Usui Horokeu

Usui Horokeu (碓氷ホロケウ), nicknamed Horohoro (ホロホロ), is a fictional character in the manga and anime series of Shaman King. He is part of the Ainu Tribe, the son of Usui Lycan, and the older brother of Usui Pirica. During the second round of the Shaman Fights, he forms Team "The Ren" together with Tao Ren and Chocolove McDonell.

Appearance
Horohoro is a tall boy. He is most commonly seen wearing a white and blue skiing outfit, black shorts and skiing shoes that can be attached to his snowboard. He has long silver blue hair (light turquoise blue color in 2001) that when tied together with his headband, that has Ainu styled patterns on them, sticks up in spikes.

His street clothes are a plain white shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes. He also wears a towel as a headband. He usually carries his snowboard and all of his personal belongings in a bag on his back.

When he was using his new medium he wore his new battle outfit, sewn and given to him by Usui Pirica, consisting of a black headband, black vest, black shorts, black gloves, and black boots, with a blue lining, all with red Ainu markings. He also wears an open sleeveless jacket with blue lining and Ainu style patterns. He has black shorts tied with a white band. The markings on his headband and boots are called: "Morew-siriki" and "Ay-us-siriki". The outfit is used by Ainu for hunts.

Personality
Horohoro is good natured and quite cheerful, but he gets serious in dangerous situations. He constantly argues with his teammate Tao Ren and they don't seem to get along at all. However, it is shown that he really does care for Ren, when he tells Yoh that if he can't save Ren, he would never forgive him. Horohoro is also very secretive about his past and is not willing to talk about it. He became visibly enraged when Kalim called him by his birth name. In addition, Horohoro can also get very competitive, even going so far as to turn Ryu's arms to ice and shatter them during the fight between Team "The Ren" and Team "Funbari Onsen". Opacho, while reading his mind, has called him a wolf.

Horohoro was taught from a young age to respect and admire nature. He is very proud of his Ainu heritage and is willing to help any living being. He once saved a national park due to his obsession with nature.

Horohoro can be a very responsible person too as he can take care of himself and his sister on his own. He seems to have a crush on Iron Maiden Jeanne showing almost every time she appears, with Horohoro yelling out "Maiden-chan" and blushing at the same time. He is also a very sensitive person that can easily be provoked and his moods change quickly. During the final part of the shaman king tournament he changed radically to a very serious fighter with little joy during a fight but when he was not in combat he was joking and very jovial.

Abilities and Powers
He is quite crafty, being able to carve and made himself a snowboard out of wood with Ainu Symbols on it. He is also able to make small trinkets that he sells in order to survive. Despite his practical skills, Horohoro himself admits that he is terrible at academics, having once scored 25 percent on a math test.

In battle, Horohoro mainly uses ice to either attack his opponent with projectiles or creating large chunks of barriers to protect himself. After watching both Mikihisa and Ren, Horohoro manages to learn the Fumon Tonkō on his own, allowing to dodge his opponent's attacks, by reading the flow of their Furyoku. During the second round of the Shaman Fights, he attunes his Furyoku to the element of ice.

While fighting his way through the Plants, Kyōyama Anna looked through the Furyoku level values of Horohoro and the others. There it is revealed that his Furyoku level is about 120,000.

Spirits

 * See More: Kororo | Spirit of Rain

His guardian ghost is Kororo, a small nature spirit. Kororo is later revealed to be Horohoro's childhood friend, a girl nicknamed Kurobe Tamiko.

Horohoro uses his Over Soul to freeze water vapors in the air and for his first, Over Soul he channels Kororo into his snowboard, either riding it for swift attacks or attaching it to his arm for melee attacks. He would later form a new Over Soul by channeling Kororo into an Ikupasuy given to him by his sister Pirica. This Over Soul creates a large round owl face around his hand, enhancing the speed at which he is able to freeze things. He later develops an armor Over Soul called the Nipopo Gauntlets after being taught by Pascal Avaf. This Over Soul can manipulate moisture in the air so intensely that it flash freeze opponents and can cause limbs or an entire body to shatter in the blink of an eye.

During the second round of the Shaman Fights, Gandhara determines that Horohoro is one of the Five Elemental Warriors and he gains the Spirit of Rain, that according to Pascal Avaf can produce an infinite amount of holy water.

Past
Born Usui Horokeu on November 27, 1985. Horohoro is an Ainu from Hokkaidō, a prefecture in Japan. He was raised by his tribe to be the one that participated in the Shaman Fights to save their village. As part of this goal, he intends to plant a vast field of Butterbur. He was raised with the belief that the strongest prey on the weakest.

When Horohoro was a child, a new girl named Kurobe Tamiko moved to the small village he lived in. Her family had moved there because her father was constructing a dam that would eventually destroy everything in the area, making her shunned by all. Being lonely like Horohoro, she wanted to become friends with him and even gave him his nickname Horohoro. However, the Ainu tribe Elder forbade Horohoro to be with her. Horohoro stopped talking to her and Damuko did not know why. One year later, after following Horohoro into the mountains Damuko died by exposure to the elements through the rest of the village people believed that she died in an accident in the woods. Horohoro blamed himself for killing her and never forgave himself. Sometime later he met Kororo and made her his spirit ally.

Shaman Fights in Tokyo
After the destiny star was seen he came to Tokyo in order to participate in the Shaman Fight. He was tested by Kalim of the Ten Patch Officiants and won his Oracle Bell which a little while later revealed that he would fight against Asakura Yoh.

The fight would take place at the famous Sunshine 60 building in Ikebukuro. Horohoro dropped sixty stories to meet Yoh. Horohoro was rather taken back by Anna's engagement to Yoh and believing Manta was a Koro Pokurru. He attacked Yoh just before the match and the bell beeped. The battle begins. Horohoro launches attack after attack but Yoh blocks one asking what Horohoro's dream was as Horohoro responds by saying that he wants to build a massive Butterbur field. Yoh cries and consider forfeiture but this made Anna knocks Yoh back to his senses. Horohoro wonders what to do next but decides on attacking but is stopped at everything he does. Horohoro uses a massive avalanche and Yoh goes to full power and they clash. Horohoro thinks he has won but Yoh busts out and strikes him winning the match.

Horohoro is seen at the celebration party for Yoh and enjoys himself for a while. Horohoro's little sister Pirica shows up and nets him. Horohoro says he wants another laugh at Yoh and they leave. Horohoro somehow wins two matches and goes to the opening ceremony. He watches Yoh and Tao Ren tie and the gang celebrate their entrance into the second rounds.

When Ren was captured by his father Horohoro went to China to rescue him. The gang entered the Tao compound and was immediately attacked by Yúan's bodyguards. The Jiangshi cuts off Ryu's hair in half and Horohoro moves the gang to safety. The zombie with the elephant legs jumps and Horohoro hits him with the Nipopo Punch freezes and kills it. The zombie with the cheetah legs appears behind him and Ryu cuts it down. Horohoro tells Yoh to move on and they will deal with what is left. The two quickly take out two more zombies but the final zombie defeats them with little problem and Horohoro is nearly thrown through a wall and is knocked out. Pyron takes care of it. Horohoro gets up and the gang moves on. The gang finds Yuan and they attack with Horohoro freezing an arm but is knocked out. the entire gang gets knocked out but they get back up and continue fighting. Ren defeats his father. Horohoro then heads home and is put up in a hotel.

Horohoro relaxes before the next round and his sister gives him an Ainu prayer stick. He leaves to go to the military base with Yoh. Hao shows up and hits him fast and they get on the plane.

Traveling Through America
Horohoro is dumped on route 66 with Ren, Ryu, and Yoh. Ryu summons Billy and they get to the next town. Horohoro experiences the Patch Hao's past. When three shamans from the fight appear he knocks them out easily. The gang goes to a hotel and stays the night. The next day they meet a young boy named Lyserg Diethel. After a shuffle between Lyserg and Horohoro, he prepares his snowboard for an attack against Lyserg, to which Lyserg shows off his Over Soul and strikes Horohoro, who barely dodges. Suddenly appearing in front of Lyserg, Horohoro reveals his own Over Soul, but the Pendulum Over Soul appears next to him and suddenly its 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. After a short fight, Yoh gets Lyserg to join them.

A few days later he has his snowboard fixed and Horohoro flies off a mountain, but with no Over Soul. He is found by the park ranger Bluebell and he spends the next three days unconscious. Horohoro wakes up and thinks he had a dream then he looks at what is around him and yells "Where the heck am I!?". Bluebell tells him he has been out for three days and Horohoro leaves. Bluebell fires her gun at him explaining why he should not go out and Horohoro preaches some things about his Ainu heritage. Horohoro eats dinner at her place and she says she will drive him to town the next day.

Bluebell goes upstairs to sleep but Horohoro has other plans. He changes his battle clothes, grabs his new Prayer stick and goes out in the forest. Horohoro finds Apollo the bear that bluebell has raised from a cub. Bluebell arrives on the scene by hitting Horohoro in her car. She pleads with Horohoro to get in the car and pretend nothing happened, but Horohoro refuses and is smacked around by Apollo. Bluebell screams that he stop but Horohoro says that her screaming is upsetting Apollo more. He explains that helping other creatures is a good thing but there has to be a limit on wild animals. Apollo is so dangerous because he was marked with human scent and that could hurt since he could not go back to the wild or stay with the human population. Hearing this Bluebell understands her actions in the past.

Horohoro pours a drink for him but Apollo is shot, killing the once noble creature. Poachers come to take their prize but they run at the sight of bluebell. Horohoro tells them to take the bear for food but the poachers say they did it for sport. Bluebell runs toward them with her gun loaded but Horohoro is faster, angered by the hunters' disregard for nature and for killing the bear. The poachers fire and hit Horohoro but he gets back up. The bullets are useless since Horohoro iced over his body and the bullets drop harmlessly to the ground. Horohoro preaches that an animal being killed without being put to good use existed for nothing and that they will pay. Horohoro activates his new prayer stick and freezes the entire forest behind them. He then leaves, thanking Kororo for the job done and spares the poachers from death.

Bluebell and Horohoro bury Apollo and say a prayer for him and he leaves with a new passion to be king. The next day Horohoro finds the group eating lunch and he has a new attitude to be more calm and friendly. They move on to Patch village with Ren beating Horohoro up for his new attitude. They make it to the village and encounter Hao's followers. Horohoro stands back most of the time for Ryu and Boris' fight but freezes the blood spikes that Boris uses. The group enters the Patch village knowing something will be coming.

Shaman Fight Second Round


Horohoro fights alone against Brocken Meyer and Bill Burton to save the team "The Icemen" from death. He used the new special ability "Fumon Tonko" to dodge the attack from Bill. But Bill defeats all of them until Horohoro´s father interrupts the fight. Though he only wants to go back home, Bill attacks him and wants to feed his soul to the Spirit of Fire. Horohoro´s father defeats him with a single blow because of the higher Reiryoku level over Bill´s spirits. Because of this, Horohoro learns how to defeat his last opponent Brocken after Bill´s defeat. Horohoro uses his spirit and the Icemen´s spirits one after another to overcome the Reiryoku level of his opponent and to freeze him into an ice block.

He fights against the Golem to protect Yoh because he is strongly wounded. It looks like the Golem punches him away but he used Fumon Tonko to surf over the Furyoku wave. He jumps away from the tree while he landed after the Fumon Tonko, freezes the Golem and attacks him with ice even though it´s useless. The Golem breaks the ice and attacks Horohoro and Ren attacks the Golem to rescue him. After that Lyserg flies with them away.

At the tournament, the team "The Ren" fight against the team "Myo-oh". After Ren and Chocolove were defeated, he was the only one left. He blocks their attacks with ice because dodge wouldn´t make any sense since their so fast. He learned his new Oversoul Nipopo Gauntlets at this fight and defeat the team Myo-oh very fast with his new powerful attacks.

Invading the Plants
When at the plants he fought in every battle against the priests though he could not win, he but was able to stall them enough to allow the others to defeat them. He and Ren were killed by Bron in the Marsh Plant, but both were brought back by Iron Maiden Jeanne. When they reached the Grassland plant he fought against Kalim himself using his armor over soul in the process but was utterly defeated. Despite this, Kalim still offers them to rest as they were all weak, something all of them accept.

The next day Kalim suddenly appears before the group and after a small conversation, he quickly creates his Over Soul. Horohoro, with a deviant smile, creates his own Over Soul and slams the fists together to attack Kalim, showering him with a hail of huge icicles and slowly freezes Kalim.

However, Kalim just notes that Horohoro is still not fighting at his full strength and charges towards Horohoro, crushing all of his ice and Over Soul. He tells him to reveal his true self, something Horohoro has never done. Calling him by his birth name Usui Horokeu, Horohoro becomes angry and proclaims how he threw it away a long time ago calling it a name of a bastard who would kill the only girl he loved.

Horohoro then tells the tale about a girl named Kurobe Tamiko that he befriended in his childhood, and also gave him his nickname Horohoro, but was forced abandon by his village elder, because her father was building a dam that would take away the land and later got her killed. He then tells that his reason for training and calls himself pathetic. He punches Kalim and wants to know what Kalim now thinks about him. Kalim only laughs and calls it quite fine, saying that thanks to him he can now fight with his full heart as well. This revelation, however, causes Kororo to reveal her true form as Kurobe Tamiko who reveals how she died but still wanted to stay in this world and was offered to become a Koropokkuru by Gororo in order to stay in this world. Horohoro thanks Kalim for making this happen and somehow manages to defeat Kalim. Kalim's body is buried in his plant with a cross and Kalim's cow skull as a memorial to him. After the battle Horohoro is still shocked at what he did and Kororo's true form. The gang moves on to the next plant.

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 suggests that they all protect themselves with their own personal O.S. but Ryu suddenly interrupts and suggests that they all use the heads of his O.S. Yamato No Orochi so that the rest can fight at full strength. As Ren questions the responsibility he would suddenly have he says that he wants to be useful too as the seven is currently his best place. Even though they are able to fight at their full strength they are still beaten by Rutherfor until Yoh nullifies 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 almost 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 sent back.

Funbari no Uta
In the seven years after the Shaman Tournament, Horohoro graduates from High School and learns about farming and agriculture. He seems to have begun working on creating a field of butterbur with his own hands and powers with his sister Pirica, though she is more interested in her boyfriend. He also fights against illegal logging companies. Horohoro have even created a blue candy-flavored Fresh Marimo ball, though it does not sell well.

When he arrives at the Funbari ga Oka train station Horohoro scares Asakura Hana, who punches him in the face in return and is reprimanded by Chocolove and Lyserg who arrive at the same time. He like the others is shocked to see Ren arrive in a Horse Carriage and later in the café he wonders who is the mother of Ren's son, Tao Men. Lyserg hints at it by pointing out the boy's features and his name, though he is interrupted by Ryu who announces that Yoh and Anna are delayed. After remembering their final promise to Hao, Yoh and Anna finally arrive and the group head to the party at the Funbari Onsen where he comes into a fight with Ren. After the party is over he is seen lying passed out on the table telling Hana to calm down when he yells at them.

Anime/Manga Difference
In the English dub of the 2001 anime series, his real name is Horohoro but he prefers to be called Trey Racer. In both manga series and Japanese dub, his real name is Usui Horokeu and Horohoro is just a nickname. In the English dub of the 2001 anime series, he is described as from "the Northern Woods" instead of from Hokkaidō. In the manga series, he gains different battle clothes during his time in America.

Trivia

 * His birth name, "Horokeu", means wolf in Ainu language. Specifically, it is the Ainu name for the now-extinct Hokkaido wolf.
 * Horokeu's nickname Horohoro sounds and is spelled (in Katakana) like boroboro which means "crap". Characters mispronouncing and or misspelling his name is a running gag in the Shaman King series.
 * His hobby is snowboarding.
 * His favorite food is Jingisukan, a grilled mutton dish popular in Hokkaido and named after Genghis Khan.
 * In the original Funbari no Uta miniseries Horohoro's hair is loose and let down. However, in the Visionz pages, his hair is now naturally spiked, without a headband to hold it up.