YuYu Hakusho Wiki
Advertisement


Team Ichigaki is a team that competed during the Dark Tournament Saga. The team's patron is Dr. Ichigaki (Dr.イチガキ), an unscrupulous and unethical scientist who appears to be a demon of some kind.

Members[]

M Weapons

M1, M2 and M3

  • Dr. Ichigaki:
  • M1: An orange-haired teenage boy with a mop of orange hair that constantly covers his eyes, he can generate and throw razor-edged rings of energy called Angel Chakram (Angel Blades in the FUNimation dub); three on each arm, two of which are illusions. His bangs almost always cover his eyes, but when his large eyes are revealed, they give him a rather feminine appearance. His actual name is En (円).
  • M2: An older looking man with a Mandarin type outfit, braided ponytail, and a mustache who can manifest a javelin made of Spirit Energy that is invisible to those of lower spiritual awareness, that can be surprisingly lethal, as seen in his Swing Crush (Invisible Slash in the FUNimation dub) technique. His design seems to be based on Chinese martial arts, making him resemble Lau Chan From Virtua Fighter and Master Asia from Mobile Fighter G Gundam. His actual name is Kai (魁) but the anime changes it to Ryo.
  • M3: A young man with brown hair and a scar above his right temple who can shape one, or both, of his hands into an energy bomb called the Hound Claw (Grizzly Claw in the FUNimation dub), in order to deliver a palm thrust that can shatter the ground or strike the opponent's internal organs (as seen with Kuwabara), with explosive results. He offers to join Team Urameshi to make up for his sins, but Yusuke respectfully declined, telling him he is a good man but that he should focus on taking care of his master instead. His actual name is Ryo (梁) but the anime changes it to Kai.
Ichikagi minions YYH

M4 and M5

  • M4: An older leopard-lizard demon, he is killed in an instant by Kurama and Hiei in the forest outside of the stadium. Between M4 and M5, he is the more impulsive of the two, and appears more human in the manga (while still having his tail), but reveals more demonic features as he is being decapitated.
  • M5: A young tiger-lizard demon who commands the robot Gatasubal. He seems to be more intelligent than M4, preferring to control Gatsubal rather than directly confront Hiei and Kurama. In the manga, he has black hair and much more human features, but reveals his slit eyes, fangs, and tongue when he is annoyed. After the robot is defeated, he is tortured by Kurama and Hiei to reveal the location of Ichigaki's lab, and is cut into several pieces (despite Kurama's claim that they wouldn't kill him if he surrendered). In the anime, however, he is simply beaten up by Hiei; ultimately spared, albeit knocked unconscious.
Gatasubal YYH

Gatasubal

  • Gatasubal: A cyborg demon. Called (Yokoju) Gatasubaru (ガタスバル, Gatasuval, translates to Spectral Steel Beast): in the original Japanese version. Gatasubal was an early prototype designed by Dr. Ichigaki. Its entire body is covered with a hybrid metal combining steel with living cells. Dr. Ichigaki stripped Gatasubal of its ability to feel any pain or fear. It attacks by extending its arms, which can actually stop and change direction in midair in order to track its target. Kurama manages to have one of its stretching arms hit its own body with force sufficient to crack its biometal alloy shell (strong enough to block both the Rose Whip and Hiei's sword), thus allowing him to worm his Rose Whip into its innards, connecting it to the robot's circuits, gaining total control of the robot, and turning it against its master. Thus, its inability to feel pain led to its downfall, as it would have recoiled had it been able to feel pain. After it was used to by Kurama and Hiei to enter the stadium by making a giant hole, it is never seen again.

History[]

As the teacher of M1, M2, and M3, their father figure Mitamura, had fallen sick to some kind of illness, his students despaired when they learned that medical treatment would cost seventy-thousand. Dr. Ichigaki then appears, taking advantage of this, and offers to cure Mitamura for free, with the condition that he uses M1, M2 and M3 as subjects for his experiments.

At the Dark Tournament, where Kuwabara had a premonition about their predicament, Dr. Ichigaki makes things interesting by declaring that if Team Urameshi loses, they'll be his next subjects for experimentation (in the English dub of the anime, he only wants Yusuke for his experiments). When Genkai, in her role as the Masked Fighter, ups the ante with an offer of a six-person battle royal, Ichigaki gleefully accepts. When asked what's going on, she explains that she met Master Mitamura and his students a long time ago and that what struck her about them was their acceptance of his philosophy of good character over physical prowess, which extends to his students having an enormous amount of respect for life and never killing no matter what.

It's what had unnerved Kuwabara so badly. His high spirit awareness was telling him that M1, M2 and M3 are watching their bodies kill as ordered by Dr. Ichigaki. It turns out that he had implanted a demonic nanotechnological organism called Virucchi, into their spines and bloodstreams, as a method of controlling them.

When Kurama and Hiei crash the match, they reveal that removing the Virucchi would kill M1, M2, and M3; and the fact that Dr. Ichigaki had caused Master Mitamura's illness in the first place. Attempts at confronting Ichigaki suddenly has Kuwabara realizing that their consciousness had been set back, and Yusuke realizes that they're begging him to kill them.

Reluctantly complying, Yusuke charges up his Spirit Gun before Genkai intervenes and uses her Spirit Wave technique in order to purify the Virucchi and free M1, M2, and M3 of their control. With his team defeated, Dr. Ichigaki resorts to transforming himself with a mutagenic compound. However, this fails, as Yusuke demolishes the Doctor with six powerful punches.

Mitamura, cured of his illness by Kurama, manages to make his way into the stadium and is reunited with his wayward students.

The three students make more cameos in the audience, cheering for Team Urameshi (more so in the manga) since En, Ryo and Kai became Urameshi's allies. While Kai (Ryo) grasps his chest in pain when Younger Toguro began stealing souls from the audience, ultimately the three of them survived to see Toguro defeated by Yusuke. Presumably, they were able to successfully escape from the collapsing stadium as well.

Trivia[]

  • Dr. Ichigaki's team seems to be the only known team other than Team Uraotogi to be self-sponsored and not endorsed by a member of the Black Black Club or Spirit World, as the founding member is implied to the fundraiser of the team, with all the devices he can afford from calculators and robots to parasitic implants and implied demonic surgery on his fighters.
  • Back during Round 2 of the tournament, it was established that the three main fighters were named “Kai”, “Ryo”, and “En”, but it wasn’t clearly established who was who aside from Kai in the manga (who is called Ryo in the anime). It is possible that the anime decided back then that Ryo was the name of M-2, and decided to stick with that in spite of the manga. The Spirit World Who’s Who guidebook identifies “Kai” as the one with the staff (in keeping with the manga version), “En” as the kid with the throwing discs, and “Ryo” as the young man with the claw attack.
  • For M1 and M2, despite not having met or spoke with Yusuke Urameshi at all (except for M3), but later, M1, M2 and M3 were part of the crowd in the audience cheering for Team Urameshi, was on Yusuke's side and watched Yusuke fight against Younger Toguro in the Dark Tournament's finals.

References[]

Advertisement