Musashi Murayama

Name	Musashi Murayama
First Appearance	Chapter 6
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Age	16
Birthday	N/A
Dôji	Sophia
Affiliation	Good
Team	The Good Dôji Club

"Call me Musashi."

―Murayama's catchphrase to other people^[src]

Musashi Murayama (村山武蔵 Murayama Musashi) is a 16-year-old student, in the current the 21st Century, and has been the master of Sophia throughout the eras in which the series occurs.

He was originally from The 30th Century, but was forced by the all-powerful Roger Dunstan into past and uses this situation as means to issue a warning of the cataclysmic One Hundred Machine Funeral to his allies in The Good Dôji Club. His goal is to capture Dunstan for destroying his world by unleashing the Karakuri Dôji in the past.

Appearance[]

Murayama Musashi Future — Musashi's N. I. P. D uniform

For his age, Musashi is relatively normal in both height and build, but compared to other teenagers in his class, he is shown to be the only one that is near Yamato's unusually tall height. His facial features comprise of medium length blonde hair, that is arranged with a large prominent fringe, commonly swept so as two longer extensions frame either side of his face, and light blue eyes. For more than half of his appearance, Murayama wears a different school uniform than those who attend Senjo Academy. These clothes consist of a simple pair purple trousers and jacket, with a small upturned collar, worn over a plain red long-sleeved t-shirt. Most of the time, he is shown holding the first issue of Shonen Jump, which was given to him by Eco.

In order to fight crime in The 30th Century, Musashi modified his entire body, making him a highly advance cyborg. Musashi is able to transform his limbs into weapons at will, from transforming his arms into large guns or turning his legs into rockets for high speed. According to Jealous, Musashi is rigged with an Anti-Noh device within his body, therefore some of the Karakuri Dôji's Nohs doesn't work on him.

When under the guise of an apprentice Sushi Maker, Murayama wears a sushi chef's outfit with a hat commonly seen in delis and convenience stores. Starting in Chapter 27, Murayama wears the same uniform as every other student at Senjo Academy. He also carries his ray gun from the future in his pocket at all time, but only to use it against enemies.

Personality[]

Musashi perfectly exemplifies the quality of his respective dôji, clearly demonstrated through his often wise and respectful mannerisms. His good looks and cool demeanor causes many girls to easily fall for him. While he is often perceived as laid-back with a calm smile, he is very serious and can be rather rash or impulsive at times. He prefers to be called by his given name rather than his surname, constantly telling others to call him by first name.

Musashi is inexplicably dedicated and focused on achieving his goal of stopping the One Hundred Machine Funeral - resulting in him deliberately taking things to the extreme. He even goes as far as threatening to destroy Ultimo, and kill Iruma Tomomitsu and Jealous just because they are on the evil side. Yamato has said that he looks "lonely" because of the burden he carries.

As policeman, Musashi takes his job to uphold law and order very seriously, but was shown to be very narrow-mind, following a moral absolutism mind-set and inflexible about the moral relativism of some situations. He both internally and openly critical of Yamato, who was a bandit in his past life, even though Musashi knows Yamato's bandit incarnation's actions was for stopping corrupted nobles. When he met "Single-Shot Hibari", Hibari Oume's past incarnation from the 1940s of post-war Japan, and acknowledge her illegal black market help the poverty-stricken people, he still hold on to his ideals that the law solely protect and preserve society. Although Musashi mind-set understandably comes the fact his police parents were killed by criminals, even his sister Miyu Murayama tries to teach him to be more merciful towards criminals, but he rejects her lecture and stubbornly hold to his beliefs.

Biography[]

Past[]

Born in The 30th Century, Musashi and his sister Miyu Murayama were children of respectable and loyal police inspectors. After their parents were killed by yakuza members, Musashi was raised by his sister.

Musashi grew up to be a genius warrior and joined the the New Island Police Department (N. I. P. D.) as a special investigations officer, following in his parents' footsteps. He was part of the police force that came to stop Roger Dunstan from destroying the world after they found out about his illegal space-time experiments. He was sent out specifically on his own for his top investigation skills by his sister and captain, Miyu. Dunstan and Milieu learned that he was coming, and they sent out a defending army of dôji. Musashi defeats them, and used his modified body and backpack to propel forward into Dunstan's tower. There, he successfully ripped apart Dunstan's body with his ray gun, but to no avail does he kill him. While in the mist of the battle with Dunstan, he unintentionally became Sophia's master because Dunstan used the dôji as a shield, initiating the Pledge Ritual.

Dunstan took Musashi along to the the 21st Century just as their time period began to vanish. Musashi appears in front of Eco Sushi and Shin Ekoda. Eco took him in, fed him, and clothed him, which he is truly grateful for. While living under Ekoda's care, he told him about the One Hundred Machine Funeral and they began gathering The Good Dôji Club in order to stop it.

Part I[]

When Eco brought Yamato Agari to their hideout in the mountains, Musashi watches as Yamato get acquainted with the rest of the members before being the last to introduced himself. After Yamato made a ruckus when asked if he did the Pledge Ritual with Ultimo, Musashi was the one to revealed to Yamato that the group was recently formed, and helped the other masters explained the purpose of their club and about the One Hundred Machine Funeral, which starts tomorrow.

The next day, Musashi goes to the forest near Mt. Fuji with the rest of his comrades and watches Yamato battled against Rune Kodaira. While they observed, the club and their dôji discussed about their goal, with Musashi remarking on the uncertainty of their future. Before they could send can their dôji to help Yamato, the club was ambushed by The Evil Dôji Branch and was taken hostages by Mizho and Parasse. Mizho threaten to kill Musashi and the others if they or their dôji were to move. As the evil dôji finished off his allies, Musashi and the rest of the masters got their heads sliced off by Parasse on Mizho's orders. In order give the club another chance to win, Yamato used the remaining energy in God Ultimo to manipulated Space-Time, rewinding time to the day before. Eco also had Regla used his Noh simultaneously to make sure Yamato and Musashi remember these events in the new timeline to avoid making any mistakes.

Part II[]

After the time reversal was done, Musashi was alive once again and the only person other than Yamato to retained memories of the previous timeline. Realizing their first attempted ended in failure, Musashi informed Eco about the time reversal and they tried figure out a way to avoid a repeat. Despite having doubts about Yamato, Eco convinced Musashi that Yamato must the one to save the future and tasked him with sending Yamato to Eco. In order to meet with Yamato, Musashi posed as a transferred student at Senjo Academy and met up in the restrooms to talk privately. When Yamato angrily questions Musashi about the time reversal, he calmly explained the situation and informed Yamato of Dunstan's background and his dôji Milieu's abilities. Knowing the One Hundred Machine Funeral was inevitable, Musashi pointed his ray gun at Yamato and tell him his options - leave Ultimo and tell Musashi where he was so he could to Ultimo as bait to capture Dunstan or take the Pledge Ritual again and Musashi will kill them both. When Yamato hesitated to give answer, Musashi redrew his gun and instructed Yamato to meet with Eco. Before leaving, Musashi somberly warned Yamato he won't let the destruction of world happen again.

Later in the day, Musashi waited upstairs as Yamato and Eco converse with each other and listen to Eco urging Yamato to get know the both opposing sides to understand to learn a way to prevent the first incident. After Yamato left, Musashi questioned Eco on why does he believe Yamato can save the future, but Eco only tells Musashi that he'll understand once he finished reading his issues of Shonen Jump. Choosing to follow to Yamato to Ultimo's location, Musashi stayed hidden with Sophia until Yamato and Ultimo needed help in their right against Tomomitsu Iruma and Jealous. Musashi takes over the fight to allow Yamato to begin his time-traveling to learn about the masters. When Yamato returned, Musashi revealed his intention to break Jealous and erase Iruma's memories about today's events, which Yamato argue against this. Musashi goes into ICON mode to incapacitate the duo, but is stopped by Yamato and the two argue, which gave Iruma an opportunity to stabs Musashi. Using Iruma's actions as an example, Musashi tells Yamato that their enemies can't be reason with and deduces Yamato met with Dunstan during his time-travel. He also confessed that he bluffed about destroying Ultimo to manipulate Yamato into action and meet Dunstan, all in order for Yamato to see how powerful Dunstan was. Refocusing on Iruma, Musashi attempted to fight him off, but his heart was constrained Jealous's webs and collapsed. The unconscious Musashi and others were retrieved by their comrades, Hiroshi Kumegawa and Machi Shina, and were taken to Koun Shakujii and Pardonner to be heal. Afterwards, Yoichi Oizumi and Service came to carried Musashi and Sophia to their hideout to recover in peace.

Part III[]

After hours of resting, Musashi was eventually startled awake by receiving Eco's memories of his recent death by Vice's hands. Yoichi briefed Musashi on the events he missed and the current state of The Good Dôji Club; Eco, Shakujii, Hiroshi, and Machi are all dead or severely injured and had to retired from being masters, Yamato was missing, and Service was the only dôji able to move around at the moment. When Yoichi stated they must focus on the One Hundred Machine Funeral, Musashi griped that the club can't win without Eco and the replacement masters for the good dôji were too inexperienced. Yoichi assured Musashi that Makoto Sayama, Kiyose Matsumoto, Hibari Oume, and Akitsu Otake were up to the task since the memories Eco sent them showed the girls were masters long ago. Yoichi theorized to Musashi that everything that had happened was all part of a test by Dusntan and encouraged him to have faith in Eco's dying wishes and to decipher the memories he was given.

Later, Musashi goes to Sayama's home to properly recruit her and the other girls into the club. Musashi, Sayama, and Darumada Masami also picked up a sleeping Ultimo and brought him to Hyoe Tokorozawa's office building and reunited with Yamato. Musashi and allies updated Yamato on his friends' involvement in the One Hundred Machine Funeral and urged to remember Ultimo's misguided deeds in the past in order to see if he could handle being with Ultimo again. Once Yamato and Ultimo resolved their issues, Musashi and the club members traveled to Sparrow Place to ambushed Dunstan, who crashed a meeting The Evil Dôji Branch were having, and managed to unbalance him. Musashi attempted to arrested Dunstan and forced to him return the 30th century's existence, but loss his temper when Dunstan mocked him for seeking vengeance for Miyu. When Musashi fired his ray gun, Dunstan used Space-Time manipulation to freeze the particles and hit Musashi with it so hard that the impact sent him flying into space. After Dunstan explained the rules for the One Hundred Machine Funeral, Musashi was picked up by Yamato and returned to home to prepare for Eco's funeral, requesting Yamato to meet him at Eco's Sushi to established their cover story after school. At Senjo Academy, Musashi gathered his new comrades to remind them careful around their enemies, specifically the ones they had a personal connection with, and to subtly draw any information out of them if they can.

While Musashi waited for Yamato at Eco's Sushi, he past the time by reading through Eco's Shounen Jump magazine and pondering over what the memories sent him. When Fusataro Fussa (on Vice's orders) showed up, Musashi nearly pulled out his ray gun in defense, but Fussa claimed to have no interest in the One Hundred Machine Funeral, and offered to strike a deal for information on future in exchange intel about the Evil Dôji Branch. Although Musashi outright refused the deal and to listen to Fussa's words, the latter suggested that Musashi meet him at his office later, enticing Musashi with the lie of helping him understand Eco's message before leaving. At night, Musashi and Sophia went to Fussa's studio with the intention to fight and bluntly told Fussa he had no interest in making any deals. Noticing Fussa's album of Rage around the office, Muasahi commented about how "shameless" he was for using Rage as musician, but Fussa said that all he cared about was money. Whipping out a CD of Fussa's old band, Musashi brought up his past an inspiring musician before getting corrupted and was determined to bring the good out in Fussa. With the fight on, Musashi and Sophia entered ICON mode and blasted out the building, prioritizing putting distance between Demon Rage and finding a way to get out of city. Despite having the speed disadvantage, Musashi used Sophia's Noh on himself to heighten his senses to read Demon Rage's movement and dodged accordingly, but the two ICON were quickly locked in a stalemate. After Sophia warned him that his Noh on his body wasn't going to last much longer, Musashi purposely let Demon Rage stabbed him to draw him in close to attack. However, Sophia suddenly shut down from overused, causing Musashi to freeze just before he could land a blow and left him unable to move. While Musashi attempted to wake Sophia, Vice take over the battle and brutally beat him down, leaving Musashi to reminisce his life in The 30th Century and his mistakes. As Vice prepared to kill Musashi off, Yamato and Ultimo saved him and Sophia, sending them off to heal and get ready for Eco's funeral.

At the funeral, Musashi and Sophia took the time to discuss Dunstan and how to make all evil Karakuri Dôji come to their side with Yamato and Ultimo. Noting how the rules prevent the opposing sides from killing each other, Musashi remarked that how Eco seemed to have already knew killing their opponents wouldn't amount to to anything. Afterwards, Musashi and Sophia joined up with Yoichi Oizumi, who suggested the club take a "study trip" to learn more each other and their enemies by time traveling to 1947. When Sayama contacted Musashi and Yoichi to notify them that Hibari was in danger, Musashi and others quickly gathered the rest of the club to go save her. After picking up Yamato, Musashi discussed how to deal with Vice and agreed to Yamato take the lead in confronting him since he knew Vice's personality better. At Sparrow Place, Musashi saw Yamato unable to come up with a decent plan and planned to make the first move, but Vice noticed his intention and sliced off his hand. Yamato and Ultimo drew Vice's attention away Musashi, allowing him to transformed his arm into a large gun and blasted him away. The group quickly fled in the van Yoichi rented into them and began time traveling to 1947. As Musashi focused on reattaching his dismembered hand, he voiced his concerns over Vice's new form and his ability to steal Noh of other dôji, pointing out he could followed them since he stole Ultimo's Time-Space manipulation. Upon arriving to their destination, Musashi and the group quickly met with Hibari's past incarnation, mafia leader "Single-Shot" Hibari, and were taken to her home. As they get themselves settled, Musashi and co. were surprised to learn that a "Future Yamato" and was the one that sent Hibari to them. Since those who knew about the Future Yamato weren't allowed to reveal too much, Musashi suggested to let events play out as they should.

The next day, Musashi listen to Yoichi warning him and the younger members not to stand out and stressed that their goal was to learn good and evil. On Yoichi's advice, Musashi wished to acclimated to the era and look around the city to learn more about the society. Before heading out, Musashi and Yamato were informed by Sayama that Akitsu and Kiyose both had past lives in this time period too, making Musashi believed that Yoichi had a reason to choose this particular year and the Future Yamato may have something to do with it as well. Their conversation was then interrupted by 1947 Hibari, who wrangled the trio into helping her gang carry illegal goods to the black market. Musashi expressed his reservations of breaking the laws, but Hibari scoffed at Musashi's attitude. Hibari lectured him that illegal actions were necessary for people, citing how corrupted government allowed the citizens starved and her illegal dealings were the only thing that was providing food for the poor. Seeing how much Hibari's gang helped the people, Musashi acknowledged her righteous intention and remembered Miyu's similar words about criminals, but firmly believed that law and order were the only thing preventing society from collapsing on itself. Moments later, an older Hana Koganei and Edile appeared before them and attacked the group, but their dôji protected them and Ultimo freeze the duo in place. When the dôji revealed that they sense their evil brethren yesterday, Musashi was mad that Sophia and the others hid it from them. As Hana and Edile's presence signified that rest of The Evil Dôji Branch was here, Yamato suggested that they used the opportunity to get the duo to join them. However, Musashi and Sayama were against the idea, with Musashi commenting that they should focus on their training and that an evil dôji's powers might change upon becoming good, as they don't know what changing allegiance would do to them. Musashi and others then had their time stopped by the Future Yamato, who took the present Yamato into the future. Musashi and others' time become normal again once Yamato transported back to the exacted moment he left, leaving them unaware of Yamato learning Sayama's relation to Dunstan.

Upon hearing sounds of ICONs battling later that night, Musashi, Akitisu, and Kiyose rushed to the city to find Yamato and Sayama fighting each other, including overhearing how Sayama was Dunstan's daughter. However, Musashi wasn't as surprised since he has been carefully watching Sayama and figured out her identity a while ago, though he admitted that he never expected for Sayama to allied with Vice and his group. Musashi realized that Sayama planned to wipe their memories as members of the Evil Dôji Branch ambushed them to give Sayama an opening use Regula's Noh. Facing off against Mizho and Paresse, Musashi and Sophia goes into ICON mode, but took the time to tell Sayama that he understood why she lied to them and forgave her, alongside everyone else. Pleased how everything was going, Dusntan appeared in front of Musashi and the rest, proclaiming to everyone that the One Hundred Machine Funeral was almost over and to come beat him in the 30th Century before disappearing with an unwilling Sayama in tow. Deciding to retreat, both sides ceased fighting to head back to their respective residents in order strategize their next move, though Musashi and The Good Dôji Club took an unconscious Rune along and Fussa joined them as well.

While Yamato lamented over Sayama's kidnapping, Musashi attempted to comforted him over how some of their enemies switched to their side and that the future that Yamato witnessed gave them proof the good and evil can coexist. However, Musashi and other members grew concern when 1947 Hibari pointed Ultimo was missing and then received a warning from Kaizo Oume (who doesn't want 1947 Hibari to die due their business relationship) that Vice was on his way to the house. Musashi and the able-bodied members went to find Ultimo and discovered that Vice, K and Jun Chichibu in the middle of a intragroup conflict. Seeing Vice's weaken state, Musashi tried to reason with him not to fight since he and his remaining allies were outnumbered. Due to Vice's pride, he refused to back down without a fight and slashed Musashi's body apart, leaving only his head and shoulders operational part of his body.

After Yamato and Ultimo beat Vice into submission and made him an ally, the both sides focused on training for their impending battle with Dunstan. Once they were ready, the masters and their Karakuri Dôji head to Dunstan's tower in the The 30th Century. During a group discussion, Musashi reflected over how he never finished reading Eco's manga and reminded everyone to think carefully before taking any action against Dunstan. During the raid, Musashi and the rest of The Good Dôji Club started fusing Ultimo and Vice's spirit spheres while The Evil Dôji Branch attacked Dunstan and Milieu to covered them from any interferances. After Yamato to save Sayama, Musashi and others completely synchronize Ultimo and Vice's spirit spheres together to form Ideos Ultimo - a form symbolizing of the unity between good and evil.

Pleased by how both sides' realization of the nature of good and evil, Dunstan praised them for their efforts and revealed the real reason of his experiment was to save the future from its destruction. Dunstan then forcefully dispelled everyone from their ICONs and immobilize the dôjis, leading all the masters to free fall in the air. Dunstan proclaimed everyone that his experiment isn't over and then turn back time, but allowed Musashi and the others masters to keep their memories and transformed their dôjis into humans. Back in the 21th Century, Musashi's body had been fully restored and continued to live with a revived Eco and his family at the sushi shop.

Relationships[]

Yamato Agari[]

Musashi is continuously annoyed at Yamato for letting his emotions get in the way of battle, constantly arguing with him and even aim a gun at him once. Musashi openly ridicules Yamato and believes his "foolish" because of his naivety. Instead of telling Yamato that Dunstan was invincible, he lets Yamato travel to the past to learn for himself because he knew he wouldn't listen to him unless he saw it for himself.

He knows of Yamato's shortcomings, and as a result he tries to take the responsibility of defeating the evil dôji by himself. Although, he does try to have some faith in Yamato because of Eco's faith in the young man. However, he still questions why someone like Yamato leads The Good Dôji Club.

Shin Ekoda[]

Musashieco — Musashi first meeting with Eco

Eco and Musashi seem to had a father-son relationship, as he cares about the older man very deeply and loses his temper if he's hurt. Musashi feels grateful towards Eco for taking him in after he traveled back in time, and it is Eco who Musashi first tells about the One Hundred Machine Funeral. He stays at Eco Sushi with Eco and his family, working as an apprentice so as not to look suspicious living there.

Musashi listens to Eco and gives his ideas a chance, even though he doesn't always agree with all of them. Eco is possibly the only person that stops him from killing Yamato or doing anything reckless to him. Eco lets Musashi read all of his collected copies of Shonen Jump in order to have him understand why Yamato must be the hero. After Eco was revealed to be dead to Musashi by Yoichi Oizumi, he is visibly angered and tries to call Sophia into battle so that he can kill Vice.

Sophia[]

Musashi has been the master of Sophia throughout the series. However, he became Sophia's master not by choice; Roger Dunstan used Sophia as a shield when Musashi tried to attack Dunstan with his modified arm, causing Musashi's arm to connect with Sophia's soul sphere, binding them in the Pledge Ritual and damaging Sophia from the inside.

Musashi does not hesitate in using the full extent of his dôji's abilities, which has led to Sophia running out of fuel from overuse multiple times. Although, Murayama does display some guilt for damaging Sophia in the first place.

Miyu Murayama[]

Musashi and his sister were very close as she raised him after their parents died, and they worked together on the police force. He affectionately called her "sis", but only in the comfort of their home, since he wanted to be professional at work.

He was determined to make his sister proud by going in by himself to capture Roger Dunstan, and greatly misses her in the 21st century. When Dunstan goes as far as to mentioning her, Musashi lost his temper and tries to shoot him while screaming.

Trivia[]

There some discrepancies in regards to Musashi's age within early chapters; when he was initially introduced in Chapter 6, his age was originally displayed as being 19, but by Chapter 8, this had been changed to 16, which was retained in Chapter 11. When these chapters were collected and released in volume format, the mistake in chapter 6 was corrected.
Murayama e-mail address is "30th.boy", referring to the fact he is from the future.