Tao Jeanne

Iron Maiden Jeanne(アイアン・メイデン・ジャンヌ, Aian Meiden Jannu) is a fictional character in the manga and anime series Shaman King. She is voiced by Yui Horie in the Japanese version. She was born on March 2, 1990 and her blood type is AB. From Mont Saint-Michel, France, she is a powerful shaman in her own right. Jeanne is the leader and symbol of the X-Laws.

Appearance
She is known for her blood red eyes and very long silver hair and almost fragile appearance. She is extremely charismatic; in the English anime, Tamao Tamamura calls her a "princess" after hearing her speak for the first time. When she is in the maiden, she is nude except for a pair of old fashioned PJ pants.

When in her armored form, Jeanne wears sandals with spikes going into her feet (yet they do not pierce her) and also wears a giant lock on her abdominal region, like a chastity belt. These two items seem to represent self-flagellation.

During the mission to bring back Tao Ren she wore a very neat dress and dress shoes. It is revealed that this is Jeanne's favourite dress, which was made with high class materials by a very talented tailor. This is slightly difficult to wear though due to its frills and she would like to wear more simple clothes. This outfit became her street clothes later on.

Personality
Jeanne's heart is noble and pious, but she knows nothing of the outside world because she has stayed out of normal people's lives since she was a child. For that reason her devotees feel an immense amount of compassion and love for her, but also a great respect. She may look a little arrogant but she is totally pure and has no evil intentions. Her passionate hatred of Asakura Hao derives from the fact she believes him to be the ultimate evil. While she believes herself to be a martyr of sorts and is still very soft-spoken and compassionate towards the X-Laws, specially towards young Lyserg Diethel (she defended and praised Lyserg several times when Marco was too hard on him), she has become detached from humanity and is unable to see that not everything is black and white. Though she is seen as emotionless, the eyes on the face of the Iron Maiden will cry tears of blood when she herself feels sad and needs to cry. After a while, she became an ally and later a genuine friend to Yoh and his friends.

In a way, Jeanne is like Hao, since she kills whoever stands in her way indiscriminately if they don't surrender to her pleas for peace. They both believe that they are helping the world and their actions will be justified by the end results. The difference is that Jeanne honestly believes she is stopping the fighting and is blinded with the belief that her fighting is helping despite the deaths it causes, while Hao is fully aware of his evil and the true nature of his actions.

Abilities and Powers
Jeanne (after manga only character Lady Sati) has the level of furyoku closest to Hao, making her more powerful than she appears. However, she loses all of her powers after Shamash is devoured by the Spirit of Fire. Also it would appear she can endure a lot of pain due to the time she spends with her torturing devices inside the the iron maiden.

Spirit

 * See More: Shamash

Jeanne's guardian ghost is Shamash(シャマシュ, known as "Mash" in the English Anime), the Babylonian god of justice. Shamash is the key to opening the Gate of Babylon and appears as a very tiny strange looking creature that proves to have immense power. Her attempt to open the Gate of Babylon to seal away Hao fails and almost cost Jeanne her life.

In the manga, when Tao Ren is killed, Shamash revives him with a kiss on the lips (much to Ren's dislike). Jeanne compares the method of resurrection she used with Shamash to the story of Sleeping Beauty.

Iron Maiden
This is one of Jeanne's many intermediary objects, that takes the form of a famous medievil torture device with a feminine shape. It contains numerous sharp iron spikes and nails that pierce the flesh, causing great pain. There are so many spikes inside that even someone as slender as Jeanne still gets hurt but this is one of the secrets to her great power. She spends nearly all her time inside the iron maiden keeping her in a near death state, as she goes through constant periods of getting hurt and then healing, in order to slowly increase her strength by causing her Furyoku to gradually rise. She rarely leaves it unless she is desperately needed, believing her suffering will bring justice to the world. Marco is the one who holds the key to her release.

Her iron maiden is made of solid iron and is therefore quite heavy, however, it was crushed by one of the Patch Officiants, Magna, most likely beyond repair.

Past
In the manga, it is revealed that Jeanne was not actually a savior with an omnipotent type of purity. She was an orphan girl taken by the original leader of the X-Laws, Luchist, who, alongside Marco, raised her to believe she was a holy person, who was destined to destroy Hao. Jeanne, herself, is nothing more than an ordinary girl who was granted both strong shamanic powers and a strong guardian ghost.

Little is known about Jeanne's history other than she is an orphan. The series states that Jeanne was a French country girl with shamanic powers, who was raised in an old monastery. She received a divine revelation at the age of ten while praying in a Catholic church. A cross of light appeared and a mysterious voice revealed to her the world was to be destroyed unless it was purged of an evil force. Recognizing the evil force to be Asakura Hao, Jeanne chose to become a shaman.

Shaman Fights First Round
She later entered the shaman fight but little is known about what she did. What is known is that her team X-I won its first two matches and advanced to the next round.

Shaman Fights Second Round
She got on the plane headed to the Patch village and ended up somewhere in the American west. Not much is known on what she did or how she even got to the village. She did beat the three month time limit and teamed with Marco and Lyserg Diethel to create the X-I team. Her team was paired against the Team "Niles". Lyserg started that match but stopped since he could not kill. Jeanne stepped up by hitting Lyserg. Just before Marco opened the Iron Maiden everyone took notice of her massive spirit power.

Marco opened the Maiden and revealed her. She oversouled the maiden and quickly traps and kills Anatel. She then traps Kahfre and Nakht imploring to stop and stop sinning. The last of the Nile's are so hung up on their dead friend that they did not know what she means. Jeanne feels sorry for them and kills them easily ending the match.

Asakura Hao's Attack
While driving around the island with Tamao Tamamura, Marco and Lyserg Diethel, she is suddenly attacked by a man they at first believe, to be Anatel. However he reveals that Anatel was his brother and that he is named Anahol. Anahol wants revenge on her for the death of his brother and begins attacking the car the four of them are in with his Sphinx spirit, but fails as Lyserg uses Zelel to get them away.

Lyserg pleads with Jeanne to call upon Shamash to help them fight, but she is too shocked about something to react and the car is destroyed. Later it is revealed that before she died, she used Shamash to heal Marco, who previously had been pierced right through the chest.

Invading the Plants
She went to the plants to try to stop Hao. She helped Lyserg defeat Bron and when Ren and horohoro were killed by Bron she brought them back to life again using the last of her power. She was last seen waiting at the Plant of the Valley powerless hoping Hao would be defeated.

Funbari No Uta
Though she did not make any appearance at Funbari No Uta, her Iron maiden can be briefly seen in a room similar to a torture dungeon from the Middle Ages. Whether or not she is still inside it is not mentioned. It is also heavily implied that she was married into the Tao family and that she and Ren have a child together named Men, as Lyserg pointed out the silver hair and the red eyes resembling his mother's.

Gate of Babylon
The events concerning the Gate of Babylon occur in the anime only.

The ultimate purpose of the X-Laws is the opening of the Gate of Babylon, which is supposedly able to seal away the great shaman Hao. Midway through the series, the Gate of Babylon was introduced to the protagonists, who were puzzled by its meaning.

When the gate is opened, anything and everything within a sizable radius is completely consumed by the Gate, which is actually a gigantic portal. Once through, the trapped will be forced to wander the bizarre environment for eternity. At first, the entire X-Laws, Jeanne, and the protagonists were engulfed by the portal and trapped. However, Hao simply breaks out of the powerful prison as if it were wet tissue paper, as right before he was trapped the Spirit of Fire devoured Shamash, gaining its significant powers.

The prison then proceeds to crumble as Hao breaks out, releasing all the trapped occupants and rendering Jeanne powerless.

Trivia

 * She is most likely named after Jeanne D'Arc (Joan of Arc), one of the Patron Saints of France.
 * Her title of Iron Maiden comes from the fact that she spends almost all of her time inside an iron maiden.