Himura Kenshin

Age 28. He has red hair gathered in a ponytail and a scar like a cross on his left cheek which is how people can tell he is the infamous "Hitokiri Battousai" (roughly translates to something like Drawn Sword Assassin). He got this name during the upheaval before the Meiji Restoration, when his fighting skills were unsurpassed. What his reputation as Battousai doesn't include is his very short height and slightly feminine voice, which often makes his opponents underestimate him. After the start of Meiji in the 1800s, he gave up his assassin ways and became a "rurouni" or wanderer, helping people to atone for all the people he had killed. He carries a "sakabatou" (a sword with the blade reversed so he cannot kill his opponents, only knock them unconscious) because he has vowed to himself never to kill again and uses the sword technique called "Hitenmitsuryugiryuu" ("Strike of the Flying Dragon"). He is often chased by police for carrying a sword, were outlawed during the Meiji. Kenshin has a very gentle and polite nature (refering to himself as "sessha" which roughly means "this clumsy person", and using the polite verb "gozaru" at the end of his sentences) with a strong sense of right and wrong. One of his common sayings is "Oro" a version of "Ara". However, this nature could be a mask for his violent hitokiri nature which seems to resurface whenever he is faced with a tough opponent or other extreme circumstances. In these instances he seems almost superhuman in his fighting ability, almost as if he were a different person, and also reverts to regular casual speech, using "ore" instead of "sessha" is one of the ways Kaoru realized Kenshin was not his normal easygoing self during the fight with Jine. I think his struggling to deal with his hitokiri nature makes him the most interesting character of the series which I guess is why I am writing so much about him in this description.