[hider=Yamashita ‘Kenji’]

[b]Name:[/b] 山下 堅志 Yamashita ‘Kenji’, Previously known by the name ‘Hogosha’ (保護者)
[b]Age:[/b] 104, biological ~30
[b]Gender:[/b] Male
[b]Height:[/b] 5’4”
[b]Weight:[/b] ~120

[b]Powers:[/b] ‘Kenji’ has extremely potent regenerative capabilities through a constant and rapid generation of stem cells, in addition to a hyperactive immune system. These stem cells have kept his general cellular deterioration from proceeding by revitalizing themselves in a way not possible for specialized cells.

[b]Personality:[/b] A great deal can happen over a century of life, one of the reasons that today Kenji is particularly cautious. He does have a complicated moral system, no drugs are allowed but then he facilitates human trafficking. He views this as morality tempered by pragmatism although his morals have been corrupted to a degree by his long criminal career. Instead of seeking to change the broader society he seeks to control and defend an ideal one of his own, something that feeds into the fief-like view of the Yakuza. He views following dubious practices as a means to an end of protection of his community from those who would harm it, or even as mere funding for the necessary protection. Kenji believes in and acts upon the belief of a ‘Chivalrous Organization’ that this is his fief and he must protect it.

Kenji also cares deeply about his biological and criminal family, although what name they go under may vary given the various wives he has had and they adopted their name from biologically that is. Generally, most of his biological sons and grandsons cannot be found among his organization or associated with it, a few exceptions apply to those who did enter his criminal world to begin with and have continued. Daughters traditionally are not treated well in ‘Chivalrous Organizations’ but generally he has either helped them get established on their own or associated with the organization through jobs in or managing various fronts.

Over the years Kenji has come close to death a number of times, personally and of those he cares for, this has led him to be more accepting of its inevitability as he attempts to both be and establish permanently the protection of his community.

[b]Hobbies:[/b] Kenji has found interest in mostly reading about various topics, history, philosophy, various sciences, all things that interest him to a degree, if there is one thing that can be said to be a full hobby, reading is the closest. Generally, Kenji has done a lot of different activities over time and pursued them to varying extents but never really settling on any one hobby or group of hobbies.

He has sketched and painted, but also done some minor model railways. He has played golf and written traditional poetry. Chess and cooking. Composition and crochet. He has tried many things and got back into them over the years, but hasn’t ever consistently stayed and done anything for the entire time excepting reading and perhaps some physical and martial training over the years.

[b]Musical Tastes:[/b] Kenji has been around for a long time, and over such time has had his various tastes waver some but for the most part, he has stayed locked on nothing. He has lived most of his life in America so it is not too surprising that he has mostly adopted the culture and mostly has listened to music that was around him being greatly happy with the independent music scene here in Esperanza. Over the years he has had flicking interests in the various music scenes that swept through nothing has really stuck with him through the years.

[b]Appearance:[/b] Odd in the time and place he was born but not so much in the current day, Kenji is actually only half-Japanese on his mother’s side, the other half is from his father, an unknown Caucasian man. Resultantly he has black hair, cut short and his eye color is a common very dark brown however his ancestry is noticeable, primarily by those who care for such, in his face and skin tone.

He is rather short to most people today, although he is also fairly muscular, giving him an appearance related to one of an athlete. Noticeably he has no scars or other deformities of experience which can cause a number to mistake him for being younger at first glance. As he appears to be somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties physically. As occasion demands, he puts on makeup or other such disguising means and such to give himself a more or less youthful appearance. Something that is helped by his lack of height in many cases of appearance in age or youth. Generally, he wears what the situation demands although a suit is the most common appearance to find him in today as he goes out little and when he does you may find him adopting the appearance of Hogosha. That is at least today a full-head helmet and body protection decorated as the situation demands.

[b]Strengths and Weaknesses:[/b] As for strengths Kenji has a broad depth and width of experience due to his unique circumstances. Having both lived for longer than the vast majority of people and having a good physical condition in addition to his powers makes him a fairly terrifying opponent to face, especially if you threaten his community. Additionally given his experience in crime and the city, one would be hard-pressed to find a more competent organizer of criminal, or sub-legal activities.

As for weaknesses, he is focused on protecting his family and community which can lead him to make less than rational decisions, especially when it comes to what he views as general assaults on his community. Additionally, he can be overly cautious, not taking opportunities that many others would take just because of the risk, even if relatively low. As well he does not like to risk others much which can both lead to him putting himself in danger and his reluctance to do the same for others close to him without a great necessity. Could be seen as a virtue but is often a problem for the safety of his organization as a whole.

[b]Bio:[/b] Born to parents he never really knew and generally outcasted as burakumin, ‘Kenji’ was effectively raised by various gang members in the early days, in Japan. He grew up under their guidance, mostly as he was part of the outcasted group little else was open to him that was not worse. For the most part, Kenji felt he was lucky, he had a kind of family in the gangs and they helped him move to America when he was seventeen to start a new life.

In some ways, it was better and some ways it was worse. He was no longer discriminated against because he was burakumin, but instead because he was Japanese. He once again joined gangs, however, this time he found his way into the weak mainland Yakuza rather than petty crime. This continued for several years, from when he landed in ‘31 to internment in ‘42 at the Los Padres Relocation Camp during the second world war. It was during this time that he was subjected to a new treatment; Controlled Radiative Therapy or CRT.

He gained powers, extremely rapid regeneration and a hyperactive immune system, one without the other would have left him dead. At times his own immune system can target are attack portions of his own body, however, he has no issue because of rate that he can regenerate the damaged tissues. Without the immune system, he would also quickly die of cancer given the extreme rate regeneration. Particularly his generation of new stem cells in his body prevent the degeneration of it.

He survived the experiments, the camp wasn’t interested in cruelty not necessary for the science, and made contact with others who survived as well. When Los Padres was closed in ‘46 he stayed in contact them and with the times being what they were, formed a team, the name varied greatly over time, to protect the Japanese-American population in Esperanza and others unduly threatened despite their race or creed. Particularly ‘Kenji’ maintained contacts with the local Yakuza and with that assistance he and his team fought against any they viewed as threatening that population, needless to say, this brought some attention.

Although tracked by the FBI for a few years before they came under serious threat in ‘48 when they attracted the attention of the domestic Superhero Agent Gold and ‘sidekick’ the Cadet. Agent Gold was known for his abilities as stronger and faster than the average man, attributed to a significantly higher than average metabolic rate. While the Cadet was long suspected to be an actor and PR piece rather than any actual agent due to his youth and ability to turn invisible often coming in whenever a fight happened.

They ran and were hunted by the FBI and Agent Gold, although he again served the FBI as an investigator and field agent, until the summer of ‘51 when a raid of the team’s base led to an accidental explosion from a gas leak. There was the subsequent deaths of most the team, many FBI officers and the wounding of Agent Gold. Hogosha survived as did a few others of the team, they fled and disbanded.

Although they had adopted ‘superhero’ names, Hogosha meaning ‘Protector’ or ‘Guardian’ for example, they were unable to accomplish many super feats, they lacked funding and often means to accomplish what they tried. Even assistance was uncommon due to the lack of trust is most of the public they had even tried to protect, common during the time to name Hogosha ‘the Salamander’ as a tactic to delegitimize him in public eyes. This was especially prevalent in the newspapers, although in truth it was used in every manner of media, radio, commercials, any sort of news. Even the comic books of the time which took Agent Gold and the Cadet as the heroes against ‘the Salamander’ and ‘his’ team, often resorting to racist stereotypes given the ethnic makeup of the ‘bad guys’.

With their disbandment the team retired, Hogosha however retired to the Yakuza. Determined to get the funding and the means to protect his community he let Hogosha die after a few years of using the reputation build an organization through the ‘50s, he would bring back his family name. Yamashita, with the given name varying, was now who he was, a staged death and a few bribed officials later, the first Hogosha died.

He did grow the Yakuza in the mainland significantly over the ‘50s however in ‘59 a power struggle between his own Yamashita Yamaguchi-Gumi aligned clan and various other clans broke out after Federal Pressure significantly decreased with the ‘death’ of Hogosha. It would spring back and forth until a gradual victory for the Yamashita in the latter half of the ‘60s.

He would control and consolidate power in the ‘70s maintaining control to this day, although he has had minor issues on his confrontations with drugs he generally has made a successful system of crime at least until recently. The Triads have grown from a nuisance with slightly overlapping territory to a full threat to the existence of Clan Yamashita, while his Yakuza has been decreasing their human trafficking the Triads have seemed to exploded it beyond any normal measure. Here Hogosha returned, supposedly as a figure inspired by the first and has disappeared and reappeared in numerous forms, indeed actual copycats helped in this tremendously. Fairly recently power has transferred to the ‘new’ leader of the Yamashita clan, ‘Kenji’ although as with Hogosha, the name conceals the same leader.

This ‘new’ Hogosha was not some radical departure from the Yakuza rather it was a persona used to further aims that either the Yakuza couldn’t accomplish or shouldn’t try because of the reputation they needed to uphold. Indeed in the ‘90s he read the graphic novel that came out about the original Hogosha, it depicted him as a tragic figure and included criticisms of the FBI. He is somewhat happier to know that some things do change, even if they couldn’t get everything right as he say them.

[b]Occupation:[/b] Although he has worked under many different names before, indeed faking his death several times, ‘Kenji’ has always been in charge of the Yakuza clan Yamashita. Only having been successful in America having immigrated early in the Thirties. Although what exactly that entails has varied greatly over time, extortion to kidnapping is generally a normal range of operations, although ‘Kenji’ has always kept with the Yamaguchi-Gumi line of no drug dealing.

[b]Other:[/b]
[/hider]