Mouri Shin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shounenphelps) wrote2010-09-29 04:03 pm
shounenphelps) wrote2010-09-29 04:03 pm
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Background for Mouri Shin
Background:
When Shin was still just a kid (before 10 years old), his father died from some sort of cancer, leaving just his mother (who has a weak heart and is often ill) and sister Sayoko (10 years senior), to live in Hagi (Yamaguchi prefecture) and try to continue on the family pottery business. At 15 (March of 1973) he read the "family (lineage) documents" that explained how his ancestor is Mori Motonari, a famous navy general, and thus why his family ascended to dukehood; he also learned about the family armor, Suiko / Torrent. This is probably why a family Rite of Passage is diving into the nearby Hagi Sea (a bay in the Sea of Japan) to see how deep the men can reach. (The remainder of this paragraph is vaguely fanon drawn from canon evidence) Shin is probably the first to reach the bottom in a long time because he finds the Armor Orb for Suiko / Torrent with the help of an orca friend, Suiki, and this signifies Shin as one of the destined Samurai Troopers. Shin must have played around with the Torrent armor for the few months before the show - the series begins sometime during Summer Break, mid-July through early September - because he's at least decent when wielding his primary weapon, the yari. A yari is like a trident but with a mancatcher end that Shin can, apparently, make open and close at will. The weapon is also sharp enough to slice through obstacles like pesky Nether Soldiers' armor. Granted, he was likely trained with the spear and bo-staff as a child along with basic martial arts, but the yari's pincers are not especially easy to work into combat flow. He also has a tanto dagger behind his right shoulder and claws on his right arm-guard, but he's never shown using them - probably because they're secondary weapons to his yari and he's never been disarmed with it, so he's never had to actually use the back-up weapons.
Growing up without a father and as the one expected to run the family business when he was of age, Shin was trained in many cultural practices his family thought would be beneficial to him in the future, but there were many things he picked up being the only man in the house as well. He is a notoriously good cook and this came from years of preparing meals while his sister and mother worked, same with knowing the ins and outs of cleaning a house, doing laundry, etc. On the traditional Japanese side, he was taught the art of the tea ceremony and flower arrangement. Sensing the incoming Westernization, his family made sure to have him study abroad in Britain and Ireland during summer breaks to learn English conversation, which Shin now enjoys, but he developed a British accent to his English speech as a result.
The entire first season of the YST/RW series is devoted to uniting the Troopers as a team against their nemesis, Arago and his band of 4 Masho (Warlords) -- Shuten-doji (the leader, Oni armor), Naaza (Doku/Poison armor), Rajura (Gen/Illusion armor), and Anubis (Yami/Darkness armor). In the very first episode, Shin meets the other four Troopers for the first time and they aren't capable of taking on one Warlord (Shuten) even in their fully armored forms. They bicker about who gets to do the fighting (even Shin!) and can't defend a pair of civilians from getting captured for awhile either (Yagyu Nasté, the daughter of a professor, and Yamano Jun, a young boy). As the five teenage boys foolishly rush for the front gates to Arago's castle, he only laughs and scatters them across Japan. So begins the team-building process for the Samurai Troopers.
All that's left is for Nasté and Jun to try to find Sanada Ryou of the Wildfire (Rekka) first, because he left one of his katana behind as well as his pet tiger, Byakuen. By following Byakuen's instincts, they discover Ryou sleeping in the nearby Mt. Fuji (since the story began in Shinjuku Prefecture of Tokyo and Mt. Fuji's only a few miles away, they took Nasté's Jeep, a "Samurai".) It's after they find Ryou and return to Nasté's grandfather (who ends up dying in front of them) that they realize they can find the other Troopers by decoding an ancient poem. First they find Date Seiji of Halo (Korin), then decide to split up -- Seiji and Nasté go look for Shuu Lei Fuan of Hardrock (Kongo) while Ryou and Jun look for Shin.
It probably wasn't the best idea to send the Fire-based Trooper (Ryou) after the Water-based one (Shin), but it was definitely smart on Arago's part to send the Poison-based Masho (Naaza) after them, trying to stop the Troopers from reuniting. Naaza beat Ryou and left him floating unconsciously in the Hagi Sea, but Naaza alerted all of the fish in the process plus Suiki the orca whale, the one that Shin had befriended as a child. All of that plus Ryou's swords circling around Shin (who was sleeping in a Bubble Shield at the bottom of the Hagi Sea in full armor) awoke Shin. His facemask lets him breathe underwater indefinitely and he'd been recovering his strength while he slept, so as soon as he realized what'd happened he let loose on Naaza -- instead of a normal "pillar", his Cho Ryu Ha pretty much looked like a mini typhoon.
Ryou and Nasté had agreed to meet up at a shrine in Kyoto after rescuing their respective Troopers. Ryou, Shin, Jun, and Byakuen arrived first, and there Rajura ambushed them. Rajura's goal wasn't to kill the Troopers - he was there to deliver a message. Hashiba Touma of the Heavens (Tenku) was being held by Rajura in Amanohashidate; this was actually a lie and a trap, but Ryou and Shin didn't know that. They left Jun and Byakuen behind to tell Seiji, Shuu, and Nasté where they went. When Ryou and Shin arrived, they were shocked to discover how easily the soldiers guarding Touma went down. "How did this happen? Touma of the Heavens captured by these wimps?" They saw the illusion fade, leaving Rajura in Touma's place, but it was too late; Rajura's trap was set. His illusion made Ryou and Shin think that the other person was Rajura, and thus fight each other. Ryou and Shin didn't realize what happened until they knocked each other out, and next thing the two of them knew they were waking up to Nasté and Jun's ministrations. Shin went to relax in the water nearby while Seiji regained consciousness -- he'd taken a beating from Shuu and chose not to fight back because he'd figured out the illusion, but knew that Shuu wouldn't have trusted the words of "Rajura." While Ryou's staring at the stars reflecting in the water, he gets the idea that maybe the "sky" where Touma was sent is actually space. A series of misadventures ensues where two numbskulls -- Ryou and Shuu -- go ahead with their own plan in spite of appeals to reason from Seiji, Shin, and Nasté. So Shin and co. arrived just in time to find a despondent Shuu alone with Byakuen, because Ryou ended up riding a Netherworld Fireball up to Touma. Arago intended to destroy Touma and Ryou with the Fireball, but Ryou took out the Fireball beforehand. The group back on earth gets a little visit from Arago as he laughs haughtily in their faces and sends a few foot soldiers their way, but they eventually see a shooting-star-like-thing fall from space and go to investigate. Lo and behold, it's Touma and Ryou, both conscious and a little worse for the wear, but alive even after fighting the Warlord Shuten again.
So with all of the Troopers together again, they decide it's time for Assault The Castle: Take Two. The problem is how to get there -- they need to get through a bunch of fog and even then they can't use the gates that the Warlords create, so after entering Shinjuku (Tokyo) yet again looking for a way in, they get split up by the Warlords in an attempt to defeat the Troopers individually. Kaosu the Ancient One eventually explains a few things that make the Troopers more than a little unnerved: all nine armors came from one source - Arago - and all have destructive potential (even Cye's). The Warlords are what happens when an armor-bearer strays from seeking his Virtue, because *gasp!* the Warlords are human too, just been indentured to Arago for a thousand years or so. Basically the Warlords became weak-minded and easily manipulated into just seeking out power. Kaosu tries to convert Shuten to the side of the Troopers, but the Warlords steal Shuten despite the Troopers efforts to stop them. In order to finally reach Arago's castle, the Troopers need a bridge, and Kaosu says he can provide one. He fails to mention he'll end up using all of his power and sacrificing himself to the cause to accomplish this. But the Troopers get to the castle, get split up again by the three uber-powered Warlords (Rajura, Naaza, and Anubis), and finally reunite on the rooftops of the castle.
Then more strangeness occurs. Arago summons the three warlords' armors back into himself and Shuten-doji awakens to his Virtue, rejecting Arago, but Shin never gets to see this (see below). Apparently each armor helps Arago rebuild his body, since all this time he's just been a floating disembodied spirit-head. Each of the Warlords' four armors grant him a limb to work with, and so these four limbs keep attacking the Troopers on the castle rooftops. One by one the Troopers fall to protect Ryou and keep him alive long enough to defeat Arago. Shin gets knocked down first because he uses his yari to get Ryou out of a giant armored hand's grip -- that makes the second time in a few hours Shin directly saved Ryou. The armored hand ends up grabbing Touma next and slamming his body down Shin's back repeatedly. Shuu tries to stop it, but Arago draws in Shin first, then Touma and Shuu. Eventually Seiji falls too, leaving Ryou alone. While Ryou's fighting, Shin and the others are apparently trapped inside Arago fighting to remain separate from him; so long as Arago doesn't have all of the armors, his spirit remains fractured. The four Troopers manage to stop Arago from moving a few times, but Arago pushes them down again and again. The final time the guys actually manage to speak to Ryou, trying to get him to destroy Arago while they held him still. Ryou refuses to destroy his friends along with Ryou, and this demoralizes the four guys so much that Arago regains control.
Unfortunately, Ryou finally gets sucked in too after that and he starts wondering if this isn't a good way to die anyway, alongside people who've become his friends, even if he did let them down. Kaosu then appears in spirit form and uses a bit of reverse psychology to set a fire under Ryou's butt. It's about how Kaosu shouldn't have expected the Troopers to take up his battle from a thousand years ago, showing Ryou how he split Arago's armor into nine parts, and how Kaosu imbued each piece of the armor with a human virtue to try to prevent Arago from ever utilizing that power again. (Nine = five Troopers plus four Warlords) It includes the phrases: "As long as there is hatred and bitterness in human hearts, maybe there was no way for me to win this battle... Forgive me, you five young lives. I had no right to sacrifice your lives." Ryou gets upset because he doesn't think it was a waste - yay the power of friendship! But Shin and the others are starting to resent Ryou for his decision not to fight, despite his "good intentions" and thinking of them when he made that decision. The re-ignited zeal in Ryou's spirit basically gets him spit back out of Arago. Ryou then summons his friends' spirits out of Arago's body and into his own. But what's this? A new armor appears! It's all shiny & white & powerful and Ryou's wearing it to channel all five armors at once and kick Arago's butt! The season ends without telling us how the heck that happened, or what happened to the Warlords, or anything else vaguely important, so on to season two.
Apparently defeating evil takes a lot out of you, because Season Two opens with Ryou laying in bed exhausted and the other guys basically taking it easy at Nasté's country home and waiting for Ryou to wake up; it's been a week or two, but still summer break for the guys -- kudos to them for time well spent. The boys aren't totally immune to intelligence it seems, because when Ryou asks why Shuu and Shin are training outside, the two explain that it's because they don't think the whole Netherworld went down just because Arago died. P.S. This "training" involves Shin doing some gymnastics and acrobatics on par with Trowa from Gundam Wing, and Shuu is apparently strong enough even without his sub-armor on to hold Shin above his head one-handed. They've become good friends while Ryou was asleep, apparently. The next few episodes involve "random" villains, but eventually they find out that these goons are actually all vying to take Arago's place.
The only really notable guy among them is Lord Saberstryke (Kenbukyou), who gets ~*~two~*~ whole episodes to himself. After fighting not just Arago but now these new guys as well, Ryou breaks the two katanas he normally fights with in his first fight against Saberstryke. Ryou gets more than a little depressed during this time while Nasté and the guys try to puzzle out what the White Armor is and how to get new swords for Ryou. Mr. Default Leader goes straight from having all the cool powers to being dead-weight and he really doesn't like it. Saberstryke's own pet tiger Kokuen-oh trashes Nasté's house during this time; Kokuen-oh (Black Blaze) looks exactly like Byakuen (White Blaze) except with grey fur and this really nifty white armor that includes two holsters for Lord Saberstryke's swords. Byakuen fights the other tiger off, but not before Ryou emos a bit more about how he's endangering everyone and can't even fight back. This is when we find out Byakuen is a little smarter than your average tiger. Byakuen goes out one day to confront Kokuen-oh tiger-to-tiger, and comes away with one of Lord Saberstryke's swords. This battle comes at the cost of Byakuen's life, and Ryou is pissed. When Ryo arrives to fight Saberstryke again in the White Armor of Inferno (Kikoutei), they each fight with one of the two swords - which is really not a good idea considering the swords are meant to fight together not against each other. The swords are the supposed to be tied to the Kikoutei armor, but Saberstryke got there first. They fight, and Ryo ends up in his sub-armor with both swords. Saberstryke collapses, dying, and tells Kokuen-oh that Ryo is his master now. It had been raining when Byakuen died, but then cleared up when Kokuen-oh proved he understood Saberstryke's words - by reviving Byakuen. Henceforth, whenever Ryo transformed into the Kikoutei armor, Byakuen would transform into Kokuen-oh's visage complete with the Soul Swords on his back. Ryo's pet tiger gets called "Byakuen-oh" from then on out.
The other troopers are happy that Ryo got this cool new armor, but decide they need to go make sense of some dreams Kaosu's been sending them to get stronger. You would think this is a good idea, but splitting up the party is never a good idea, and no sooner do Seiji, Shuu, and Shin get their new powers awakened do they get captured by each of their rival Warlords (yes, they survived the end of Season One) and taken to the Nether World on orders from Arago (yep, him too) to drain the energy out of them. Shin's was a pretty rude way to do it too - Naaza made a Torrent-look-alike out of his Poison powers and sent the clone out to fight Shin. The problem was that as powerful as Shin became in the water, so too did the poison-clone. This prompted a lesson from Kaosu about how the Suiko armor works and if Shin wants to tap into the powered-up version of his Cho Ryu Ha Surekill attack, then he'd have to pay attention. Kaosu told Shin he'd have to "give up the desire to win" and "see the flow in nature," i.e. don't fight the current, use it to propel you forward, the same way that fish swim. Shin eventually beat the clone, but when the clone was defeated his armor pieces dispersed in an explosion of poison. To stop the poison from infecting the marine life in the area, so much poison into himself to purify that he collapsed and was easy pickings for Naaza to drag home by the feet on his back (no, I am not making that image up).
Most of the rest of Season Two is pretty boring for Shin, because he's tied up in Arago's basement with Seiji and Shuu. The only reason Shin's around for the final battle is because Shuten-doji (by the way, he's a good guy now, working in the Ancient One's place to save Lady Kayura, the new villainness who's been tormenting Ryou & Touma without the others around) sacrifices himself to make Kayura wake up out of a trance that Arago's Head Priest Badamon put her under. Really, it's not confusing at all. She inherits Shuten's armor, and everyone else gets broken out of their little towers that Arago had locked them in - tied up, then locked away, starting to sound like a bad bedroom fic. So now the Warlords are mad that Arago used them and are fighting against him more than fighting with the Troopers, but it all works out in the end because with everyone beating up Arago there's only one thing left for Mr. Big Bad to do: go down to Shinjuku again and try to make the world go crazy so he can suck on their energies, thereby becoming powerful enough to defeat all nine armor-bearers. Ryou gets to transform into the Kikoutei armor again, but instead of beating Arago in a battle, he 'sends' the armor to Arago and makes him "accept my Virtue of Humanity." Basically, it looks like Ryou's white armor keeps superimposing itself on top of Arago's black armor and red face-mask. Meanwhile, Ryo's telling his friends to kill Arago now that Ryo has him immobilized. Because this totally isn't reminiscent of the end of the first season. The four boys end up cry-screaming and using all of their power to destroy Arago's armor. Just when Jun's freaking out, thinking Ryou's dead, the little charm that Shuten gave Jun activates. That little trinket - the Jewel of Life, a magatama bead on a necklace - is powerful enough to revive Ryou out of Arago. And the TV series ends with the former-bad-guys (Kayura and the three Warlords) going back to change the Netherworld to good, and the five Troopers plus Nasté, Jun, & Byakuen playing baseball with the freaking Jewel of Life.
Except there's 3 movies that come after this. In Gaiden, Seiji gets kidnapped and experimented on by a scientist in California with the help of some ancient being that came from the Nether World. They track him first to New York, where his empty armor Kourin was causing problems. Then the boys go to California to try to find and then save him, with a red-shirt girl named Luna tagging along and eventually dying. All of this traveling was financed by Shuu winning the lottery. As the Nether Being Shikaisen is defeated, his visage changes to that of Arago, but then he fades away again. I'm pretty sure Drama CDs involving the Warlords settle that problem once and for all. It's in this movie we also get to meet Shuu's lulz-tastic Uncle Chin in Little China, San Francisco and Shin shows off his late-80s/early-90s lack-of-fashion-sense.
Somewhere in here there's another Drama CD called Suikoden in which Shin has to go home for a little while when his mom got sick again and Shuu tags along because they're BFFs. Shin meets his sister's fiancé, they get on each other's nerves because Shin thinks the guy (Shizuka Ryuusuke) is forcing his sister to give up his dreams, and eventually challenged him to a diving contest (without the help of his armor). An oil tanker spilling over the Hagi Sea interrupts this (did I mention Cye and Captain Planet are BFFs too?) so Shin goes back looking for his armor orb, because he put it back at the bottom of Hagi Sea so he wouldn't be tempted to use it. Ryuusuke follows him for whatever reason and then sees an orca whale coming at Shin and throws himself between Shin and the whale. This changes how Shin thinks about Ryuusuke and they ride Suiki to the surface so Shin can take care of the oil spill. Ryuusuke then decides to marry into the family, so Shin doesn't have to worry as much while he's off at school and can become a marine biologist like he always wanted - YAY! (He's actually been staying in an apartment in Tokyo this whole time all by himself.) This little adventure ends with Seiji having to come pick them up because Shuu used up all of their money on food.
Then there's the second movie. It's summer break of the following year and Shin and Shuu are out surfing when a massive heat-wave breaks out. Apparently a guy named Mukala from Africa (dark skin, white hair, blue eyes, with Ryou's facial design, doesn't speak English or Japanese, so just don't ask) managed to find himself a Kuroi Kikoutei (Black Inferno) armor and runs around as if in sub-armor all the time, wielding this giant black boomerang. He brings with him a hallucinations of the African savanna and all of its creatures, fights with Troopers for awhile, tears up Shinjuku, and when he leaves it all goes back to normal. The problem is while all of that's going on, Shin and Shuu are late to the party, but when they get there Shin has a vision that hearkens back to what the boys learned in Season One - that their armors have the potential to be very destructive. Mukala wanted to fight against Kikoutei, but without Shin giving over his armor to help Ryo form it, that didn't happen, so Mukala took Ryou (and by accident Seiji as well) to Africa.
Naturally none of this goes over very well back at Nasté's house. Shin actually gets into a verbal fight with Touma, who tries to calm him down, and Shin punches him in return, telling him to shut up! Shuu gets in on this too and the boys tussle to the floor. (Turns out Shuu let Shin beat him up because Shuu knew how upset Shin was and needed to let things out, but not on Touma because Shuu could take it and Touma couldn't.) So Shin goes running out to the lake crying because he's so confused and actually casts his armor into the lake, vowing not to fight with it again, then goes to sulk by the lake for awhile until Byakuen comes to nudge him back to the lake. He eventually gets over this and water-portals out to Africa to help his buddies because fighting fire with fire really doesn't work in this case. Shin gets all smug because he revitalized their spirits, but then Byakuen does something weird by roaring. It feels like a big tug, but instead of his armor coming off, Shin gets tugged into Dirty Vegas! Woo!
When Shin was still just a kid (before 10 years old), his father died from some sort of cancer, leaving just his mother (who has a weak heart and is often ill) and sister Sayoko (10 years senior), to live in Hagi (Yamaguchi prefecture) and try to continue on the family pottery business. At 15 (March of 1973) he read the "family (lineage) documents" that explained how his ancestor is Mori Motonari, a famous navy general, and thus why his family ascended to dukehood; he also learned about the family armor, Suiko / Torrent. This is probably why a family Rite of Passage is diving into the nearby Hagi Sea (a bay in the Sea of Japan) to see how deep the men can reach. (The remainder of this paragraph is vaguely fanon drawn from canon evidence) Shin is probably the first to reach the bottom in a long time because he finds the Armor Orb for Suiko / Torrent with the help of an orca friend, Suiki, and this signifies Shin as one of the destined Samurai Troopers. Shin must have played around with the Torrent armor for the few months before the show - the series begins sometime during Summer Break, mid-July through early September - because he's at least decent when wielding his primary weapon, the yari. A yari is like a trident but with a mancatcher end that Shin can, apparently, make open and close at will. The weapon is also sharp enough to slice through obstacles like pesky Nether Soldiers' armor. Granted, he was likely trained with the spear and bo-staff as a child along with basic martial arts, but the yari's pincers are not especially easy to work into combat flow. He also has a tanto dagger behind his right shoulder and claws on his right arm-guard, but he's never shown using them - probably because they're secondary weapons to his yari and he's never been disarmed with it, so he's never had to actually use the back-up weapons.
Growing up without a father and as the one expected to run the family business when he was of age, Shin was trained in many cultural practices his family thought would be beneficial to him in the future, but there were many things he picked up being the only man in the house as well. He is a notoriously good cook and this came from years of preparing meals while his sister and mother worked, same with knowing the ins and outs of cleaning a house, doing laundry, etc. On the traditional Japanese side, he was taught the art of the tea ceremony and flower arrangement. Sensing the incoming Westernization, his family made sure to have him study abroad in Britain and Ireland during summer breaks to learn English conversation, which Shin now enjoys, but he developed a British accent to his English speech as a result.
The entire first season of the YST/RW series is devoted to uniting the Troopers as a team against their nemesis, Arago and his band of 4 Masho (Warlords) -- Shuten-doji (the leader, Oni armor), Naaza (Doku/Poison armor), Rajura (Gen/Illusion armor), and Anubis (Yami/Darkness armor). In the very first episode, Shin meets the other four Troopers for the first time and they aren't capable of taking on one Warlord (Shuten) even in their fully armored forms. They bicker about who gets to do the fighting (even Shin!) and can't defend a pair of civilians from getting captured for awhile either (Yagyu Nasté, the daughter of a professor, and Yamano Jun, a young boy). As the five teenage boys foolishly rush for the front gates to Arago's castle, he only laughs and scatters them across Japan. So begins the team-building process for the Samurai Troopers.
All that's left is for Nasté and Jun to try to find Sanada Ryou of the Wildfire (Rekka) first, because he left one of his katana behind as well as his pet tiger, Byakuen. By following Byakuen's instincts, they discover Ryou sleeping in the nearby Mt. Fuji (since the story began in Shinjuku Prefecture of Tokyo and Mt. Fuji's only a few miles away, they took Nasté's Jeep, a "Samurai".) It's after they find Ryou and return to Nasté's grandfather (who ends up dying in front of them) that they realize they can find the other Troopers by decoding an ancient poem. First they find Date Seiji of Halo (Korin), then decide to split up -- Seiji and Nasté go look for Shuu Lei Fuan of Hardrock (Kongo) while Ryou and Jun look for Shin.
It probably wasn't the best idea to send the Fire-based Trooper (Ryou) after the Water-based one (Shin), but it was definitely smart on Arago's part to send the Poison-based Masho (Naaza) after them, trying to stop the Troopers from reuniting. Naaza beat Ryou and left him floating unconsciously in the Hagi Sea, but Naaza alerted all of the fish in the process plus Suiki the orca whale, the one that Shin had befriended as a child. All of that plus Ryou's swords circling around Shin (who was sleeping in a Bubble Shield at the bottom of the Hagi Sea in full armor) awoke Shin. His facemask lets him breathe underwater indefinitely and he'd been recovering his strength while he slept, so as soon as he realized what'd happened he let loose on Naaza -- instead of a normal "pillar", his Cho Ryu Ha pretty much looked like a mini typhoon.
Ryou and Nasté had agreed to meet up at a shrine in Kyoto after rescuing their respective Troopers. Ryou, Shin, Jun, and Byakuen arrived first, and there Rajura ambushed them. Rajura's goal wasn't to kill the Troopers - he was there to deliver a message. Hashiba Touma of the Heavens (Tenku) was being held by Rajura in Amanohashidate; this was actually a lie and a trap, but Ryou and Shin didn't know that. They left Jun and Byakuen behind to tell Seiji, Shuu, and Nasté where they went. When Ryou and Shin arrived, they were shocked to discover how easily the soldiers guarding Touma went down. "How did this happen? Touma of the Heavens captured by these wimps?" They saw the illusion fade, leaving Rajura in Touma's place, but it was too late; Rajura's trap was set. His illusion made Ryou and Shin think that the other person was Rajura, and thus fight each other. Ryou and Shin didn't realize what happened until they knocked each other out, and next thing the two of them knew they were waking up to Nasté and Jun's ministrations. Shin went to relax in the water nearby while Seiji regained consciousness -- he'd taken a beating from Shuu and chose not to fight back because he'd figured out the illusion, but knew that Shuu wouldn't have trusted the words of "Rajura." While Ryou's staring at the stars reflecting in the water, he gets the idea that maybe the "sky" where Touma was sent is actually space. A series of misadventures ensues where two numbskulls -- Ryou and Shuu -- go ahead with their own plan in spite of appeals to reason from Seiji, Shin, and Nasté. So Shin and co. arrived just in time to find a despondent Shuu alone with Byakuen, because Ryou ended up riding a Netherworld Fireball up to Touma. Arago intended to destroy Touma and Ryou with the Fireball, but Ryou took out the Fireball beforehand. The group back on earth gets a little visit from Arago as he laughs haughtily in their faces and sends a few foot soldiers their way, but they eventually see a shooting-star-like-thing fall from space and go to investigate. Lo and behold, it's Touma and Ryou, both conscious and a little worse for the wear, but alive even after fighting the Warlord Shuten again.
So with all of the Troopers together again, they decide it's time for Assault The Castle: Take Two. The problem is how to get there -- they need to get through a bunch of fog and even then they can't use the gates that the Warlords create, so after entering Shinjuku (Tokyo) yet again looking for a way in, they get split up by the Warlords in an attempt to defeat the Troopers individually. Kaosu the Ancient One eventually explains a few things that make the Troopers more than a little unnerved: all nine armors came from one source - Arago - and all have destructive potential (even Cye's). The Warlords are what happens when an armor-bearer strays from seeking his Virtue, because *gasp!* the Warlords are human too, just been indentured to Arago for a thousand years or so. Basically the Warlords became weak-minded and easily manipulated into just seeking out power. Kaosu tries to convert Shuten to the side of the Troopers, but the Warlords steal Shuten despite the Troopers efforts to stop them. In order to finally reach Arago's castle, the Troopers need a bridge, and Kaosu says he can provide one. He fails to mention he'll end up using all of his power and sacrificing himself to the cause to accomplish this. But the Troopers get to the castle, get split up again by the three uber-powered Warlords (Rajura, Naaza, and Anubis), and finally reunite on the rooftops of the castle.
Then more strangeness occurs. Arago summons the three warlords' armors back into himself and Shuten-doji awakens to his Virtue, rejecting Arago, but Shin never gets to see this (see below). Apparently each armor helps Arago rebuild his body, since all this time he's just been a floating disembodied spirit-head. Each of the Warlords' four armors grant him a limb to work with, and so these four limbs keep attacking the Troopers on the castle rooftops. One by one the Troopers fall to protect Ryou and keep him alive long enough to defeat Arago. Shin gets knocked down first because he uses his yari to get Ryou out of a giant armored hand's grip -- that makes the second time in a few hours Shin directly saved Ryou. The armored hand ends up grabbing Touma next and slamming his body down Shin's back repeatedly. Shuu tries to stop it, but Arago draws in Shin first, then Touma and Shuu. Eventually Seiji falls too, leaving Ryou alone. While Ryou's fighting, Shin and the others are apparently trapped inside Arago fighting to remain separate from him; so long as Arago doesn't have all of the armors, his spirit remains fractured. The four Troopers manage to stop Arago from moving a few times, but Arago pushes them down again and again. The final time the guys actually manage to speak to Ryou, trying to get him to destroy Arago while they held him still. Ryou refuses to destroy his friends along with Ryou, and this demoralizes the four guys so much that Arago regains control.
Unfortunately, Ryou finally gets sucked in too after that and he starts wondering if this isn't a good way to die anyway, alongside people who've become his friends, even if he did let them down. Kaosu then appears in spirit form and uses a bit of reverse psychology to set a fire under Ryou's butt. It's about how Kaosu shouldn't have expected the Troopers to take up his battle from a thousand years ago, showing Ryou how he split Arago's armor into nine parts, and how Kaosu imbued each piece of the armor with a human virtue to try to prevent Arago from ever utilizing that power again. (Nine = five Troopers plus four Warlords) It includes the phrases: "As long as there is hatred and bitterness in human hearts, maybe there was no way for me to win this battle... Forgive me, you five young lives. I had no right to sacrifice your lives." Ryou gets upset because he doesn't think it was a waste - yay the power of friendship! But Shin and the others are starting to resent Ryou for his decision not to fight, despite his "good intentions" and thinking of them when he made that decision. The re-ignited zeal in Ryou's spirit basically gets him spit back out of Arago. Ryou then summons his friends' spirits out of Arago's body and into his own. But what's this? A new armor appears! It's all shiny & white & powerful and Ryou's wearing it to channel all five armors at once and kick Arago's butt! The season ends without telling us how the heck that happened, or what happened to the Warlords, or anything else vaguely important, so on to season two.
Apparently defeating evil takes a lot out of you, because Season Two opens with Ryou laying in bed exhausted and the other guys basically taking it easy at Nasté's country home and waiting for Ryou to wake up; it's been a week or two, but still summer break for the guys -- kudos to them for time well spent. The boys aren't totally immune to intelligence it seems, because when Ryou asks why Shuu and Shin are training outside, the two explain that it's because they don't think the whole Netherworld went down just because Arago died. P.S. This "training" involves Shin doing some gymnastics and acrobatics on par with Trowa from Gundam Wing, and Shuu is apparently strong enough even without his sub-armor on to hold Shin above his head one-handed. They've become good friends while Ryou was asleep, apparently. The next few episodes involve "random" villains, but eventually they find out that these goons are actually all vying to take Arago's place.
The only really notable guy among them is Lord Saberstryke (Kenbukyou), who gets ~*~two~*~ whole episodes to himself. After fighting not just Arago but now these new guys as well, Ryou breaks the two katanas he normally fights with in his first fight against Saberstryke. Ryou gets more than a little depressed during this time while Nasté and the guys try to puzzle out what the White Armor is and how to get new swords for Ryou. Mr. Default Leader goes straight from having all the cool powers to being dead-weight and he really doesn't like it. Saberstryke's own pet tiger Kokuen-oh trashes Nasté's house during this time; Kokuen-oh (Black Blaze) looks exactly like Byakuen (White Blaze) except with grey fur and this really nifty white armor that includes two holsters for Lord Saberstryke's swords. Byakuen fights the other tiger off, but not before Ryou emos a bit more about how he's endangering everyone and can't even fight back. This is when we find out Byakuen is a little smarter than your average tiger. Byakuen goes out one day to confront Kokuen-oh tiger-to-tiger, and comes away with one of Lord Saberstryke's swords. This battle comes at the cost of Byakuen's life, and Ryou is pissed. When Ryo arrives to fight Saberstryke again in the White Armor of Inferno (Kikoutei), they each fight with one of the two swords - which is really not a good idea considering the swords are meant to fight together not against each other. The swords are the supposed to be tied to the Kikoutei armor, but Saberstryke got there first. They fight, and Ryo ends up in his sub-armor with both swords. Saberstryke collapses, dying, and tells Kokuen-oh that Ryo is his master now. It had been raining when Byakuen died, but then cleared up when Kokuen-oh proved he understood Saberstryke's words - by reviving Byakuen. Henceforth, whenever Ryo transformed into the Kikoutei armor, Byakuen would transform into Kokuen-oh's visage complete with the Soul Swords on his back. Ryo's pet tiger gets called "Byakuen-oh" from then on out.
The other troopers are happy that Ryo got this cool new armor, but decide they need to go make sense of some dreams Kaosu's been sending them to get stronger. You would think this is a good idea, but splitting up the party is never a good idea, and no sooner do Seiji, Shuu, and Shin get their new powers awakened do they get captured by each of their rival Warlords (yes, they survived the end of Season One) and taken to the Nether World on orders from Arago (yep, him too) to drain the energy out of them. Shin's was a pretty rude way to do it too - Naaza made a Torrent-look-alike out of his Poison powers and sent the clone out to fight Shin. The problem was that as powerful as Shin became in the water, so too did the poison-clone. This prompted a lesson from Kaosu about how the Suiko armor works and if Shin wants to tap into the powered-up version of his Cho Ryu Ha Surekill attack, then he'd have to pay attention. Kaosu told Shin he'd have to "give up the desire to win" and "see the flow in nature," i.e. don't fight the current, use it to propel you forward, the same way that fish swim. Shin eventually beat the clone, but when the clone was defeated his armor pieces dispersed in an explosion of poison. To stop the poison from infecting the marine life in the area, so much poison into himself to purify that he collapsed and was easy pickings for Naaza to drag home by the feet on his back (no, I am not making that image up).
Most of the rest of Season Two is pretty boring for Shin, because he's tied up in Arago's basement with Seiji and Shuu. The only reason Shin's around for the final battle is because Shuten-doji (by the way, he's a good guy now, working in the Ancient One's place to save Lady Kayura, the new villainness who's been tormenting Ryou & Touma without the others around) sacrifices himself to make Kayura wake up out of a trance that Arago's Head Priest Badamon put her under. Really, it's not confusing at all. She inherits Shuten's armor, and everyone else gets broken out of their little towers that Arago had locked them in - tied up, then locked away, starting to sound like a bad bedroom fic. So now the Warlords are mad that Arago used them and are fighting against him more than fighting with the Troopers, but it all works out in the end because with everyone beating up Arago there's only one thing left for Mr. Big Bad to do: go down to Shinjuku again and try to make the world go crazy so he can suck on their energies, thereby becoming powerful enough to defeat all nine armor-bearers. Ryou gets to transform into the Kikoutei armor again, but instead of beating Arago in a battle, he 'sends' the armor to Arago and makes him "accept my Virtue of Humanity." Basically, it looks like Ryou's white armor keeps superimposing itself on top of Arago's black armor and red face-mask. Meanwhile, Ryo's telling his friends to kill Arago now that Ryo has him immobilized. Because this totally isn't reminiscent of the end of the first season. The four boys end up cry-screaming and using all of their power to destroy Arago's armor. Just when Jun's freaking out, thinking Ryou's dead, the little charm that Shuten gave Jun activates. That little trinket - the Jewel of Life, a magatama bead on a necklace - is powerful enough to revive Ryou out of Arago. And the TV series ends with the former-bad-guys (Kayura and the three Warlords) going back to change the Netherworld to good, and the five Troopers plus Nasté, Jun, & Byakuen playing baseball with the freaking Jewel of Life.
Except there's 3 movies that come after this. In Gaiden, Seiji gets kidnapped and experimented on by a scientist in California with the help of some ancient being that came from the Nether World. They track him first to New York, where his empty armor Kourin was causing problems. Then the boys go to California to try to find and then save him, with a red-shirt girl named Luna tagging along and eventually dying. All of this traveling was financed by Shuu winning the lottery. As the Nether Being Shikaisen is defeated, his visage changes to that of Arago, but then he fades away again. I'm pretty sure Drama CDs involving the Warlords settle that problem once and for all. It's in this movie we also get to meet Shuu's lulz-tastic Uncle Chin in Little China, San Francisco and Shin shows off his late-80s/early-90s lack-of-fashion-sense.
Somewhere in here there's another Drama CD called Suikoden in which Shin has to go home for a little while when his mom got sick again and Shuu tags along because they're BFFs. Shin meets his sister's fiancé, they get on each other's nerves because Shin thinks the guy (Shizuka Ryuusuke) is forcing his sister to give up his dreams, and eventually challenged him to a diving contest (without the help of his armor). An oil tanker spilling over the Hagi Sea interrupts this (did I mention Cye and Captain Planet are BFFs too?) so Shin goes back looking for his armor orb, because he put it back at the bottom of Hagi Sea so he wouldn't be tempted to use it. Ryuusuke follows him for whatever reason and then sees an orca whale coming at Shin and throws himself between Shin and the whale. This changes how Shin thinks about Ryuusuke and they ride Suiki to the surface so Shin can take care of the oil spill. Ryuusuke then decides to marry into the family, so Shin doesn't have to worry as much while he's off at school and can become a marine biologist like he always wanted - YAY! (He's actually been staying in an apartment in Tokyo this whole time all by himself.) This little adventure ends with Seiji having to come pick them up because Shuu used up all of their money on food.
Then there's the second movie. It's summer break of the following year and Shin and Shuu are out surfing when a massive heat-wave breaks out. Apparently a guy named Mukala from Africa (dark skin, white hair, blue eyes, with Ryou's facial design, doesn't speak English or Japanese, so just don't ask) managed to find himself a Kuroi Kikoutei (Black Inferno) armor and runs around as if in sub-armor all the time, wielding this giant black boomerang. He brings with him a hallucinations of the African savanna and all of its creatures, fights with Troopers for awhile, tears up Shinjuku, and when he leaves it all goes back to normal. The problem is while all of that's going on, Shin and Shuu are late to the party, but when they get there Shin has a vision that hearkens back to what the boys learned in Season One - that their armors have the potential to be very destructive. Mukala wanted to fight against Kikoutei, but without Shin giving over his armor to help Ryo form it, that didn't happen, so Mukala took Ryou (and by accident Seiji as well) to Africa.
Naturally none of this goes over very well back at Nasté's house. Shin actually gets into a verbal fight with Touma, who tries to calm him down, and Shin punches him in return, telling him to shut up! Shuu gets in on this too and the boys tussle to the floor. (Turns out Shuu let Shin beat him up because Shuu knew how upset Shin was and needed to let things out, but not on Touma because Shuu could take it and Touma couldn't.) So Shin goes running out to the lake crying because he's so confused and actually casts his armor into the lake, vowing not to fight with it again, then goes to sulk by the lake for awhile until Byakuen comes to nudge him back to the lake. He eventually gets over this and water-portals out to Africa to help his buddies because fighting fire with fire really doesn't work in this case. Shin gets all smug because he revitalized their spirits, but then Byakuen does something weird by roaring. It feels like a big tug, but instead of his armor coming off, Shin gets tugged into Dirty Vegas! Woo!