Eijirō

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* Anime

## Name

**Eijirō** (英二郎, *Eijirou*) is a major character of Mermaid Saga, appearing in the story "Promised Tomorrow".

## Biography

Before World War II, he was a bright young man who attended Imperial University and was betrothed to Nae Kogure, who was however in love with Yūta who was living and working as a carpenter in the village she lived in, and hoped to elope with him. Not only did he become aware of her affection for Yūta and all the secrets she shared only with him and her young friend Sōkichi, but he discovered that the two would meet in private using a signal which consists of having 3 small stones behind a Dōsojin and Yūta removing the middle stone to indicate that he can meet her and leaving it to indicate that he can’t meet her. Refusing to believe she’d leave with a wanderer, he removed the middle stone behind the Dōsojin on the day Yūta left and waited in her secret place called "Red Valley" to test her loyalty, only for her to show up, meaning that she chose Yūta over him, thus he became so enraged that he strangled her to death and as he was aware of the legend of her village and the legend behind it, planned to use the mermaid ashes to bring her back to life so she could be his to do with as he pleases without a soul. However, unexpectedly he couldn't find those mermaid ashes which were being kept in a storehouse for Nae had hidden it at Yūta's request, so he buried her corpse right where she killed her.

He married the only daughter and heiress of a huge conglomerate and expanded the business during World War II, and bought all the land in the area over the next decades, in order to find the hidden mermaid ashes. Eventually 2 years ago, he found the mermaid ashes and pour them on Nae’s dead body which had remained perfectly preserved over the years because mermaid ashes had been spread in the valley, and although reanimated, she became a shadow of her former self with no memory of her past. While keeping her in her family's mansion he came to own, he has his men guard her as she would often try to leave, and overlooks her murderous trances.

After 60 long years, he learns that Yūta has returned from his companion Mana who was murdered and buried at the mansion by two of his men, one being short-sized and the other giant-sized, after encountering Nae at a construction site but came back to life. As he orders his men to sever Mana's head, knowing it is the only way to kill an immortal who ate mermaid flesh, Yūta shows up at his mansion and ends up getting captured by his men, and he has him and Sōkichi handcuffed in a storage shed at a construction site, where he bitterly blames Yūta for Nae's death and confirms to Sōkichi that he bought all the land in the area to find the mermaid ashes and use them to bring Nae back to life, then learns from his short-sized henchman that Nae and Mana escaped so orders his giant-sized henchman to dispose of both Yūta and Sōkichi and leaves to look for Nae.

Together with his short-sized henchman, he is disappointed to find Nae with Mana near Red Valley and tells her to come home with him, confident that she would not harm him despite becoming brutal when disturbed by the birds' cawing, but he gets bashed in the head by her using a rock, much to his own shock, thus he rants that he brought her back to life only to be ignored so he orders his man to kill both Nae and Mana, insisting that they are monsters and should not live. While his man deals with Mana, he fatally stabs Nae in her right shoulder with a knife hidden in his cane but then falls on his knees crying and is surprised by the arrival of Yūta and Sōkichi before his man could sever Mana's head. He confirms Yūta's accusation of having removed the middle stone behind the Dōsojin and killed Nae and admits having planned to have Nae without a soul for himself but then claims that it wasn't Nae in the end, referring her as a soulless demon, only to be refuted by Mana who says she remembers Yūta and her promise with him at Red Valley. He is dragged to Red Valley where Yūta embraces a joyful Nae who then dies again in his arms, and he insists that it’s pointless harumphing that she has no soul and was dead to begin with, much to the anger of Sōkichi who grabs the old man and states that Nae was only having a bad dream but what he did was no dream.

## Trivia

* His seiyū, Tamio Ōki, provided the voices of Sugawara no Michizane in episode 187 of *Urusei Yatsura* and Sennin from *InuYasha*.
* His young self's seiyū, Yasunori Matsumoto, provided the voices of Takemaru from *InuYasha the Movie 3: Swords of an Honorable Ruler*.
	+ He also voices Keiichi from *The Merchant of Romance*, Tonegawa's Husband from *Hidden in the Pottery*, Takanezawa from *One Hundred Years of Love* and Yoshio Hirooka from *House of Garbage* in the *Rumiko Takahashi Anthology*.