Bando Yohei

* Anime
* Ashura
* Omega

*"Now... why don't we see which one of us is the superior abnormal?"*
— Bando, to Hanafusa Hajime

**Bando Yohei** (板 (ばん) 東 (どう)  洋 (よう) 平 (へい) , *Bandō Yōhei*; *"Yohei Bando"*), also known as **The Bloody Tusk** (血 (ち) 染 (ぞ) めの象 (ぞう) 牙 (げ) , *Chizome no Zōge*), is an infamous convict serving a multiple homicide sentence. After being recruited by Takada Seisuke, he represented Juoh Communications as their affiliated fighter during the Kengan Annihilation Tournament.

## Appearance

Bando is an imposing, bulky man with a powerful frame. With broad facial features, Bando has thin facial hair and a thick black beard. His black hair has severely receded since his youth, with notable male-patterned baldness. His eyes have a dead, disinterested gaze in them, and combined with his apparent lack of eyebrows and heavy eyebrow ridges, it adds to his generally dangerous appearance.

In his youth, Bando was far leaner, and used to possess a set of long, black hair that fell past his neck and thin eyebrows.

## Personality

When he was put to the test of choosing the representative of Juoh Communications, Bando stated that he was not a hedonistic murderer, with the only reason he was attempting to gain the "rights" that were offered was so that he could finish his research. Strangely, Bando described himself as a "piece of shit" just like his opponent, when asked if he was a heathen.

## History

Bando was an elite medical student who, for unknown reasons, raided Yakuza offices for three straight years. In this time, he killed seventeen people and severely injured five. After killing two of his arresting officers and severely injuring four, Bando willingly surrendered, with the whole event sparking much public attention at the time. He was put on death row and hanged 45 times over the following 25 years, but survived each one, prompting the Japanese government to seek an extralegal form of execution.

## Plot

### *Kengan Ashura*

Appearing as a prisoner in a detention facility for convicted felons, Bando was paired against another felon and told to fight by Takada Seisuke, being told that the winner would recieve two "rights": temporary freedom and the right to destroy people. The first right caught the attention of Bando as he saw it as a way to complete his still unfinished "research". When the two felons charged at each other, Bando came out victorious, easily killing his opponent in a single blow.

At Ganryu Island, he notably observed Kono Haruo's fight against Akoya Seishu, noting how fascinating Haruo's accelerated calorific expenditure was. Later, Bando represented Juoh Communications in the first round of the Kengan Annihilation Tournament. Fighting against Hanafusa Hajime, he eventually achieved victory by killing his opponent, who infected him with a lethal viral infection in exchange.

Despite almost succumbing to the virus, Bando was later cured of his viral affliction with the help of Furumi Heihachi, allowing him to fight against Hatsumi Sen in the second round. Despite demonstrating his true offensive capabilities against Hatsumi, he still ended by being defeated by the Nogi Group's fighter.

Being imprisoned once more, Bando was temporarily freed during Hayami Katsumasa's attempted coup, where he proceeded to slaughter the Guardians who had crossed his path. He was once more restrained as the rest of the tournament ran its course.

### *Kengan Omega*

After the events of the Kengan Annihilation Tournament and being re-imprisoned, Bando was visited by Yamashita Kenzo who enquired about whether he had a sponsor for his brain research in the past. Bando informed Kenzo that he had indeed been contacted by an unknown party who had offered to fund his research in exchange for sending them his results.

## Power & Abilities

Although Bando is not a martial artist, he is a deceptively experienced combatant. He has an incredibly dense musculature alongside great physical strength, with his feats including greatly dampening the effects of Hanafusa Hajime's Lingshu Chin Na (a martial art that target's acupuncture points) and later effortlessly snapping the man's neck. Bando's incredible durability is complimented by his amazing endurance, being able to continue fighting adequately even after taking heavy damage, such as being slashed and impaled by (bone) blades, having his eye poked hard enough to make it bleed, being smashed into the ground repeatedly, and having his arm broken.

However, Bando's greatest weapon is his abnormal joint flexibility. With a level of hypermobility far removed from human limits, Bando is extremely flexible with his joints even having a 140° range of lateral motion. As such, Bando's fighting style utilises brute force in conjunction with his incredible range of motion and abnormally flexible joints, giving him great strength both offensively and defensively. Defensively, Bando has used his abilities to dodge two of Hanafusa's fatal attacks, the first by bending his neck backwards to crush the man's fingers before they could strike his cervical vertebrae and the next by shifting his spine to avoid the man's bone blade and later, in his fight against Hatsumi Sen, by retracting his neck to minimise damage to his skull after being thrown down with enough force to smash the ground. Offensively, Bando is capable of dislocating his joints to extend their reach and then utilising his limbs as a highly destructive whips; moving his arms like this requires delicate motions. His whip-like attacks are too quick to be seen by most people's vision and carry enough force to destroy the floor of the arena with ease as well as cause instant death if it connects; survivors who saw Bando kill yakuza members and police officers with this attack mentioned that the victims' heads exploded when he killed them. This arm whipping attack puts a large strain on his joints and muscles, with Bando noting that it is a high-risk move.

## Etymology

* **Bando** means "board, plank" (板) (**ban**) and "east" (東) (**do**).
* **Yohei** means "ocean" (洋) (**yo**) and "flat, broad, level, even, peaceful" (平) (**hei**).

## Trivia

* Bando was inmate #51 while inside Sarashikubi penitentiary  and one of his favoured pastimes while incarcerated was reading.
* Bando is extremely knowledgeable in regards to human biology, with research on the topic being a prime skill of his.
	+ His true topic of research was later revealed to be work on the brain, in particular the idea of "mind uploading".
* Bando was modelled around the infamous fictional murderer Hannibal Lecter (more specifically the version played by Anthony Hopkins).
* Bando and Dazai Yukio were good friends in their younger days as students at Teito University despite them being in different departments. Both were intellectuals with similar tastes and both were elite students.
* Yohei's theme in the anime his theme is *Here it Comes～OGRE* by K-A-Z.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Bando Yohei's profile
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 101
3. ↑ *1 win during the tournament against Hanafusa Hajime(Ch104)(Ep18)*
4. ↑ *After defeat to Hatsumi Sen during the Kengan Annihilation Tournament(Ch162)*
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 102
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 18
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 48 (Omega)
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Chapter 104
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Chapter 103
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Chapter 161
11. ↑ Chapter 162
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 163