Shiragami

## Manga

Shiragami is one of the four emperors within the prison Riki-Oh starts the series in, being in charge of the south block. Despite being a short elderly man, he manages to have a quarter of the prison completely under his command. He fights using his skills with string, able to tangle up his opponents in them as well as attached sharp blades to the end of the string to pierce the skin of his enemies, claiming he is able to "sew anything between his threads". He makes a dramatic entrance by attaching strings to a flock of crows alongside the other three emperors after the death of Narumi. He seems to have a decent amount of strength despite his size, as when The Warden brings him to torture Riki-Oh, he is able to beat him up by smacking him across the face with a wrench.

Shiragami and Yomi are never in a scene without the other one being there, being the most competent of the four emperors and always being partnered togeether. Shiragami shows up to assist Yomi when he tries to kill Riki-Oh for burning the prison's poppy field. Together, they make a powerful team, and they could possibly have killed Riki-Oh had it not been for the interference of Kitamakura and Sugiyama.

Kitamakura brutally impales Shiragami through the back of the head with a pitchfork during the fight with Riki-Oh in an attempt to kill him and attain more power for himself within the prison. In an impressive showcase of his resilience, Shiragami survives this attack. He keeps the blade impaled through his head for the rest of the manga, becoming one of his defining character traits. It would presumably be too difficult to fully remove the pitchfork from his head, at least with the limited resources within the prison. One of the pitchfork's prongs is specifically going through his mouth, but he is still able to talk normally despite this.

After getting impaled, things only get worse for Shiragami as Sugiyama has dumped a massive amount of wet cement into the poppy field, forcing him to have to escape through a manhole with Yomi. Sugiyama does not care that the three surviving members of the four emperors are in the field, though they all continue to work for them anyway afterwards. Yomi and Shiragami eventually come out of the manhole to shove a dog's guts down Riki-Oh's breathing tube when he's buried underground in an attempt to cut off his air supply, but this actually has the reverse effect, as the dog's meat helps to sustain Riki-Oh underground. Yomi and Shiragami show up when Riki-Oh comes up from the underground and easily defeat him without the excessive interference from Kitamakura and Sugiyama, though the fight is heavily handicapped against Riki-Oh given he is so exhausted.

Yomi and Shiragami are last seen torturing Riki-Oh under the Warden's orders to try to break him and make him tell them his true motive. Shiragami beats Riki-Oh with a wrench which doesn't motivate him to talk, prompting Yomi to try more gruesome methods. After this scene, Yomi and Shiragami are not shown again, making them some of the few surviving villains in the series. While Yomi gets off with absolutely no penalty, Shiragami has to live with the pitchfork impaled through his head from Kitamakura.

While Shiragami is not seen using his crows in combat, these crows could easily enable him to escape the prison if he wanted to. Given the massive amount of power he is given within the prison, it may be possible that he wants to stay. With the deaths of the corrupt Administrator and Warden at the end of the arc, he and Yomi have nothing more to gain by staying inside of the prison, so it is likely that they used the crows to escape given they are not seen again.

## Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

Shiragami is known as Brandon within the dub, and the four emperors are referred to as the "gang of four". Shiragami is not a midget or elderly in the film, and bears minimal physical resemblance to his manga counterpart. His dubbed voice is unfittingly masculine for the actor playing him, though it could perhaps be a reference to his manga appearance. His role is mostly the same as in the manga, but he does not have his flashy entrance scene with the crows and he does not get impaled with a pitchfork by Kitamakura (Tarzan in the dub), making him look even less like the original.

Regardless of having some of his defining material cut, Shiragami does get an expansion of his character at the end of the movie. In the kitchen where the Warden's final fight takes place, he first summons Shiragami and Yomi (Rogan in the dub) to fight Riki-Oh one last time. Shiragami is able to assist Yomi, but the fight is primarily done between the other two characters. Upon Yomi's defeat, Shiragami desperately tries to flee the area but is shot by the Warden directly in the ass with his compressed gas bullets to punish him for his cowardice, causing him to explode in the same way the administrator does.

Shiragami flies in on crows attached to his stringsShiragami ensnares Riki-Oh in his stringsShiragami impaled by a pitchfork thrown by KitamakuraShiragami shoves dog guts down Riki-Oh's breathing tubeShiragami beats on Riki-Oh with a wrench in the torture roomShiragami ensnares Riki-Oh in the movie