Character Contest 41: Art Martial
Another character inspired by Japanese mythology. And again, can’t decide whether he is part of my meta-verse. Not happy with the pose. I tried for a running, fist-cocked position but gave up.
Bake-zÅri
Close-up
Origin
Tamotsu Taro had joined a Buddhist temple in the Nagasaki Prefecture to live a life of inner peace after an aimless youth of fighting and petty crime. He had found solace. Still greed, ambition, and even rage lingered in his heart. These vices surfaced again when the time came to choose a new head monk.
Taro had been devout for over seventy years. Another, much younger monk was chosen. Taro felt spurned and disrespected. He left the temple. Soon, he found himself in a seedy Tokyo bar. The octogenarian wanted nothing more than to drink himself to death. The bartender, a rather odd man himself, handed Taro a strange boiling drink in a sake cup made of human bone. Tamotsu laughed then slammed the concotion.
He awoke the next morning on the barroom floor. Instead of being a vibrant, neon-lit club, it was now dark, empty.. haunted, evil. The furniture was covered in white sheets, the bar empty, layered with thick dust. Tamotsu rose to his feet then looked into the broken mirror. He was once again a young man but his eyes had turned blood red!
Startled, he looked to the sake cup. In tiny script, it read: “Avenge the insult with your new gift.” Remembering an old Japanese legend, Taro went to a tattoo parlor. He had a single red eye tattooed on his forehead.
Tamotsu Taro is no more. He is now the enemy of the Buddhist monks, and all he deems as pious hypocrits. He is Bake-zÅri, “the Ghost Sandal”. Bake-zÅri uses his formal temple training and street-fighting skills to block the bridge leading to the secluded Buddhist temple.
Without warning, he attacks. Shouting the cry of the Bake-zÅri, “Kararin, kororin, kankororin!” (“Eyes three, eyes three and teeth two!”). His signature is leaving his victims with a “third eye” in the forehead, knocking out all but two teeth.
