Meguro Masaki

* Anime
* Ashura
* Omega

*"Father always told me that Judo is the strongest martial art."*
— Meguro Masaki

**Meguro Masaki** (目 (め) 黒 (ぐろ)  正 (ま) 樹 (さき) , *Meguro Masaki*; "*Masaki Meguro*"), also known as **The Crying Man** (泣 (なき) 男 (おとこ) , *Nakiotoko*), was a murderous mercenary working under Hayami Katsumasa. Under Hayami's orders, he became the affiliated fighter for Umiichi Securities during the Kengan Annihilation Tournament.

## Appearance

Meguro was a heavy-set man, with a notably muscular upper body and an overall hunched, bestial posture. He had a messy mop of spiky black hair on his head, psychotic eyes, a dark strip tattooed across the middle of his face from ear to ear and a seemingly permanent open-mouthed grin with his abnormally long tongue lolling out. Meguro wore dark coveralls with the middle tied with rope and he always went barefoot. Before this outfit, Meguro would sport a normal black judogi.

## Personality

Meguro could be described as a clinically insane person who had severe sadistic, masochistic and psychopathic tendencies. He greatly enjoyed the act of murder and constantly uttered to himself how he should go about the act, always wondering whether the kill would be better than the murder of his father. His sheer ecstasy when fighting and killing lead him to cry blood, earning him the nickname the "Crying Man". He was also incredibly impatient, which was a weakness of his.

In his younger days, for a very long time Meguro was able to hide his true nature and he put up an alarmingly gentle, loving façade for thirteen years, with all those around him respecting him for his talent and behaviour. After freeing himself of the burden of hiding his true nature, he since devolved into nothing more than a beast.

## History

Meguro was the son of judo master Meguro Hiroki, also known as "Meguro the Demon". He started practising judo at the age of 7 and at 12 years of age he won the National Youth Judo Tournament. Unbeknownst to him, his talent and strength was what spurred Arashiyama Jurota to return to the judo world to meet him as his nemesis.

By the age of 13, Meguro had become his father's dojo's prized pupils; only his father and three others were able to spar with him, and all the other pupils at the dojo were certain that he would be a future star of judo. However, at around this time, Meguro grew weary of keeping up his façade, and serially murdered his fellow pupils and his father by judo-throwing them to death. Immediately after that, he was found by Hayami Katsumasa, who took him off the grid in exchange for taming him to be his pawn. As a result of Hayami's actions the case for **Boy M**, as the police called him, went cold.

Some time after, through the use of the Worm's technology, Katsumasa cloned Masaki and created his "brother" Hayami Masaki. After the clone Masaki's creation, Meguro regularly sparred with his clone, always fighting with the intent to kill him. On his part, Meguro finds his clone to be an oddity for being unable to be killed by his throws.

## Plot

After being deployed by Hayami Katsumasa on the S.S. Kengan, Meguro defeated Inui Machizo and took his position as the affiliated fighter for Umiichi Securities.

During the main tournament, after Murder Music forfeited to Toyo Electric Power Co., Sawada Keizaburo called Julius Reinhold out for the dirty tactics employed by Hayami Katsumasa. Saying he would take the three of them down, Sawada attacked and Meguro took him on first. With Meguro getting too riled up, Nikaido Ren prepared to calm him down while Julius stepped in to take care of Sawada. However, after the sudden arrival of Yamashita Kazuo and Tokita Ohma, the three of them then left.

Meguro represented Umiichi Securities in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament and fought Muteba Gizenga in the first round. After initially overwhelming Muteba in the fight, the latter soon turned the tables and ended up mercilessly killing him, with Meguro hallucinating seeing his father and the other judo practitioners he had murdered as he died.

## Power & Abilities

Meguro was a master judoka who was strong enough to kill many people with a single throw. Even as a child, his grip was strong enough to grip flesh like a gi. He also had an extremely high level of endurance and his speed was outstanding, especially in regards to his size, allowing him to move around with bestial likeness. According to the clone Masaki, while Meguro was less skilled than to Arashiyama Jurota, Meguro was far more terrifying as an opponent.

Masaki's most unique characteristic was his body's physiological response to pain. At first, it appeared that he had a high resistance to pain, as he was able to shrug off having his eye gouged by Muteba Gizenga and getting kicked hard in the face by Sawada Keizaburo. However in truth, whenever Masaki felt pain, his brain responded by flooding his system with opiods (in particular the endorphins), causing the pain to be immediately followed by extreme pleasure. Hayami Katsumasa stated he had also made some adjustments to Meguro's body to boost his ability but cost of his reason.

## Etymology

* **Meguro** means "eye, ogle" (目) (**me**) and "black" (黒) (**kuro**/**guro**).
	+ The name "Meguro" is a wordplay with the words "me" and "guro", meaning "eye" and "grotesque" respectively, which is a reference to his blood tears and also to his right eye being severely damaged during his fight against Muteba Gizenga.
* **Masaki** means "right, proper" (正) (**masa**) and "tree" (樹) (**ki**).

## Trivia

* Despite being his killer, Meguro respected his father the most, thanking him for teaching him judo.
* Meguro's tongue was a homage to *Spider-Man* villain Venom.
	+ In the first drafts, Masaki was supposed to be modelled after either Leatherface or  Frankestein's monster.
* Meguro, or more accurately his ghost, makes a cameo appearance in Sandrovich Yabako's other series *Danberu Nan-Kiro Moteru?*.
* Due to Mokichi Robinson being resurrected by Hanafusa Hajime, Meguro was the first participant of the Kengan Annihilation Tournament that was killed.
* Meguro's theme in the anime is *Meidoe no Inori* (冥土への祈り, lit. "Prayer to the Underworld") by Magdalene Ju-nen.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Meguro Masaki's profile
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Chapter 70
3. ↑ *1 loss to Muteba Gizenga during the Kengan Annihilation Tournament(Ch73)(Ep12)*
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 71
5. ↑ Chapter 102 (Omega)
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 66
7. ↑ Chapter 67
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 72
9. ↑ Chapter 69 (Dumbbell)