Character Profile-Makoto Shishio
Shishio is the leader the Juppon Gatana. He is extremely evil and also insane,
which even Shishio himself admits.He uses a Mugenjin ( a sword with very fine
teeth in it). Shishio hates all weaknesses and lives by the motto, 'The strong
shall live and the weak shall die'. Shishio is very confident in his abilities
and believes that he is the strongest fighter ever. He is extremely intent on
taking over Japan so that he can reform the government system so that only the
strongest will survive and the weak will become his 'prey'. Shishio is malicious
in the fact that he is basically using all of his followers to simply make
himself stronger and to weaken his enemies. In fact the only person that Shishio
cares about other than himself is his devoted lover, Yumi Komagata. The two
share a romantic relationship that only they understand. Fighting and winning is
everything to Shishio so he is more than willing to take on Kenshin, whom he
knows is the only obstacle in the way of his plans.
After Kenshin decided to come out into the open as the 'Hitokiri Battousai' during the Meiji Restoration, Shishio was the one who took over his position as the Inshin Shishio's shadow assassin. Unlike Kenshin however Shishio merely took the job because he wanted to show the Inshin Shishi how strong he was, and he carried out many key assassinations for them. After the Restoration ended the Inshin Shishi became nervous that Shishio might expose their roles in certain assassinations. And so they tried to get rid of him by shooting him many times and then setting his body on fire. However Shishio somehow managed to stay alive. While everyone thought he was dead, he secretly assembled a gigantic fighting force in addition to creating the Juppon Gatana to help him take over Japan and have his revenge on the Meiji government for betraying him.