Aku

**Aku** is the main protagonist of Samurai Jack. He is a vicious, dark-souled demon who is an extremely competent archenemy to Samurai Jack. He is easily one of the most successful cartoon villains, as he managed to rule the world, and has been unstoppable for years.

At first, Aku was often known for being pure evil. However, he has his limits, as he believes that actually hurting children is going too far. It is also later implied that he is actually created by a black virus that is the true ultimate evil.

Aku tends to switch back and forth between being played for laughs, and being a truly threatening villain. He would either do something pettily "villainous" not to be taken too seriously, like telling stories to children to make them like him instead of Jack, or be extremely ruthless, like causing genocide, and enslaving innocents, depending on the episode.

He was voiced by the late Japanese actor Makoto "Mako" Iwamatsu, who also voiced the Narrator of Dexter's Laboratory while in the fifth/final season of the series, he is voiced by Greg Baldwin.

## Appearance

Though he is capable of shifting form into virtually anything he wishes, his standard form is a roughly humanoid being with a black body, a green mouth, and a red beard extending from the bottom of his chin. He also tends to have six horns, four long and two short, extending from his head, and eyebrows made of red, flickering flame. In his standard form, he also tends not to have legs, with his body simply ending at the bottom with robe-like darkness that sometimes manifests as flames, and he also tends to be several stories tall.

## Personality

Aku is evil incarnate, he embodies the very essence of an evil overlord. Cold and dominant to all he meets, it is obeyed or be obliterated with Aku. Manipulative, tyrannical, heartless, arrogant, selfish, greedy, violent, and sadistic by default, he has been the ruler of most of the planet for hundreds of years and does not take humiliations easily. Although without any mercy he has enough of an understanding of humanity to successfully manipulate and control people.

Despite this he possess a dry and witty sense of humor and often jokes when in a good mood, frequently mocking Jack whenever he can with whatever he can. In "Aku's Fairy Tales" it's shown that he seems possibly unwilling to cause harm to children and tried to make himself look like a hero to them rather than Jack. He failed to do so and left the children alone. He did, however, vaporize an alien leader's young son for calling him a "monster". Aku sent him to the Pit of Hate (an implied torture chamber).

## History

Originating long ago in the depths of space as a formless evil Aku was banished by the gods Odin, Ra, and Vishnu in order to protect the universe from his influence - yet a small shard of the great shadow managed to survive and flew off into space - for many years this shard continued flying through space until it eventually landed on Earth, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs in the process.

Many years later the site on which Aku landed would become the ancient island of Japan, which Aku infected like a horrible disease - creating vast forests of evil in the land and threatening to consume it, eventually Aku's threat became so great that Jack's father decided to rid the land of the demon once and for all using magical-oil made by Buddhist monks, however when he fired an arrow coated with this oil into the evil entity it didn't destroy it but rather gave it form and sentience, thus forming Aku as a humanoid threat of unstoppable power.

However with aid from Odin, Ra, and Vishnu Jack's father created a magical-sword powerful enough to defeat Aku and fought the demon, at the end of the conflict Aku was transformed into a tree - yet the imprisonment wouldn't last much more than a decade before a solar eclipse freed Aku again.

Aku would then proceed to lay waste to the kingdom Jack's father ruled and engaged in a battle with Jack himself - Jack very nearly killed Aku for good using the magical-sword but Aku threw open a portal in time and transported Jack to a future-world in which Aku ruled supreme.

For the rest of the series Aku is portrayed as the all-powerful ruler of the world and is an almost unstoppable force - yet he fears Jack, knowing very well that the warrior has the power to slay him, Aku has placed a high bounty on Jack's head and is always trying to dispose of him, whether it be with manipulation, force, or trickery.