OOC INFORMATION Player: Rift Age: 26 Personal Journal:siscons Contact Info:sistercomplex Other Characters: None
IC INFORMATION Characters Name: Hitoyoshi Zenkichi Age: 16 Canon: Medaka Box Canon Point: After the Successor Arc Species: Human Gender: Male Orientation: Heterosexual. Throughout the series, Zenkichi really only shows interest in female characters, one in particular. By the end of the series they both propose to marry each other, basically accepting one another's proposals by default. He never really shows much interest in romantic relationships outside of that one character.
Ever since he was young, Hitoyoshi's life has been devoted to that of his childhood friend, Medaka Kurokami. The two met at a very young while Hitoyoshi was playing in the waiting area of his mother's workplace, a hospital. By chance, Medaka, who was at that hospital being studied for her special abilities, encountered a two year old Hitoyoshi and began to show off. Even at that age, Medaka was more gifted than most people in the world, leaving her feeling nihilistic and without purpose. Filled with childish awe, Hitoyoshi proclaimed that Medaka had been bestowed with her wondrous talent at all things in order to make other people happy. While at the time this was nothing more than the proclamation of a toddler, it would have a profound effect on Medaka and alter her world view drastically.
Throughout their lives the two were basically inseparable, with Hitoyoshi taking it upon himself to be Medaka's constant companion. His role was to do the things she couldn't because of her own blessed abilities and outlook on life, meaning he would often take a darker or less noble path in order to protect her. To a large extent his efforts may have been unnecessary, but this was more or less how he defined himself. After an event during their junior high school years that left Medaka traumatized, Hitoyoshi swore that he would protect her and prevent anything like that from happening again.
Of course, the inherent contradiction in his belief was that Medaka would always be better than him at nearly everything. He would have to work tirelessly at all things in order to simply stand at her side, compensating for his own lack of talent or exceptional abilities merely through effort. Somewhere along the way his personality became slightly more jaded and cynical, as he needed to counterbalance Medaka. While Medaka always believed the best in others and trusted them to a fault, Hitoyoshi took it upon himself to be more suspicious and prudent. He often acts as if he's troubled by having to accompany Medaka in her various exploits, but it's always quite clear that that's exactly where he wants to be. As he will often say in any situation, regardless of the consequences, "Medaka is right." His unerring belief in her righteousness and moral correctness enables him to follow her no matter what she does. When Medaka becomes Student Council President of their high school, he ends up being the only other member of her student council for a while... until eventually the other positions are filled as well.
While for all intents and purposes a "Normal" within the confines of Medaka Box's story, he perhaps shows just how much a Normal is capable of doing. Characters in Medaka Box are characterized as Normals, Specials, and Abnormals, a psuedo-ranking of a character's abilities. Normals are just as they sound, those who aren't particularly exceptional in any way. Specials go beyond that, usually standing above others and having abilities greater than those of normal people. Abnormals, on the other hand, are truly one of a kind talents that go beyond the capabilities of human beings. They each possess enormous talent and special skills, more or less making them superhuman. While Medaka is the epitome of an Abnormal, Hitoyoshi remains a Normal (well... mostly). He develops a wide range of skills and abilities, but nothing beyond normal human abilities. Despite that, he must often oppose Specials and Abnormals in order to protect Medaka, a task that slowly becomes more than he can handle. In one particularly climactic battle, he literally gives his life in order to protect Medaka, gladly accepting death if that means he can also take Medaka's greatest foe with him.
Of course, death in Medaka Box is more a temporary state of being than a permanent one, and he is return to life not long after. However, upon being revived, he is granted a new special ability, an Abnormality, by another character, and slowly begins to develop this new skill. From this point onward he begins to truly feel his own constraints and limits, culminating in him feeling that he can never truly be Medaka's equal because of his own normalcy. Conflicted by his competing desires to stay by her side and to catch up with her, he finds himself facing an impossible choice: the only way that he can make Medaka truly see him as an equal is to oppose and defeat her.
It is also around this time that he comes to the (somewhat obvious) realization that he is in love with Medaka. Feeling that his love can never be reciprocated if he does not change the status quo, he finally proclaims that "Medaka is wrong." With those words Medaka realizes that he's turned his fangs upon her, and gladly accepts him as an enemy. Strangely, despite opposing one another, the two still remain rather cordial and friendly, with little changing in the dynamic between the two. Hitoyoshi struggles with deciding just how he can defeat Medaka, in a truly meaningful way. He recognizes that in most stories, the obvious solution would be to defeat her in a fight, but what would that prove? He finally comes to realize there is only one way to truly defeat Medaka: to beat her at what she cares about most. He decides to run against her to become the next Student Council President.
Although he never really believes he can succeed, he nonetheless decides to give it all that he can. He comes to realize that the words he told to Medaka as a child have actually become a burden that she's had to bear since then, to a fault. Instead of living for herself, Medaka has always, unfailingly, lived to make other people happy. By taking the Student Council President spot, Zenkichi believes that he'll be able to show Medaka that her way of living is incorrect. That she must also live for her own happiness, rather than devoting her entire being to others. Through this belief, Zenkichi also manages to convince the rest of the student body that they've relied too much on Medaka, and they elect Zenkichi as the 100th Student Council President in order to relieve Medaka of that burden.
Throughout the series, Zenkichi is always characterized as incredibly stubborn and determined. He possesses a fairly high level of insight when viewing situations and other people, prioritizing his friendships and relationships with others. His growth throughout the series is coming to realize his own feelings and motivations, something that he often overlooked. Because Medaka always worried more about other people than herself, Zenkichi worried more about Medaka than anyone else. They both come to realize that their views are somewhat warped as a result; while they undeniably remain incredibly important to one another, they also begin to distance themselves from each other more. While Zenkichi begins to story as a somewhat mundane viewpoint character, he slowly rises from being a "Normal" to something else entirely, managing to surpass a character that, for all intents and purposes, could never be beaten at anything. The narrative itself acknowledges that his ambition is to become the Main Character of the story, something he actually manages to achieve (however briefly).
Abilities:
Throughout most of the series, Zenkichi is considered to be mostly normal, although he does demonstrate extremely high physical prowess. After training himself extensively in order to keep up with the people around him, he becomes very skilled at various martial arts. His specialty is the French combat style Savate, a defensive style that mostly focuses on disarming his opponents. He's also demonstrated at least passing knowledge of other forms of combat, particularly judo and boxing. His physical strength is high enough that when he stomps one of his feet on the ground hard enough, it's sufficient to create a small earthquake (okay so that doesn't sound normal at all, but within the confines of this story it apparently is).
Later in the story Zenkichi develops special abilities (which kind of undermines his entire character, but I digress). After coming back from being blind and dying, he's granted "Parasite Seeing" - in essence, to restore his sight, he's given a vision based ability from another character. Parasite Seeing allows Zenkichi to perceive things from another person's viewpoint; in other words he can see through another person's eyes. In combat, this allows him to basically always predict another person's movements, since he can see what they're looking at and where they're aiming. Using Parasite Seeing causes his eyes to turn red and glow.
His other main skill is called Devil Style, any ability that he chose and developed himself. Devil Style is a skill that negates any element of chance or luck - in other words, it is intended to make hard work and ability the only determining factor in a battle. A subversion of most story tropes in shounen stories (and intended to be), it basically serves to make accidents and coincidences that allow a main character to defeat a superior opponent from ever occuring. It also has the effect of basically preventing luck based circumstances that occur in most stories, such as fortunate and accidental encounters.
Later on in the story, after being Student Council President, Zenkichi develops his own "Altered Gode Mode," basically a powered up version of himself where his hair changes color. It causes his own Parasite Seeing to shift, changing from being able to perceive other people's viewpoints to being able to see his own limits. Being able to see his own limits makes him astutely aware of just what he is capable of in battle, allowing him to always make accurate judgments. In other words, he will never take a chance based on the idea that he "might" be able to pull something off, because he will always be sure of what he can or cannot do. In this mode, he's also somehow able to harden his hands and arms to become as sharp as blades, allowing him to fight sword users with his bare hands. It's not really clear how or why he's able to do this, but oh well.
[ as zenkichi starts speaking, his voice sounds a little strained, his speech slower than usual as it almost sounds like he's forcing himself to try to speak a language he's not entirely accustomed to. ]
Ah, hello? Can you hear me? Testing, testing... alright, I think this is working. Well, first, I'd like to thank you for accepting me into this study abroad program. I don't remember applying for anything like this, but the chance for me to visit a different country really is a privilege.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'll have to decline your kind offer though. My duties as Student Council President are pretty demanding, and...
[ zenkichi stops mid sentence, giving a loud sigh, before his tone shifts completely. ]
As if this situation could really be something like that! I don't know what's going on, but this kind of plot development is really out of left field! What kind of story throws you into a new setting out of nowhere, without any explanation!? [ he pauses, realizing that what he's said probably sounds a little odd, since of course he is not a fictional character. no way. ] Either way... um... can somebody tell me what's going on?
Third Person:
Adapting to this place was easy enough. Despite the initial shock and confusion of arriving, Zenkichi had been able to settle down fairly comfortably without much trouble. He still housed some suspicions that there was something profoundly troubling about this place, beyond just the kidnapping aspect of it, but gradually his guard was beginning to lower. In some ways, it was almost nice getting a break from the mayhem of his life back home... He had always been busy as a member of Medaka's Student Council, but things had become even busier since he'd assumed the position of president himself. Being without his usual responsibilities was almost nice in a way.
Still, this place bothered him. If he had to put it into words, he would say this: Holly Heights was too normal.
For a person who prided himself on his own normalness, that may have seemed like a strange thing to say. But perhaps it was because he was a Normal that he could make that assertion... when something is Too Normal, it almost becomes an Abnormality in and of itself. A place like this almost seemed guaranteed to create a sense of unease; a constant fear that something dark was lurking in a corner that you couldn't see. If anything, he would have preferred the more tumultous ways of Sandbox Academy... Things may have always been strange and over the top there, but at least they were straightforward.
What would Medaka do if she were here? No doubt, she would blindly trust this place, but would she accept it? If it was the Medaka of the past, he had no doubt she would have... taking everything at face value and doing whatever she could to help the other residents here. Zenkichi had taken it upon himself to fill those shoes; to become that person so that Medaka no longer had to. In that sense, it was clear what he needed to do then, wasn't it?
"What a headache..." he grumbled, adjusting the glasses he'd started wearing to fit the image of a Student Council President more (beyond that, these glasses clearly had no purpose since his vision was fine).
"But alright! If that's how it's going to be, that's how it's going to be!" He'd do his best to do what Medaka would have done... helping the people here without any regard for whatever consequences that could have. And if something went wrong, he'd just deal with it then too. It was an approach to problems that, frankly, was stupid. But that kind of stupidity had its charm too.
Of course, standing on the sidewalk as he shouted his random proclamations to no one in particular, he couldn't help but draw a few strange looks from passerbys. If it was the old Zenkichi, he would have been embarrassed. But this was the new Zenkichi, so he could accept their judgmental gazes and... well, be a little be embarrassed too, actually. So with a sheepish smile, he quickly continued on his way towards wherever he'd been going before suddenly stopping to have this awkward moment of clumsy introspection.
OTHER Housing Request?: N Did you read the rules and FAQ?: Y Would you like your application to be unscreened?: Y
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hitoyoshi zenkichi | medaka box | reserved
Player: Rift
Age: 26
Personal Journal:
Contact Info:
Other Characters: None
IC INFORMATION
Characters Name: Hitoyoshi Zenkichi
Age: 16
Canon: Medaka Box
Canon Point: After the Successor Arc
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Orientation: Heterosexual. Throughout the series, Zenkichi really only shows interest in female characters, one in particular. By the end of the series they both propose to marry each other, basically accepting one another's proposals by default. He never really shows much interest in romantic relationships outside of that one character.
History: Wikia Entry
Appearance: Image
hitoyoshi zenkichi | medaka box | reserved
Ever since he was young, Hitoyoshi's life has been devoted to that of his childhood friend, Medaka Kurokami. The two met at a very young while Hitoyoshi was playing in the waiting area of his mother's workplace, a hospital. By chance, Medaka, who was at that hospital being studied for her special abilities, encountered a two year old Hitoyoshi and began to show off. Even at that age, Medaka was more gifted than most people in the world, leaving her feeling nihilistic and without purpose. Filled with childish awe, Hitoyoshi proclaimed that Medaka had been bestowed with her wondrous talent at all things in order to make other people happy. While at the time this was nothing more than the proclamation of a toddler, it would have a profound effect on Medaka and alter her world view drastically.
Throughout their lives the two were basically inseparable, with Hitoyoshi taking it upon himself to be Medaka's constant companion. His role was to do the things she couldn't because of her own blessed abilities and outlook on life, meaning he would often take a darker or less noble path in order to protect her. To a large extent his efforts may have been unnecessary, but this was more or less how he defined himself. After an event during their junior high school years that left Medaka traumatized, Hitoyoshi swore that he would protect her and prevent anything like that from happening again.
Of course, the inherent contradiction in his belief was that Medaka would always be better than him at nearly everything. He would have to work tirelessly at all things in order to simply stand at her side, compensating for his own lack of talent or exceptional abilities merely through effort. Somewhere along the way his personality became slightly more jaded and cynical, as he needed to counterbalance Medaka. While Medaka always believed the best in others and trusted them to a fault, Hitoyoshi took it upon himself to be more suspicious and prudent. He often acts as if he's troubled by having to accompany Medaka in her various exploits, but it's always quite clear that that's exactly where he wants to be. As he will often say in any situation, regardless of the consequences, "Medaka is right." His unerring belief in her righteousness and moral correctness enables him to follow her no matter what she does. When Medaka becomes Student Council President of their high school, he ends up being the only other member of her student council for a while... until eventually the other positions are filled as well.
While for all intents and purposes a "Normal" within the confines of Medaka Box's story, he perhaps shows just how much a Normal is capable of doing. Characters in Medaka Box are characterized as Normals, Specials, and Abnormals, a psuedo-ranking of a character's abilities. Normals are just as they sound, those who aren't particularly exceptional in any way. Specials go beyond that, usually standing above others and having abilities greater than those of normal people. Abnormals, on the other hand, are truly one of a kind talents that go beyond the capabilities of human beings. They each possess enormous talent and special skills, more or less making them superhuman. While Medaka is the epitome of an Abnormal, Hitoyoshi remains a Normal (well... mostly). He develops a wide range of skills and abilities, but nothing beyond normal human abilities. Despite that, he must often oppose Specials and Abnormals in order to protect Medaka, a task that slowly becomes more than he can handle. In one particularly climactic battle, he literally gives his life in order to protect Medaka, gladly accepting death if that means he can also take Medaka's greatest foe with him.
Of course, death in Medaka Box is more a temporary state of being than a permanent one, and he is return to life not long after. However, upon being revived, he is granted a new special ability, an Abnormality, by another character, and slowly begins to develop this new skill. From this point onward he begins to truly feel his own constraints and limits, culminating in him feeling that he can never truly be Medaka's equal because of his own normalcy. Conflicted by his competing desires to stay by her side and to catch up with her, he finds himself facing an impossible choice: the only way that he can make Medaka truly see him as an equal is to oppose and defeat her.
It is also around this time that he comes to the (somewhat obvious) realization that he is in love with Medaka. Feeling that his love can never be reciprocated if he does not change the status quo, he finally proclaims that "Medaka is wrong." With those words Medaka realizes that he's turned his fangs upon her, and gladly accepts him as an enemy. Strangely, despite opposing one another, the two still remain rather cordial and friendly, with little changing in the dynamic between the two. Hitoyoshi struggles with deciding just how he can defeat Medaka, in a truly meaningful way. He recognizes that in most stories, the obvious solution would be to defeat her in a fight, but what would that prove? He finally comes to realize there is only one way to truly defeat Medaka: to beat her at what she cares about most. He decides to run against her to become the next Student Council President.
Although he never really believes he can succeed, he nonetheless decides to give it all that he can. He comes to realize that the words he told to Medaka as a child have actually become a burden that she's had to bear since then, to a fault. Instead of living for herself, Medaka has always, unfailingly, lived to make other people happy. By taking the Student Council President spot, Zenkichi believes that he'll be able to show Medaka that her way of living is incorrect. That she must also live for her own happiness, rather than devoting her entire being to others. Through this belief, Zenkichi also manages to convince the rest of the student body that they've relied too much on Medaka, and they elect Zenkichi as the 100th Student Council President in order to relieve Medaka of that burden.
Throughout the series, Zenkichi is always characterized as incredibly stubborn and determined. He possesses a fairly high level of insight when viewing situations and other people, prioritizing his friendships and relationships with others. His growth throughout the series is coming to realize his own feelings and motivations, something that he often overlooked. Because Medaka always worried more about other people than herself, Zenkichi worried more about Medaka than anyone else. They both come to realize that their views are somewhat warped as a result; while they undeniably remain incredibly important to one another, they also begin to distance themselves from each other more. While Zenkichi begins to story as a somewhat mundane viewpoint character, he slowly rises from being a "Normal" to something else entirely, managing to surpass a character that, for all intents and purposes, could never be beaten at anything. The narrative itself acknowledges that his ambition is to become the Main Character of the story, something he actually manages to achieve (however briefly).
Abilities:
Throughout most of the series, Zenkichi is considered to be mostly normal, although he does demonstrate extremely high physical prowess. After training himself extensively in order to keep up with the people around him, he becomes very skilled at various martial arts. His specialty is the French combat style Savate, a defensive style that mostly focuses on disarming his opponents. He's also demonstrated at least passing knowledge of other forms of combat, particularly judo and boxing. His physical strength is high enough that when he stomps one of his feet on the ground hard enough, it's sufficient to create a small earthquake (okay so that doesn't sound normal at all, but within the confines of this story it apparently is).
Later in the story Zenkichi develops special abilities (which kind of undermines his entire character, but I digress). After coming back from being blind and dying, he's granted "Parasite Seeing" - in essence, to restore his sight, he's given a vision based ability from another character. Parasite Seeing allows Zenkichi to perceive things from another person's viewpoint; in other words he can see through another person's eyes. In combat, this allows him to basically always predict another person's movements, since he can see what they're looking at and where they're aiming. Using Parasite Seeing causes his eyes to turn red and glow.
His other main skill is called Devil Style, any ability that he chose and developed himself. Devil Style is a skill that negates any element of chance or luck - in other words, it is intended to make hard work and ability the only determining factor in a battle. A subversion of most story tropes in shounen stories (and intended to be), it basically serves to make accidents and coincidences that allow a main character to defeat a superior opponent from ever occuring. It also has the effect of basically preventing luck based circumstances that occur in most stories, such as fortunate and accidental encounters.
Later on in the story, after being Student Council President, Zenkichi develops his own "Altered Gode Mode," basically a powered up version of himself where his hair changes color. It causes his own Parasite Seeing to shift, changing from being able to perceive other people's viewpoints to being able to see his own limits. Being able to see his own limits makes him astutely aware of just what he is capable of in battle, allowing him to always make accurate judgments. In other words, he will never take a chance based on the idea that he "might" be able to pull something off, because he will always be sure of what he can or cannot do. In this mode, he's also somehow able to harden his hands and arms to become as sharp as blades, allowing him to fight sword users with his bare hands. It's not really clear how or why he's able to do this, but oh well.
Other: Medaka Box is really weird.
hitoyoshi zenkichi | medaka box | reserved
First Person:
[ as zenkichi starts speaking, his voice sounds a little strained, his speech slower than usual as it almost sounds like he's forcing himself to try to speak a language he's not entirely accustomed to. ]
Ah, hello? Can you hear me? Testing, testing... alright, I think this is working. Well, first, I'd like to thank you for accepting me into this study abroad program. I don't remember applying for anything like this, but the chance for me to visit a different country really is a privilege.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'll have to decline your kind offer though. My duties as Student Council President are pretty demanding, and...
[ zenkichi stops mid sentence, giving a loud sigh, before his tone shifts completely. ]
As if this situation could really be something like that! I don't know what's going on, but this kind of plot development is really out of left field! What kind of story throws you into a new setting out of nowhere, without any explanation!? [ he pauses, realizing that what he's said probably sounds a little odd, since of course he is not a fictional character. no way. ] Either way... um... can somebody tell me what's going on?
Third Person:
Adapting to this place was easy enough. Despite the initial shock and confusion of arriving, Zenkichi had been able to settle down fairly comfortably without much trouble. He still housed some suspicions that there was something profoundly troubling about this place, beyond just the kidnapping aspect of it, but gradually his guard was beginning to lower. In some ways, it was almost nice getting a break from the mayhem of his life back home... He had always been busy as a member of Medaka's Student Council, but things had become even busier since he'd assumed the position of president himself. Being without his usual responsibilities was almost nice in a way.
Still, this place bothered him. If he had to put it into words, he would say this: Holly Heights was too normal.
For a person who prided himself on his own normalness, that may have seemed like a strange thing to say. But perhaps it was because he was a Normal that he could make that assertion... when something is Too Normal, it almost becomes an Abnormality in and of itself. A place like this almost seemed guaranteed to create a sense of unease; a constant fear that something dark was lurking in a corner that you couldn't see. If anything, he would have preferred the more tumultous ways of Sandbox Academy... Things may have always been strange and over the top there, but at least they were straightforward.
What would Medaka do if she were here? No doubt, she would blindly trust this place, but would she accept it? If it was the Medaka of the past, he had no doubt she would have... taking everything at face value and doing whatever she could to help the other residents here. Zenkichi had taken it upon himself to fill those shoes; to become that person so that Medaka no longer had to. In that sense, it was clear what he needed to do then, wasn't it?
"What a headache..." he grumbled, adjusting the glasses he'd started wearing to fit the image of a Student Council President more (beyond that, these glasses clearly had no purpose since his vision was fine).
"But alright! If that's how it's going to be, that's how it's going to be!" He'd do his best to do what Medaka would have done... helping the people here without any regard for whatever consequences that could have. And if something went wrong, he'd just deal with it then too. It was an approach to problems that, frankly, was stupid. But that kind of stupidity had its charm too.
Of course, standing on the sidewalk as he shouted his random proclamations to no one in particular, he couldn't help but draw a few strange looks from passerbys. If it was the old Zenkichi, he would have been embarrassed. But this was the new Zenkichi, so he could accept their judgmental gazes and... well, be a little be embarrassed too, actually. So with a sheepish smile, he quickly continued on his way towards wherever he'd been going before suddenly stopping to have this awkward moment of clumsy introspection.
OTHER
Housing Request?: N
Did you read the rules and FAQ?: Y
Would you like your application to be unscreened?: Y