Tao Ren

Tao Ren (道蓮, Dào Lián, known as Len Tao in the English anime and English video games) is a fictional character in the manga and anime series of Shaman King. He was born on January 1, 1986 and is the 43rd heir to the Tao Family.

Appearance
Tao Ren is shorter than Yoh and most of his friends, at 4'9", but he seems to look taller when the length of the spike in his hair is added up. This spike is a part of his hairstyle called tongari. He is relatively thin, and his spiked hair is a shade of dark purple. Ren's eyes are golden in the anime, but in the manga's colored pages, they usually appear gold, brown or the same color as his hair.

His street clothes are his school uniform; a pair of black shorts, a tucked-in, white dress shirt, a yellow jacket, a dark green tie and a pair of brown shoes. When he was to travel to America, his old jacket was worn-out, so his mother gave him a similar one. When traveling through the country he wears a black coat, a yellow scarf, long pants and brown leather shoes.

When he left to America, he also brought with him a new battle uniform, that is inspired by kung fu cloth. Both the pants and the vest are black and both have a triangular pattern with a yellow lining, and the pants are tied with a white silk belt. The vest also has an opening in the back outlining his Tao tattoo. Even though he brought it with him from before the start of the Shaman Fight, the reason why he never wore it during the fights in America was because they were all so sudden, that he never had the chance to change. Although of this, he is still seen a couple of times wearing his school clothes as a casual outfit during the Second Rounds of the Shaman Fights.

Personality
Ren is serious, logical, and emotionally aloof. He tries hard to maintain a tough and confident exterior, but deep down would risk his life for his allies. Ren is a particularly impatient person with a very short temper, and isn't afraid to hurt the source of the anger. Because of how he was raised amongst dead corpses and spirits he began applying the survival of the fittest rule as a way of overcoming death. He also believed that his guardian ghost Bason, was only meant to be used as a tool and to treat him as a friend would only result in the spirit taking advantage over him. Ren's anger and hatred came from his father Tao Yúan. Forced to train and study at a very young age, Ren had his childhood stolen from him and thus, hated his father for all of his suffering.

Ren is an egotistical person and usually doesn't care that people think that he's overly proud. He even named his own team, Team "The Ren", much to the annoyance of his teammate, Horohoro. In addition, Ren is also very intuitive, quick-witted, sometimes stubborn and he can also be very defiant. He rarely listens to what anyone says or takes their instructions. Before and during the process in which he befriended Asakura Yoh, he was even bold enough to disobey his father on various occasions.

As the Shaman Fight progresses, Ren begins to trust others more. Out of all his friends, his bonds with Chocolove and Horohoro seem to be the strongest. Ren often fights with Horohoro and the two do not seem to get along at all. However, after Ren is fatally stabbed by Peyote Diaz, it becomes apparent that they really do care for one another as Horohoro tried his best to protect Ren until help could arrive

Abilities and Powers
As a human Ren has a very strong body as evidence by his tough and constant training. He is very skilled in martial arts and sword fighting, in addition to also learning techniques by just watching them as he was able to learn many of Asakura Mikihisa's techniques simply by experiencing them firsthand, and also learning to use Oversoul by just seeing Chrome use his. It is mentioned that Ren is skilled in more than one area of combat and is a powerful shaman capable of performing feats most shamans his age would not be able to. He is one of only a handful of shamans that can actually stare straight into the heart of the Great Spirit without fainting. The only others that can do this would be Iron Maiden Jeanne, Asakura Hao, and possibly Lady Sati.

Ren becomes one of the Five Elemental Warriors and gains the Spirit of Thunder. His element is reflected in his final Over Souls ability to produce lightning and according to Pascal Avaf, The Spirit of Thunder follows the way of Taoism. While fighting his way through the Plants, Kyōyama Anna looked through the Furyoku values of Ren and the others. There it is revealed that his Furyoku is about 100,001 though it might be higher due to him dying a few times and being brought back.

Weapons
In the beginning of the series, Ren fights with a kwan dao, a Chinese spear-like weapon that he used for both his Hyōi Gattai and later as a medium for his first Over Soul.

However after Asakura Hao incinerated his kwan dao, he switched to the Bâo-Lèi Sword, the Tao's family most treasured heirloom that was given to him by his father. With this sword, he creates two new Over Souls; the Super Bushin and the Bushin Fish Fin. The Bâo-Lèi Sword also have the special ability of purifying and refining the spirit being integrated into it.

Spirit

 * See More: Bason | Spirit of Thunder

Bason (馬 孫, Mǎsūn) is Ren's guardian ghost. A fierce warrior from the era of Kublai Khan, Bason have always served the Tao family, even now in death. Like Amidamaru, he is a supremely powerful spirit, capable of destroying an army with ease and their skills are on pair.

He refers to Ren as "Bocchama" (Young Master) and is rather submissive but is also extremely loyal to him and rarely oversteps his boundaries unless Ren is in grave danger. When Ren used the Bâo-Lèi Sword it increased the strength of Bason several times and evolved him into a seirei-class spirit.

After becoming one of the Five Elemental Warriors, he gains the Spirit of Thunder, which follows the way of Taoism.

Coming to Tokyo
Ren came from China to Japan to fight Asakura Yoh and take his guardian ghost Amidamaru, as he wanted to become Shaman King and needed many strong spirits. He meets Manta when Manta was getting home from cram school through the cemetry and told Manta to pass the message to Yoh that he will take Amidamaru. He was later spotted by Manta and Yoh outside a restaurant surrounded by a gang that he had offended. The gangsters attack him but Ren demonstrates his immense strength by defeating them quickly with Kenpou without the use of his spirit. However, when one of he gangsters tried to run him over with a car, Ren unleashed Bason and performed Hyoui Gattai, easily splitting the car in half and destroying it. Not satisfied, Ren decides to kill the gangster but is stopped by Yoh, who told him that "that was enough". Ren tells Yoh that humans deserve to die sice their hearts only seek pleasure and that when he becomes the King of Shamans, he would purify the world. He adds that in order to do that, he needed many strong spirits and requests that Yoh give him Amidamaru. Yoh refuses to, stating that Amidamaru was his friend, and Ren faces him in a battle. The fight is equal until Ren, excited at Amidamaru's strength, applies 100% acceptance, the ability to draw all of the spirits strength into this world, as Ren claims, and succeeds in landing a fatal strike on Yoh. Yoh, however, manages to get up after Ren stated that spirits were nothing but tools and that becoming friends with them would only make them take advantage of the shaman, telling Ren that Amidamaru was his friend and further adding that he would rather send Amidamaru to heaven than give him to Ren, where he would be treated like a tool. This angers Ren and he charges at Yoh, determined to kill him, but Amidamaru shields Yoh with his body. Ren is surprised by this but mocks Amidamaru's action and uses 100% acceptance again to strike Yoh. Yoh, however, also applies 100% acceptance, much to Ren's shock, and the two clash, with Ren being defeated. After his defeat, Ren stays in an abondoned chinese restaurant that he bought from its last owner, still angered at his defeat and brooding over his failure in aqquiring Amidamaru, which he believed was Bason's fault.

Shaman Fights in Tokyo
During the Shaman Tournaments qualifications rounds, Ren was tested by the Patch Chrom. Easily learning how to use his oversoul and placing a hit on Chrom, Ren was not satisfied and furiously attacked Chrom, killing him in the process. After doing so, Ren arrogantly stated that no one could doubt his abilities now and left the scene laughing at what he did.

When Yoh was about to be attacked by Faust's 12730 kilogram Skeleton giant, Ren interfered by kicking the skeleton giant with ease, not wanting his next opponent to be killed, and to show Yoh his over soul. At that time, he revealed that he had already won one fight meaning that he would have to win against Yoh to proceed to the tournament, as the time left in the Shaman Fight Preliminaries had run out.

Three months later, Ren and Yoh meet up again, ready to fight. Ren, remembering his humiliating defeat, tells Yoh that he will soon become an obstacle and sought to kill him. However, Yoh laughs this off and stated that he too, could not afford to lose before laughing again. Surprised, Ren senses that something about Yoh had changed but after seeing Yoh joking about with Amidamaru, convinces himself that he is mistaken. Ren gets off his horse and tells Yoh that shamans like him are not even a fist's worth, but Yoh ignores this comment and points out that Ren had grown taller, further angering him. Believing that Yoh was treating him like a fool, Ren went straight in striking Yoh with his over soul as soon as the battle started but Yoh shields it. Ren commented that Yoh's new over soul was pretty good before exploding his own over soul and charging at Yoh with incredible speed. Upon getting near, Ren starts striking Yoh over and over again and Manta notes that Ren is extremely irritated.

After surprising Yoh with his barrage of attacks, Ren goes behind Yoh and strikes him with his weapon, telling Yoh that he was going to die for underestimating his strength. Yoh, however, manages to block Ren's hit with his back turned to him, shocking Ren. Amidamaru reveals that Yoh could only do this because he had his eyes and Yoh hits Ren, sending him flying. However, Ren was uninjured and was revealed to have not even used 1/10 of his power. Ren loads all of his power into his over soul and explodes it again, this time with an even bigger impact. Ren rushes at Yoh and Yoh just manages to defend himself, but is sent towards the sky by the impact created by Ren. Ren then rode on his over soul and attacked Yoh in air, which Yoh managed to block just in time. Ren scornfully asked Yoh if he had thought that his attack would end there and summons a gigantic fist from Bason, which slams Yoh towards the ground. Yoh uses his over soul to cushion the fall but Ren starts striking him over and over, breaking Yoh's over soul and causing his power level to fall. Silva, who was witnessing the battle, quietly states that Yoh would not stand a chance if he does not summon an over soul that could beat Ren's. Yoh deduces that he would have to make an over soul that could overcome Ren's in order to defeat him but refuses to do so, since he did not know how to. Amidamaru starts worrying but Yoh reveals that in the Yomi Cave he had learnt the importance of being himself and not pushing things unreasonably since it made him unsure and unable to differentiate what he could do and what he couldn't do. He assures Amidamaru that all he could do now was to trust in him and do what was right at the correct moment. After hearing Yoh's words. Ren angrily told Yoh that all his words were just excuses since he could not fight and attacks Yoh with his over soul again. Amidamaru, however, manages to counter and penetrates Ren's over soul, causing it to disintegrate.

Angered that Yoh managed to counter his attack, Ren launches another oversoul, but Yoh, at Amidamaru's words, slants to the right and goes right under him, succeeding in dodging the attack. This further irritates Ren and he attacks Yoh yet again, but Yoh dodges it again and appears behind Ren, asking him where he was looking before attacking and breaking Ren's over soul. Ren then asked Yoh how he managed to avoid all his attacks, but Yoh reveals that he had been hit, and that including his earlier attack, it would have been four times for him and seven times for his over soul. Silva reveals that Yoh's over soul was able to defeat Ren because Ren was too distracted by his anger to notice that his attacks had been working. He adds that Ren, who had full confidence in his power, was unsettled by how Yoh remained calm even as he used up his power and attacked, and his confidence started crumbling, along with his over soul.

Ren remembers his reason to become The King of Shamans and decides to end everything. He uses his full power and places the spirit of Bason's horse inside his personal horse, Hei-Tao and places all of his spiritual power into Bason, completely materializing his entire upper body. He tells Yoh that the world he was aiming for and the weight he was carrying was something that he could not ever comprehend. He prepares to strike Yoh and Yoh, knowing that he could not avoid it, does the same with Amidimaru and the duo clashes, creating a huge cloud of dust that engulfs them.

As the dust clears, Ren's over soul was revealed to have completely vanished and Ren realizes that he had indeed lost. Ren reveals that he had already knew that he couldn't beat Yoh, ever since the day they had met, he had known the outcome of the battle. Yoh, however, reveals that his over soul, too, had faded away long ago, prompting Ren to fall of his horse comically. The two start bickering and Silva steps in to stop the argument, announcing that the fight had ended in a draw. Ren angrily demanded how they were to count the result of the fight and Goldva suddenly appears, declaring that the both of them had advanced to the preliminaries.

Ren then attends the opening ceremony of The King of Shamans Fight and was later persuaded by Horohoro, to attend a gathering at Yoh's house. The next day, Ren leaves to go to China and tells Yoh that he had one goal left in mind - to defeat him with a power even greater than his and departs.

As Ren becomes friends with Yoh and the others, he realizes that everything he once believed about the world was not true. Ren wishes to let go of his hatred so he could be able to move on with his life and thus, returns to China to defeat his father. There he and Bason were met with an army of zombie warriors from corpses freshly killed by Yúan.

Ren quickly smashes through all the zombies with little problem until his father appears, which Ren did not notice until he announced his presence, and welcomes him home with a blast of furyoku. Yúan says that he did expect both his children to revolt against him. Two zombies bring Tao Jun and what is left of Pyron. Yúan then captures Ren and later throws him in the Tao dungeon to be torture for ten days. Jun laments her misery but Ren uses the line Yoh uses constantly; "It will work out" to calm Jun. Yoh finally arrives at the dungeon area and frees him. Ren tells the reason why he must do this in the fact that he came to defeat the evil inside himself. The two zombies that control the torture area come and they both kill the zombies.

They head back upstairs and find Yúan's final bodyguard about to kill Horhoro and Ryu. The zombie goes behind the two and hits them with Pyron's moves. Manta guesses correctly that the final zombie is was in fact Pyron's master. The zombie reveals its face and Ren says that Yúan probably placed the master's ghost into a freshly dead body. The zombie gets behind Yoh but Pyron stops it. Jun and Pyron take it down by cutting it half. The gang moves on and encounters Yúan himself.

Ryu and Horohoro cut off Yúan's arms but they grow back and they are slammed down. Ren attacks Yúan but only dismembers him and Yuan still lives. Yúan attacks Ren and Yoh takes the blow. Pyron kicks Yúan in the head but Pyron is later thrown into a wall. Ren starts listening to his father for a bit but knows that he is only doing this because he is weak. The gang gets up and face Yúan. Yúan is surprised that they would do this for Ren and he loses his temper. Yúan attacks but he goes right through Ren revealing that the father they knew was a over soul. Yúan reveals his armor of memorial tablets and forms a dragon. Ren over souls and defeats Yúan. This finally allows Ren to move on from his hatred and try to do something good for a change.

Ren's mother and grandfather appear and manage to stop Yúan from taking it farther. They invite the gang to dinner and they are happy to go. Ren tells his family he must leave and he can not stay longer due to the shaman fight. They leave and Ren gains the Bo-lei sword from his father. His father tells him to be safe and Ren promises to be by the boundless lands of China.

Ren is next seen at the gathering of the shaman at the military base. He is eating food that is is provided by the Patch. The gang takes a break and meet Hao. The spirit of fire attack Horohoro and Ren catches him. He in turn attacks Hao but is stopped by he spirit of fire. Ren boards the plane and when it disappears Ren explains that the test is not about how well the shamans fly but if they can stay calm under pressure. The gang power up their over souls and hit the ground.

Traveling Through America
Ren, Yoh, Ryu, and Horohoro landed on route 66 safe and Ryu summoned Billy to go to the nearest town. Ren, Yoh, Ryu, and Horohoro ran into Lilirara and witnessed the Patch Hao's past. He encountered Lyserg the next day. Lyserg then gives a full introduction about himself and asks to join the group, to which Yoh suddenly politely greets him to the shock of the Horohoro and Tao Ren. After a brief debate about him by Horohoro and Ren, Ryu shockingly notes that Horohoro adresses Lyserg with "he" and asks if Lyserg is a guy to which Lyserg pulls down his pants which in turn freaks out all of them. Lyserg then goes on to explain his dowsing abillities and reveals his spirit Morphine.

After a schuffle between Lyserg and Horohoro, Horohoro prepares his snowboard for an attack against Lyserg, to which he shows off his Oversoul and strikes Horohoro, who barely dodges. Suddenly appearing in front of Lyserg, Horohoro reveals his own Over Soul, but suddenly the Pendulum Over Soul appears next to him and suddenly the pendulum tip is right at his face. Ren prepares to cut the wire with his own fully charged Over Soul, but Lyserg easily incapacitates both Ren and Horohoro by cutting them with the wire and crushing their mediums.

The group would later encountered Boris Tepes Dracula and the rest of Hao's followers at the entrance to the Patch Village. Ryu eventually defeats Boris and the group then encounter the X-Laws who kills Boris and easily beats up "Big Guy" Bill Burton. They are about to kill Bill when Yoh stops them and in gratitute Bill shows them the rest of the way.

Shaman Fight Second Round
Ren entered the Patch village with a power increase but unlike other people he actually stared straight into the Great Spirit with out fainting. Chocolove encountered the group and explained the team stipulation to Ren. Ren quickly put his team together of himself, Chocolove McDonell, and Horohoro. He named his team "the Ren" without saying anything to his team. They were paired against Hao's Earth team. Chocolove handled most of the battle. When Chocolove ran out of power Ren took over defeating the Earth team in one blow. Hao talked to Ren after Yoh's match and destroyed Ren's kwan dao.

Ren did not like the idea of being trained by Asakura Yoh's father so he fought him but was knocked out and in the process he revealed his new Bao-Lei sword Over Soul. Hao's followers attacked and Chocolove and Horohoro held them off for some time. Ren decided to go in and fight. He did that and was winning when Peyote Diaz, wanting revenge from earlier, pulled out the calevera Phantasma, impaling Ren with the the small knife it carried. Chocolove and Horohoro quickly rushed in and sealed the massive wound on Ren.

Yoh arrived and defeated Hao's followers. Yoh had made a deal with Iron Maiden Jeanne to revive Ren in exchange for Yoh having to drop out of the tournament. Jeanne arrived and after preparing a ceremony, had Shamash kiss Ren, bringing him back to life, though he was utterly disgusted with it.

Invading the Plants
Ren and the group enter the volcano plant and face off against Magna. Magnascope attacks and they both oversoul. Magna crushes Jeanne's Iron Maiden but nothing is inside. Ren oversouls and strikes Magna with the full force of his lightning based attacks.

Magna, however, uses the Patch Song and readies himself to kill. A long clash then starts where both fighters would constantly dodge or block the others attack. Suddenly a large amount of smoke blows up in between them something Magna uses to suddenly disappear and hide from Ren. Suddenly appearing to strike Ren, Ren disappears before he can make a clean hit. Ren reappears in the blink of and eye behind Magna and explains how he had become fast as lightning. Suddenly Magna realizes that he needs to warn Nichrome about this but is killed with a massive lighting bolt allowing Yoh and company to move on to the next plant.

When Ren and the remaining three teams reached the 7th Plant of the Cave, they find Nichrom who quickly revealed his medium and spirit and Over Souled Yellow Whip. He urged the group to attack him together, but Ren only revealed his old weapon and goated him to attack him alone. Nichrom proceeded to attack Ren with the scorpion tail, only to have the tail wrap itself around the arm of Bason and is used to slam Nichrom to the ground.

Ren proceed to use 100 %Hyoi Gattai, to rapidly attack Nichrom with the Zhong Hua Zhan Wu, leaving him a bloody mess and his patch cloak tattered. Nichrom slowly rose up and in a state of insanety, tried to attack Ren yet again, to which Ren easily grabbed the scorpion tail by the brod himself. Ren then tells Nichrom fight with all his might or die. Taking in Ren's words Nichrom throws away his tattered cloak and reveals a new Over Soul on his legs, made with the spirit of Purple Kick. Nichrom thanks Ren for his words and reveal that with this new Over Soul he gains an incredible speed and is able to appear behind Ren and then kick him into a wall.

Using the speed, Nichrom charges towards Ren and grabs him with the claw of his Yellow Whip Over Soul while piercing him in the gut with the brod of his scorpion tail. Nichrom reveals to Ren that his body is now dying of a poison that will not disappear as long as he is still alive. Seeing that Nichrom is now going all out, Ren prepares his own Armour Over Soul and both of them have one final clash. The result of the fight is not seen, but as Ren is later seen beeing patched up by Asakura Yoh using the ghost of Faust VIII, it would seem that Ren was the winner.

The group then proceeds on to the 8th plant of the Ocean, where Thalim of the Ten Patch Officiants are awaiting them. Thalim greeds them politely remembering the tip Yoh gave earlier at the Patch Cafe and they seemingly have a friendly conversation. Ren is however unfaced by all of this and quickly oversouls his Armour Over Soul and attacks Thalim with "ElecBang" only to have it blocked by a gigantic tree that suddenly grows up around Thalim. Thalim reveals that Ren's lightning is largely ineffective against him as the tree would just disperse the electricity into the ground. After Horohoro also fails against Thalim plants, bot Ren and Horohoro is tied up by Thalim's Clematic Over Soul. Thalim is finally defeated by Chocolove when he learns the power of erotion.

As the group finally arrives at the 10th and final "Plant of the Universe" they realize that there is no oxygen and no gravity and begin to wonder how they are supposed to fight in there. At first Lyserg suggest that they all protect themself with their own personal O.S. but Ryu suddenly interrtups and suggest that they all use the heads of his O.S. Yamato No Orochi so that the rest can fight at full strenght. As Ren questions the responsibility he would suddenly have he says that he wants to be usefull too as the seven is currently his best place. Even though they are able to fight at their full strenght they are still beaten by Rutherfor until Yoh nullify her Over Soul.

When Hao finally awakens he sends a message to the Oracle Bells that reads "'so small" He arrives at the final plant and effortlessly kills everyone with a simple glance, excluding Rutherfor, Opacho and Yoh. After Hao attempts to banish Yoh from his area in the Great Spirit Ren, Lyserg, Chocolove and Horohoro appear within it, with the Five Grand Elemental Spirits. A fierce battle between the 5 Elemental Warriors and the Shaman King begins.

In the end Hao reveals that he was merely preparing for their end and use the Great Spirit to destroy a sun and create a black hole that almoust sucks in the Five Warriors until the Soul Train arrives and anchors everyone. Hao is eventually discouraged from his plan of destroying humanity when his mother arrives and everyone is send back..

Funbari no Uta
In the seven years that passed he reluctantly grew tall and his long hair was braided into a three pronged Tongari. He studied at Tsinghua University and after graduating, Ren, together with Bill Burton and Hang Zang-Ching, build the Raitei Group (雷帝グループ Lightning Emperor Group) a large electronics manufacturering company and became the President. He met Iron Maiden Jeanne while she was traveling Europe, eventually marrying her and together they had a son, Tao Men. After she gave birth, she went on a maternity leave and left Ren as the leader of X-Charity (X慈善団体).

When Horohoro, Chocolove, and Lyserg arrive for their reunion with Yoh and Anna, they all suddenly notice the appearance of a horse driven carriage. Horohoro comments that it was so typical of Ren to be so stubborn that he would refuse to use a car. As a small boy stepped out, Ren complained about the fact Tokyo was always messy and that no matter where you went there where always crowds and traffic jams, oblivious to the fact that he had caused the crowd and traffic jam by arriving in a carriage. Seeing the resemblance, Horohoro, Lyserg and Chocolove all thought that the little boy was Ren, until Ren himself came out of the carriage and picked up the kid announcing that the boy is his son, Tao Men, and doesn't understand why they are all shocked.

While waiting for Yoh and Anna, Horohoro asks Ren who the mother of the child is, only for Ren to refuse to answer. Lyserg however tells that he has already deduced who it was. When Ryu arrives and tells that Yoh and Anna was delayed Ren stood up angry and shouted making all three of his hair-spikes grow. As they wait for Yoh and Anna they all remember the end of their fight with Hao and realize that despite their promise to him nothing have changed, only to be encouraged by Yoh who have just arrived. After the greeting they all party back in the where Ren attacks Horohoro at the end out of anger.

Later during the night a parcel arrives from the Patch Village and Anna comes in to reveal it is a book over the Shaman Fights that had transpired in Tokyo.

Anime/Manga Difference
In the 4Kidsdub he was given a British accent and his name was changed to Len Tao.

Trivia

 * Ren's name in Chinese means "benevolent", "tough", and "edge of a knife", all of which are reflected in his character. His actual Chinese name, Lián, means "lotus" and is actually a girl's name.
 * Ren has an obsession with milk and the number 3.
 * A running gag in the series is that Ren's tongari grows longer whenever he gets irritated or shocked.
 * It is mentioned in the interview part in the official Shaman King character book, that he would like a girl if she is smaller than him and not very annoying.