Tokuno'o Tokumichi (
Appearance
Nitoku is a languid-looking man with a muscular frame, messy dark hair that falls loosely on his head, indolent-looking eyes and a very light sprinkling facial hair above his lip and on his chin. During battle, he appears to wear loose-fitting dark-coloured yukata over shorts spats. When not fighting, Nitoku wears a small pair of spectacles.
Personality
Nitoku is a very relaxed individual and, befitting his occupation, is articulate and sharp. He is also shrewd, managing to coax out information regarding the upcoming Kengan Association VS Purgatory Tournament from Kazuo Yamashita.[6] Due to being a professional writer, he often questions why he returns to fighting after his "retirements".
He has a habit of suddenly announcing his retirement before making a return.[5] This is because he lives on the bare minimum financially, then focuses on writing. Nitoku only enters another match when he runs out of money.[6]
History
Nitoku loved reading ever since he was a kid, going from japanese literature to foreign literature to tabloids even.
Back when he was still a student, Nitoku was inspired to study literature but his incredible physique made him hard to enter that world. For this reason, Nitoku struggled as many sport teams asked him to join them, due to his one-of-a-kind muscular frame, making Nitoku look at his body as a "curse" and "unwanted talent".
Nitoku went to the best literature university in Japan and then to Russia, as an exchange student, and while there, he learned sambo as an act of "vengeance" towards the fate he was given with his muscular body. Debuting as a professional writer after graduating, his career failed to take off. For this reason, he had a meeting with author Teramoto Shunroku, who convinced him to move away from literature to start again with greater internal freedom. Needing a distraction from writing, Nitoku entered the Underground Martial Arts Industry before debuting in the Kengan matches on a friend's recommendation.[6]
At some point before the most recent Kengan Annihilation Tournament, Nitoku fought and lost for the first time against Agito Kanoh. Despite giving Agito an extremely difficult fight, Nitoku was defeated and forced into rehabilitation for six months from the wounds sustained in the fight.[7]
Plot
Nitoku was first mentioned to have been set to fight Kokuro Utsubuki. Kazuo instead replaced him with Gaoh Ryuki to make it the latter's debut match.
Having recently come back into the Kengan matches as a freelance fighter, Nitoku faced off against Mumon Yuzaki, a new fighter and former Purgatory gladiator. With their fight beginning, they were initially even until Nitoku put him in an armbar. With Yuzaki freeing himself and utilizing his special technique, Nitoku soon disabled Yuzaki by cracking his knee with a kneebar, giving The Ghost his first defeat. After the fight (and Idemitsu Toyoda's appearance), Nitoku subtly discerned the upcoming Kengan Association VS Purgatory Tournament. With Kazuo asking for him to join their roster, Nitoku promptly declined, believing that the fight money from his match would be enough to sustain him for the current time.
Having blown through his fight money and sending Kazuo a distress call as a result (because he couldn't cover his bill), he announced he would represent the Kengan Association to Kazuo and Sayaka Katahara. Noticing Ryuki Gaoh reading his current work, he asked the young man for his honest opinion but was left visibly slumped after Ryuki gave a brutally honest response.
The day of the competition, he and the other representatives left for the tournament.
After Kanoh's win against Lu Tian, he and the other fighters met the Purgatory gladiators in the middle of the ring, with both him and Masaki Hayami wanting to learn about the significance of the Worm tattoo. With the calls to suspend the tournament dismissed by Rolon, Nitoku returned to his gate.
After Akoya's match against Nicolas Le Banner was interrupted by Rolon, Nitoku entered as the tenth representative for the Kengan Association at Kazuo's request; his opponent being Liu Dongcheng. After a brief battle of words, Nitoku went for a straight tackle against Dongcheng, tanking a blow to the face to unleash a vicious uppercut.
Nitoku's strategy of using tanking Dongcheng's powerful yet predictable strikes bore fruit twicefold.[8][9] Though Dongcheng realized that his style was similar to that of Naidan Mönkhbat's, who he had fought before, his predictability and dismissal of Nitoku's sambo left him open for another powerful throw.[10]
However, upon Dongcheng reaching 'top gear', Nitoku found himself struggling against Dongcheng's vastly improved performance. While he manages to ground him into an armbar, due to being barely concious from the injuries he sustained, Dongcheng's dislocated his arm and struck him when he was vulnerable. While he manages to land one more strike on Dongcheng, the latter sent him out out of the ring with a high kick, losing his match.[11] The two, with Dongcheng never intending to fight Nitoku again, parted on cordial terms once the former helped him back to his gate.[12]
Power & Abilities
Nitoku is a powerful fighter in spite of his distate for relying on the Kengan matches as his source of income. Though he possesses only nine wins over the course of five years due to his frequent retirements, Cosmo stated that he would have made it pretty far in the most recent Kengan Annihilation Tournament if he had entered.[5] Despite eventually losing, Nitoku was able to push Agito to the brink in their fight prior to the Kengan Annihilation Tournament.[7]
Nitoku's is a practioner of sambo, with Cosmo mentioning that he has never seen anyone match Nitoku in hard submissions in either public or underground fights.[13] Nitoku's martial arts genius meant that despite learning sambo after the age of 20, he went from no martial arts experience to a top-class martial artist in less than ten years.[6]
Nitoku's muscular strength and durability make up a key part of his skillset. Because of the intense training involved in sambo, Nitoku's a sturdy fighter with solid fists that can unleash powerful blows, even if they are amateurish in technique. As such, he is also willing to shrug off particularly powerful strikes if he can gain the upper hand in the process, as demonstrated in his fight against Liu Dongcheng.[8] Because of his absurd toughness, Nitoku has been described by Terashi to be "immortal"; able to still stand even after being continously struck by Dongcheng's powerful strikes.[11]
Nitoku's other greatest asset is his intellect. Able to pick apart techniques from a few moments of observation, Nitoku is also able to exploit said weaknesses as quickly as he's able to decipher them. One example is his fight against Mumon, where he was able to circumvent his opponent's foresight-nullifying technique after seeing it only once before cruising to victory.[7] Another is his fight against Dongcheng, who he had tactically allowed him to perform his techniques to see the best opportunity to attack and catch him in a grapple.[10]
Trivia
- Nitoku has released five novels under the pen name Onomichi Nitoku; they have all flopped.[6] Unsurprisingly, he becomes visibly depressed when his work is criticized, as shown when Ryuki gave him some brutally honest feedback on his latest writings.[14]
- Nitoku is a pun on his name, since he possesses the same kanji, "Toku" (
徳 ), in both his given and family name. "Ni" (ニ ) is the kanji for "two". As such, His epithet can also be read as "Double Toku" or "Toku Squared".
- Nitoku is a pun on his name, since he possesses the same kanji, "Toku" (
- Nitoku's hobby is to collect fountain pens and his dream is to be called a great novelist.[1]
- Nitoku has quoted from authors such as Masuji Ibuse, Oscar Wilde and Leo Tolstoy.
- In Chapter 110, the quote from Ibuse (さよならだけか人生だ, "Sayonara dake ka jinseida.") is a line from his translation of Yu Wuling's poem, Offering Wine (人生足别离, "Rén shēng zú bié lí.")
- Also from Chapter 110, the quote from Oscar Wilde is from his book A House of Pomegranates ("The heart was made to be broken.")
- In Chapter 112, the quote from Leo Tolstoy is from his work War and Peace ("A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.")
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Tokumichi Tokuno'o's profile
- ↑ 9 wins prior to the Kengan Association VS Purgatory Tournament, including one against Yuzaki Mumon(Ch22)
- ↑ 1 loss to Kanoh Agito in a Kengan match(Ch20)
- ↑ 1 loss against Liu Dongcheng in the Kengan Association VS Purgatory Tournament by Ring-Out(ΩCh114)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 20 (Omega)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Chapter 23 (Omega)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Chapter 22 (Omega)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 110 (Omega)
- ↑ Chapter 111 (Omega)
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 112 (Omega)
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 114 (Omega)
- ↑ Chapter 115 (Omega)
- ↑ Chapter 21 (Omega)
- ↑ Chapter 42 (Omega)
