Asakura Mikihisa

Asakura Mikihisa (朝倉幹久, Asakura Mikihisa) née Maki (真木), before marriage with Asakura Keiko is the father of protagonist Asakura Yoh and the main antagonist Asakura Hao in the manga and anime series of Shaman King. In the manga, he belonged to Team "Kabbalahers" together with Redseb and Seyrarm.

Appearance
Mikihisa wears the clothes of an ascetic monk, a white and brown robe with white pom-poms on it. In part to conceal the burn scars on his face he wears a wooden bird mask. His movements combined with his cloth is said to make him look like a bird. After his confrontation with Tao Ren he wears nothing but his mask and his underwear for the duration of the tournament.

Before meeting his wife Keiko he wore nothing but a loose fitting white shirt and black pants and his hair was unkept. Without his mask and burns, Mikihisa resembles his son Yoh, but with a longer and thinner face. He also wears glasses.

Personality
When he first appears he acts rather carefree and a little dumbstruck and is also described to be rather lazy. However it is revealed that he is a compassionate person, who would help anyone in however way he can, even correcting on the bad behaviors of Team "Hana-Gumi" instead of fighting them. According to his son Yoh he is even more old-fashioned than Tao Ren. He is also a heavy believer in family, for instance when he told Hao that it was not too late to call him "Daddy", and his favorite expression is family love.

In the side story "Mickey's World" it is revealed that he once wanted to become a singer like John Lennon and like his son he also loves to listen to Soul Bob.

After Asakura Hao escaped during his birth, Mikihisa has been blaming himself and constantly wears his mask as a sign of his shame even though the burn wounds are already healed. This resulted in him training hard by climbing mountains all over the world one by one, eventually making it his hobby.

Abilities and Powers
Mikihisa has trained for years climbing tall mountains and has gained a strong, fast and very capable body. He prefers using melee combat, combining it with his spirits shape shifting abilities to appear as three persons while fighting. According to his adoptive father, Asakura Yohmei, Mikihisa's practice of Shugendō gave him the ability to summon God and Buddha spirits.

Shamanic Spells and Techniques
One of many spells Mikihisa learned from the contents of the Ultra Senji Ryakketsu. Using this spell enables one to read the flow of furyoku and determine its course. Effective use can render most magical attacks ineffective and one can predict the movements of an opponent.
 * Chō Senji Ryakketsu - Fumon Tonkou (超占事略決 - 巫門遁甲)

Spirit

 * See More: Imari and Shigaraki

Mikihisa has two spirits, known as Imari and Shigaraki, a tanuki and a kitsune. They are a pair of Yamagami (山神, Mountain Spirits) with the abilities to shape shift, that combined with the Fumon Tonkou makes Mikihisa almost untouchable when fighting.

Past
Before Mikihisa became a Shaman, he was an unemployed musician who lived in an apartment with two other members of his band. He met Asakura Keiko while busking near a train station one night, after she had been dumped by her fiancé. She paid him ten yen to play a song for her, and revealed that she was dumped because she could see ghosts. Revealing he had the same ability too, Keiko somehow ended up inviting Mikihisa to her rented house. It was love at first sight for him.

The Asakura family had no male heir in Keiko’s generation, since she was Yohmei and Kino's only child and had no brothers or sisters and thus Mikihisa married into the family. Following the Japanese muku no naru tradition; he took up the Asakura last name and allowed them to continue the family line.

Keiko later became pregnant. But Asakura Yohmei, her father and current head of the Asakura Family, predicted that the child would be the rebirth of the their ancestor Asakura Hao. Thus he made the decision to kill the baby the moment he was born, so that Hao will not grow up in time for the upcoming Shaman Fight. However, as Keiko was carrying twins, they had no method to predict which baby was Hao. In the end, Yohmei made the decision to kill both the babies, just to be safe.

Immediately after the first baby was delivered, Yohmei summoned his shikigami, but as he hesitated to kill his own grandchild, the Spirit of Fire appeared, destroying the shikigami. The Spirit of Fire then turned to attack Yohmei, but Mikihisa blocked the attack and subsequently suffered burns to his face. Before Mikihisa could get his own spirits to attack Hao, the Spirit of Fire had lifted him out of the way. With the Spirit of Fire gone along with Hao, later Keiko gave birth to Yoh.

Mikihisa went on to wear a mask to hide the burn scars he received from the Spirit of Fire. Mikihisa blamed himself for failing to kill Hao when he had the chance. To make up for his own incompetence, he took to a rigorous training regiment, traveling around the world and climbing mountains. It was then he met Tamao Tamamura, an orphan girl. Mikihisa took Tamao as an apprentice, and he often took her on his training. Because of his frequent traveling, Mikihisa was almost always away from home and rarely spent any time with his son Yoh. As a result, he and Yoh don't share a close father and son relationship.

During his travels he became a close friend of Professor Camel Munzer (who was the father of Redseb and Seyram), when they were younger, as Mikihisa was the only one who could accept what Munzer was building. Upon the death of the professor, he took the responsibility of looking after Redseb and Seyram. At the same time, he had learned about the Golem’s destructive capabilities, and his forming Team Kabbalahers was also to make sure Golem did not fall into the wrong hands.

Shaman Fights First Round
Mikihisa’s role in the Shaman Fight tournament is to watch over Yoh, and he can often be seen surrounded in the shadows, observing Yoh’s battles from the top of trees. He also convinced Yohmei to train his son's friend Umemiya Ryunosuke to become a shaman.

Shaman Fights Second Round
During the second round of the tournament he later formed a Team called Team Kabbalahers together with Redseb and Seyram Munzer. He also took the responsibility of imparting parts of the Cho Senji Ryakketsu to Yoh and his group.

Together with his wife he met up with the Tao Family to tell them the truth about Hao and Yoh. They also offered to train Tao Ren and teach him the the Chō Senji Ryakketsu. Though Tao Ching agreed, Tao Yúan refused the offer and would only allow it if Mikihisa could prove it's strength by defeating him. Mikihisa won rather easily without a scratch and went on to teach Ren, also beating him up while teaching him.

Near the end of the second rounds, did Mikihisa and the rest of her family, including the returned spirit of Asakura Yohken have a final meeting with the Tao Family. Mentioning the incident at the beach earlier, Mikihisa presented the badly hurt Brocken Meyer to the Tao Family and explained his connection to Hao. They also hoped that they could learn something important by making him talk.

Team Kabbalahers were one of the top six remaining teams in the Shaman Fight main tournament. During the decisive battle between Team "The Ren" and Team "Funbari Onsen", Team "Kabbalahers" withdrew from the tournament, thus allowing both teams to qualify together with Team "X-I" and Team "Hoshi-Gumi".

Invading the Plants
When the Shaman Fight was moved to the "Continent of Mu" the Asakura Family, the Tao Family and the Usui Family had a barbecue party at the beach, awaiting the results of the fight and hoping that their children would make it. After he and everyone else on the island was killed by Hao, he appeared with the rest of the Asakura Family on board the Soul Train within the Great Spirit.

Funbari no Uta
Some time after the Shaman Fight, Mikihisa would sadly be killed by a road pirate. He was returning home from the Pachinko with prizes won there, amongst other a wristwatch he wanted to give to his student Tamao. His mask was found in the gutter 100 meters away from the scene. He was never resurrected due to unknown reasons and he never reached nirvana, so his spirit continued to train.

Anime/Manga Difference
Mikihisa appears to play the same role in the anime as he did in the manga; however, because Redseb and Seyrarm are manga only characters, he was never mentioned to be part of any team in the Shaman Fight main tournament.

Trivia

 * The records with Soul Bob, that Yoh owns, were inherited by Mikihisa. The orange headphones that Yoh always wears also originally belong to Mikihisa. When he was young Yoh stole them to feel close to his father, who was often absent.