Asakura Hao

Asakura Hao (Zeke Asakura in the english dub) is the main antagonist in the Anime and Manga in Shaman King as well as being the twin brother and the ancestor of Asakura Yoh. His name means: Leaf King. He is one the most powerful shamans in the entirety of the series. His childhood is told in the manga side story Mappa Douji.

Appearance
Being Yoh's twin brother and ancestor, Hao is identical to Yoh in many ways physically, prominently in facial features and body structure. Differing from his younger twin, Hao's hair is much longer in length, reaching past his waist. He often wears a cloak that covers his upper body, but in the anime, it resembles more like a cape, but doesn't wear any other upper body clothing. He wears fingerless gauntlets with four small protrusions where the knuckles are, imprinted with his name. He wears a pair of baggy pants with two sections each with a set of three straps on each leg and shoes with long soles, similar to what most samurai wear. He wears a belt embedded with the Patch village insignia and the straps are lined with it as well. When Hao uses the Over Soul, his hair goes up.

Personality
Hao is usually calm, cruel, and always smiles. The occasions when he is really angry are very rare and when he is angry with someone, that person is usually killed by The Spirit Of Fire, he also likes to watch Shaman fights, especially those that involve strong Shaman, and Asakura Yoh´s fights too. He is not only interested in that, he wants to merge his soul with Asakura Yoh's soul to become one again (see history) and once he has that, take the Great Spirit as a guardian Ghost.

Abilities and Powers
Because he has died and reincarnated three times he has a high Furyoku, of 125.000.000 as of his current life. During his first life, according to Yohmei, he was so strong that even the strongest Shikigamis swore him loyalty.

Spirit

 * See More: Spirit of Fire

The spirit of fire is one of five elemental spirits created from the great spirit itself. It was stolen from the Patch Tribe during his second life as a Patch.

Shamanic Techniques
Because Hao has lived for a long time and has lived three lives he has learned many techniques and spells. Most of them comes from his first life.

Hao's original abilities of a taijitu master from his first life gives him full control over the elements and divination powers. He is not only able to manipulate the five elements of nature, fire, earth, wood, metal, and water materially, but also spiritually as shown when he converts the spirit of fire into the spirit of water. Even without the spirit of fire, Hao possesses great elemental and divination abilities and can easily bend oni and demigods to his will. However with the addition of the spirit of fire, one can only assume that he can greatly amplify the circular properties of his art by using the spirit of fire as a power source. However, the spirit of fire uses mostly physical attacks, and on occasion its fire attributes. Since Hao is fond of the element fire, he is rarely seen using his taijitu arts in both the manga and the anime. Nevertheless, the combination that his Onmyōdō abilities and the Spirit of Fire forms definitely gives him an oversoul second in power only to one with the great spirit.
 * Onmyōdō (陰陽道)

This is the ability to read the hearts of others. Whilst in some ways a useful ability, it is incredibly hard to control, with the end result that Hao was constantly inundated with the thoughts of those surrounding him. As a result, his contempt for the human race grew until he sought to create a world of only shamans.
 * Reishi (霊視)

Taizanfukun is the ancient Chinese name for the King of Hell, who judges the dead and decides their fate. It is through this technique that Hao was able to be reborn 500 years later as one of the Patch, and then again 500 years later.
 * Taizanfukun no Sai (泰山府君祭)

Childhood
When he was young a group of humans killed his Mother, because they thought that she was a demon. Having his house burnt, Hao wandered and lived aimlessly, believing himself to be a boy with demonic powers (Since the other boys bullied him for this) and dreaming to exterminate all humans. However, one day while sitting by a gate, he met a spirit named Ohachiyo and they quickly became friends. Ohachiyo gave him the nickname Mappa-douji (meaning demon boy) and convinced him to forget his vengeance towards humans and rather enjoy the aspects of life. Ohachiyo taught him things such as the skill of fishing, the sweetness of candy, the names of different song birds, and most importantly the ability of Reishi(that allows one to read the mind of others) and with that he started to have a peaceful life. Hao followed his word and lived life with a smile, for a moment at least. However, when a guard apparently heard Hao conversing with himself at night, he immediately suspected Hao of being a demon, and reported to Monk Densen, a known exorcist. Densen proved to be a fraud, and was easily overpowered, however this battle also proved to be a breaking point in Hao's path to evil. Hao recognized the man to be the one who killed his mother, and with his first oversoul, performed his first murder. By over depleting his Furyoku, Hao was unable to maintain control of his powers and unintentionally consumed Ohachiyo's power. This event leads to a constant Reishi that Hao is unable to turn off, leading to his path towards destruction.

Later life
With the experiece of his Childhood, Hao had tasted the power of a Shaman. He proved to be a genius in the divine abilities and his skills flourished with time. Hao grew to possess a good nature and he began training to become a onmyōji that eliminated Demons. Due his lonelyness Hao created an Oni ,but that wasn't a problem to him because he had the ability to control Demons. During that time Hao Met Matamune, one of his most valued Friends and also one of his two killers, the other being Asakura Yohken. Hao stated that Matamune was his only true friend, and gave it some of his spiritual energy in the hopes that Matamune would stay with him forever. Nevertheless, the curse implanted on Hao from Ohachiyo was permanent and eventually drew Hao mad. Matamune sadly left Hao as he saw his master go into madness and blames himself for not being able to help him. Hao eventually learns of the Shaman Fight, and comes to believe it is the key to cleansing the world of non-shamans, which he felt were defiling the natural world. His plans to create a shaman-only world are discovered and the Asakura clan stood against him and managed to defeat him. Afterwards, the Asakura family decided to change their family symbol from the traditional Yin-Yang five star sign (the emblem of the family's head, Hao) into a seven star tree that stated their renewal

Second Life
However, Hao's Ying-Yang jutsu, the mastery of the five elements of nature (fire, metal, wood, earth, water), prevented his permanent death as he could now control the circumstances of his reincarnation. He was able to gain the ability to control his soul using the ritual of Taizan Kuzun, one of the greatest and most esoteric of Onmyodo arts, an old name for the god of the underworld. Though Taizan Kuzun could only be reached by getting past the seventy five Lords of Hell, succeeding in making a contract with him gives one the ability to resurrect the dead or reincarnate themselves at will. The fact that Hao was able to perform this act as a living human being is a testament to his power, given that not even ghosts can reach Taizan Kuzun.

As Patch Hao
Hao then chose to be reincarnated as a Patch clan member, the ones that organizated the Shaman king Tournament, and then he stole the Spirit of Fire from the Patch tribe. During this time he also had a wife and a child. With his new ghost, Hao conquered many enemies with ease, including the five Seminoa warriors sent to stop him. He once again projected his idea of a shaman world, but was rejected by the shamans he was trying to promote. He again had the same plans of conquering the world and killing all humans, but he was stoped by Asakura Yohken and Matamune(his former loyal companion) using the Futsu no Mitama (the Antiquity in the English anime), a sword of spirits, and the Senhachijuu (only in the anime), a set of 1080 prayer beads containing powerful spirits of the Asakura family. Hao came very close to winning the shaman tournament, and was able to demonstrate the capacity of his power, becoming very infamous to shamans world wide. Despite the fact he died before becoming Shaman King, he achieved his goal of capturing the legendary Spirit of Fire for use as his guardian spirit in his next life. The Spirit of Fire is one of the few "God" class spirits in existence, possessing great power. Unfortunately he later reincarnated in a new life.

The wife and child he left behind were about to be killed, when they realized that they where now missing a priest, so they allowed both of them to live in order to keep the line of Patch Priests and several generations later Silva was born.

Third Life
In the story line, Hao´s Soul was split in two, one being the one that has Hao's memories, and the other held the human side of Hao this part of the soul is the soul of Asakura Yoh. In this incarnation he had the spirit of fire as his guardian ghost and he again had the same goal of becoming the shaman king and also merging his soul with Yoh's Soul.

Birth
After being killed as Patch Hao he choose to be reborn into his original blood line to become stronger. His actions was foreseen by Asakura Yohmei and it was decided to kill him. However when Yohmei was about to strike the infant he hesitated and that was enough for Hao to summon the Spirit of Fire. Trying to kill Yohmei with a punch, Mikihisa placed himself in the way and got badly burned. Hao then told Keiko to stay still as he did not wish his important other half to die before being born. With these words he disappeared.

Gaining Followers
After escaping the Asakura family he was apparantly raised by Blocken Mayer. During this time he also gathered followers and allowed the Spirit of Fire to consume souls and become stronger.

Anime/Manga Difference
Barely nothing is told of his past in the anime, only how he was reincarnated and that he stole the spirit of fire. Also because Yohken Asakura and Matamune are manga characters only it is never mentioned who precisely killed him, only that it was an Asakura and that it was done while he was sealed with the 1080 Prayer Beads. Also in he shows a lot more interest in joining with Yoh in the anime, and far less in the manga.

Trivia

 * Silva, who is the descendent of the Patch Hao, similarity is so striking that at first Yoh mistakes Patch Hao for Silva
 * In the English anime, Hao tends to say "so tiny" when referring to his opponents, but in the manga, he says "How small".