number of techniques at his disposal, Rando is a very unpredictable fighter, rarely using the same technique more than once, and allowing his foes to be confused and unable to expect which technique he would use next. A weakness in this, however, is that he is overly reliant on his unsurprisingly, unmastered techniques and doesn't take into account what will happen if they don't succeed; he also relies too much on the techniques' power to win fights rather than combining them with hand-to-hand combat as later antagonists after him do, resulting in his humiliating defeat. Genkai claims that he never bothered to fully study and learn the exact mechanics of the techniques he stole, which was also what led to his downfall. Another weakness is that his sadism also keeps him from killing foes right away as he indulges upon the pain he inflicts. Without these powerful techniques and above average energy reserves, he would likely be a D Class demon with strength considered superhuman to normal humans, but quite weak in comparison to most demons. Overall, he is most likely at the higher end of Middle C Class in his true form.
Techniques/Moves[]
- Fast Learning: Rando is able to rapidly learn techniques thanks to his incredible understanding of Spirit Energy. After seeing the Spirit Gun used once, he was able to understand its fundamentals and copy it perfectly. He has also shown to have perfect memory, as he was able to recall incantations and chants without error despite not rehearsing them. Additionally, it was stated by Genkai that he could increase the power of copied techniques through his own demon energy and transform them into a "Demonic Art".
- Circles of Inferno (火掌発破拳, Kashō Happa-Ken, translated as Destructive Fire-Emitting Palm-Fist, Fiery Palms in the Viz Manga): An attack he uses as Shorin. He focuses energy into his hands and creates fireballs, which he throws at his opponent, stolen from a famous martial artist (Psychic in the English dub) according to Genkai. However, it isn't very effective against Kuwabara, who uses his Spirit Sword like a bat to reflect the attack back at Shorin.Yu Yu Hakusho, episode 13, and Manga Vol 4, Chapter 29.
- Sickle and Tornado (斬空烈風陣, Zankū Reppu-jin, translated as Violent Beheading Wind Air Formation, Slicing Gale Aegis in the Viz Manga): Another attack he uses as Shorin. He creates bladed discs of pure vacuum in his hands that he hurls at his opponents. This technique is reminiscent of a kamaitachi, or a razor wind. This technique is much more devastating if one is hit while trying to avoid it, thus by charging directly at him one can sustain the least damage. Presumably a stolen technique.Yu Yu Hakusho, episode 13, and Manga Vol. 4, Chapter 30.
- Shrinking Curse (縮身の呪術, Shukushin no Jujutsu, translated as Curse Technique of Reducing Body): After a chant, the target's body will decrease in size. However, as any chant technique must be performed perfectly, the effect can be negated if the opponent doesn't hear the chant or if the user doesn't say it properly. If that happens, it will backfire and affect the caster. Genkai reveals that although quite formidable, the technique is surprisingly quite easy to avoid, as all the opponent has to do is cover his or her ears. Another weakness is that Shorin is open to attack while casting it, and has to rely on his opponent being unable to attack or being too stupid to realize the deadliness of this technique. This was stolen from a famous martial artist (Psychic in the English dub) according to Genkai. In the dub, Genkai claims this technique and the Circles of Inferno were invented by the same pair of psychics. As they were killed by Rando shortly after perfecting the chant, using this technique essentially blew Rando's cover. Yu Yu Hakusho, episode 13.
- Life-Force Thread (妖気の糸, Yōki no Itō, translated as Thread of Demons, Aura Thread in the Viz Manga): Numerous strands of thread are created from Rando's mouth, which then ensnare the target. They combine to create a whip that directly feeds off Rando's energy.Yu Yu Hakusho, episode 14, and Manga Vol. 4 Chapter 30
- Demon Fish (魔界魚, Makai Gyo, translated as Demon World Fish): After chanting, he can summon fish from the Demon World, which he affectionately calls "hate fish". These fish seem to be a mixture of alligator, shark and piranha species.Yu Yu Hakusho, episode 14.
- Demon Gun (霊丸, Reigan): After observing Yusuke, Rando developed a variation of the Spirit Gun by concentrating and discharging a condensed blast of Demon Energy from his outstretched index finger, becoming the Demon Gun. However, unlike Yusuke, he doesn't use all of his energy in order to fire a blast. This was stolen from Yusuke [1]
- Trainer Demon Summoning: Rando also displays the ability to summon a "trainer demon", an almost rat like demon creature which he can control. It starts out as not much larger than Rando's own hand, but quickly becomes human sized when he releases it. He uses this to exhibit the voracious appetite of his hate fish. It is heavily implied to be an E Class demon[1].
- Transformation: Rando can take a human form whenever he wishes, usually doing so to get close to whatever victim he has his eyes on, it is heavily implied he can change and alter his human form to suit his needs. If the need ever calls for it, Rando can return to his original form. Doing so greatly increases his Demon Energy as well as his other physical stats.
Trivia[]
- Rando is the first demon in the series not to be motivated by conquest or primitive instinct, but the sadistic pleasure of pain from his victims; something that becomes a trait for a majority of the future antagonists, regardless of their goals.
- In the anime, Rando is one of only two antagonists in the series that is defeated, but not killed or implied to be killed (excluding characters who reformed such as Hiei, Touya, Jin, Shishiwakamaru, Suzuki, Yomi, etc.). The other is Elder Toguro.
- Rando is the first user of the Demon Energy consuming variation of the Spirit Gun, which is commonly referred to by fans as "Demon Gun". Yusuke would be the second near the finale of the series, using a deadlier variant of the technique, which fused Spirit and Demon energy (in the anime only).
- Rando seems to be a Spider Demon as he has a spider-shaped mark on his face and makes the victims small enough to be less of a threat which is similar to how spiders trap their prey in a web before eating them and is able to produce thread that is similar to a Spider web.
- Rando is the last main antagonist and opponent of Yusuke Urameshi to lose to the latter's luck, rather than the all-out hand-to-hand combat of the later enemies.
- Rando bears several resemblances to the Inuyasha Villain, Naraku. Both have heavily implied Spider themes, both take the techniques of others (in Naraku's case, absorbing a demon and gaining their unique abilities), etc.
- In the video games, it is revealed that Tarukane cloned Rando (along with Suzaku) to serve as his last line of defense after Toguro is "killed".
- His dub name (Shorin) is the Japanese pronunciation of Shaolin, which is the name given in the English manga.
- Rando's Hate Fish and Shrinking Curse is the basis for the Indoor Fish and Fun Fun Cloth techniques in the Hunter x Hunter manga (done by the same mangaka Yoshihiro Togashi). In addition the user of those techniques, Chrollo Lucifer, also steals techniques. However, it is worth noting that the ways they steal techniques vastly differ to each other.
- Orochimaru from the Naruto series is similar to Rando in many ways:
- Both disguised as participants to seek out their interests.
- They amassed a huge number of techniques, physical and supernatural.
- They are both introduced in an exam-like tournament that involved survival in the forest.
- They caused more harm to the cast when they first fought.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Yu Yu Hakusho, Episode 13.