A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Zechs Merquise, Killua Zoldyck #atozchallenge

Zechs Merquise is the mysterious and gentlemanly OZ Gundam pilot. His past is hidden like his face behind a mask. He is one of the leaders of Oz in Gundam Wing.

He faces one of the five young Gundam pilots from the spaces colonies in combat, dueling him in the Arctic because their battle was interrupted.

He was once the crown prince of the Sanc Kingdom (say-nkt) whose family and kingdom was destroyed by the United Earth Sphere Alliance. Millardo Peacecraft died and Zechs was born.

He turns back on OZ when his sister Relana becomes a player in politics to end OZ's tyranny.

☇☇☇☇☇☇

Killua Zoldyck is Gon's best friend in the Anime Hunter X Hunter.  He is also the shining star of the Zoldyck family of assassins. Seeing him for the first time, one wouldn't think so since he acts just like a normal teen. He calmly rides his skateboard as he initiates a conversation with Gon during the first test of the Hunter's Exam. Although there are a few subtle hints that he is more than he appears before the exam.

His parents have high hopes for him to become the next leader despite having older siblings.

This is a family that is beyond dysfunctional.  Torture as punishment (I mean whips and chains and other various devices) is like grounding for them. His father finally lets him return to his friends, knowing that letting him go would return him to the fold eventually.

Killua has no qualms about ripping hearts out of people when he's in a bad mood.

He changes when he meets Gon, Kurapika, and Leorio. He becomes stronger and softens at the same time. His loyalty to them puts him in harms way more than once.

A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Sesshomaru, Sebastian Michaelis, Shiroe #atozchallenge

Okay, he will be the odd man of the bunch today.  His name is Shiore. Before the Apocalypse, he was a graduate student in university studying engineering.  After the Apocalypse, he became the driving force of the Round Table Alliance, the breaking of exploitative guilds, and forming the new guild of Log Horizon.

His name is Shiroe. He is Half-Alv with the class of Enchanter-Scribe, which allows him to help his party members with his magic.  His Scribe class does something even greater in the series - a world changing something.

There are many monikers he is known by, but my favorite is the 'Villain in Glasses'. It is untrue though. He may come across as a Machiavellian schemer but he really only wants to make the lives of the Adventurers stuck in the world of Elder Tales better.

He was the strategist in the Debauchery Tea Party before their disbandment.  He becomes the 'shadow' leader of the Round Table. But he lets Krusty be the front man while making decisions and strategic maneuvers from behind.

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Shesshomaru the full dog demon of the Anime Inuyasha and half brother of the main character of the same name.  He is the Lord of the West another the death of his father.  He despises weakness and most humans.  He carries a katana that has the ability to save a hundred people with one swipe. The Tenseiga is deemed useless by him because it cannot strike down a living person. He craves the sword Tetsusaiga, which was given to Inuyasha.

In one battle, he gets injured by Inuyasha and a little girl finds him and tries to take are of him. He finds her dead, but uses the Tenseiga to revive the girl. This is the first time Sesshomaru feels the compassion needed to use the sword. Rin becomes his traveling companion along with Jaken and Ah-Un the two-headed dragon.

He becomes sort of allies with the Inuyasha and company to fight the evil half-demon Naraku.

He even surpasses his father's power by creating a sword and regenerating his arm, which Inuyasha severed, as the show progresses.

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Sebastian Michaelis is one hell of a butler in the Anime Black Butler. He is contracted to Ciel until such time that the contract is fulfilled and Sebastian eats Ciel's soul.

The crow demon protects his charge from those that want to hurt him, which is a tough assignment indeed. The life of Ciel is complicated to say the least. He works for the Queen to solve mysteries and crimes as he searches for the the people who murdered his parents.

He is extremely fond of cats and hates dogs.  So when Pluto becomes a mender of the household, he cringes and is disdainful.

He also suffers the misfit characters that run the household. One has a penchant for blowing up the kitchen, one can't see past the end of her nose, and the last tries to kill the gardens on a daily basis.  Only they were not recruited for their household skills.  They had other 'talents' Sebastian required.

A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Migi, Maes Hughes #atozchallenge

Migi is the alien spore parasite that infects Shinichi  Izumi (shee-nee-chee ee-zoo-mee) right hand instead of his brain in the Science Fiction Horror Anime Parasyte. Migi (mee-gee) is ruthless when it comes to his survival and will even threaten his host and Shinichi's friends.

He and Shinichi become allies against other parasites who are human eaters as well as the government agencies trying to find and destroy infected human bodies.

Migi is not a flesh eater since he failed to attach to the head. He gets nourishment directly from the bloodstream.

Migi has the ability to morph and will turn into blades to kill others.  He is intelligent and reads extensively while Shinichi sleeps.

⽍⺞😭😭⽍⺞

Maes Hughes. One of the nicest characters I have ever watched. He loved his wife and adored his daughter to the point of obsession.  And he has one of the saddest moments to ever have been shown in an anime, in my opinion.

Maes is one of those characters you invest your heart and soul in and then said parts are torn from your body, shredded, burned, stomped on, and cast into the pits of hell.  The tiny bits of ash that are left are given back to you to only lose them to the next scenes of misery and despair.

In Full Metal Alchemist and in FMA Brotherhood, he is friends to Roy Mustang and to the Elric Brothers.  He works at Central and keeps Mustang apprised with the going on there.  He gets too close to the truth and is murdered.

His death is a driving force for Mustang to become stronger and to get to the truth behind the things not right within there government.

A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Dororo, D #atozchallenge

Dororo (doe-roe-roe), the blue ninja pascifist alien frog, is from the comedic, insane, crazy, and wild Anime Sgt. Frog.  As a Lance Corporal in the A.R.M.P.I.T. Platoon (Advance Recon Mission Preparatory Invasion Terror), his mission was to help his commander Sgt. Keroro to invade Earth, which fails miserably.

 He was once an assassin in the Keron Army with the name of Zeroro.

He was rescued by  Koyuki Azumaya a Pekoponian (pee-ko-po-nee-an) (a.k.a. an Earthling) and accepts the ninja way of life and becomes one with nature.  His change of lifestyle has him balking at following the many of the plans that Keroro comes up to continue the highly comedic escapades of global domination.

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D is the enigmatic traveler of the movie Anime of Vampire Hunter D. One of the classic animes of the 80s, it has been a fan favorite for a long time.  Coming from the novels by Hideyuki Kikuchi, it is an amalgamation of dystopianish horror and science fiction. It takes place in the year 12,090 A.D.

D has a symbiotic companion on his left hand, who can operate

separately from D.  A loner by nature, D comes off as aloof and cold, but he helps people that are plagued by Nobles (vampires).

He is a dhampir, half vampire half human.  His origins are a mystery, but there are hints that he may be the son of the Sacred Ancestor or one of His experiments to halt the decline of the Nobility.

A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Ban, Merill "Benten" Yanagara #atozchallenge

Locked in the prison at Baste Dungeon,Ban  is my first character in the B category.  Ban (bahn), the Fox Sin of Greed, comes from the Anime Seven Deadly Sins. It is a fantasy genre anime that pulls in Arthurian characters, which has over-the-top action and is just a riot especially when the main male character, Melodias, is a perv.

Ban is an enigmatic character.  He fell in love with a fairy princess, Elaine, but lost her in a battle with a demon.  He can heal unscathed from most wounds, which makes him wreckless in battle nevermind who is the enemy. The scar is the only wound that never healed and was given to him by Meliodias.

He is emotional and appears laid back most of the time, but his motivations are deeper than at face value.

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Merill "Benten" Yanagara is from the early 90s anime Cyber City Oedo 808.  The foul-mouthed anime has a multitude of crude jokes and cursing, but the three stories are interesting despite that.

Benten, as he is called, is a multi-life sentence criminal who works for Police Chief Hasegawa as a cyber policeman to reduce his sentence. The chief controls the mini-bomb collar around Benten's neck as well as the other criminals working for him.

Effeminate looking with his albino appearce and painted nails, he is anything but a pansy. He prefers silent weapons and has great acrobatic skills. He wields a monowire in his ring that can cut through steel or flesh.

A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Alucard, Asuna Yūki, and Allen Schezar #atozchallenge

 As an Anime fan, I find that different characters are essential.  Also, I like different genres.  These three characters are different as night and day as well as the anime genres.

Escaflowne (es-cah-flow-nay) is from the 90s. It's about a girl from our world that gets transported to Gaea (guy-yah), a world of dragons, humanoid species, and mechas called Guymelefs (guy-mel-ef).

Allen Schezar is a gentleman with great secrets as well as a soft spot for protecting the "damsel in distress." He is also a ladies man as he sort of hits on the female main character, Hitomi.

He is one of the Knights of Caeli, an elite group of swordsmen from Asturia. His past is checkered with bitterness and death stemming from his father's fascination with the Mystic Valley and Atlantis.

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Asuna Yūki comes from the Anime Sword Art Online.  It takes place in near-future Japan where full-dive virtual reality is possible.  The game, Sword Art Online (SAO), premieres as the first VRMMORPG of its kind. 10,000 players enter the game world of Aincrad (eye,n-krad) on the first day.  Soon they discover they are trapped and that if they die in-game they die in real life.

Asuna is not a damsel. She is (excuse the cursing) a bad ass bitch with a blade.  She becomes one of the strongest players in the game and in her guild Knights of the Blood.  Her moniker is "Lightning Flash" because she wields her rapier in a swift and deadly fashion.

As the game progresses, her softer side is shown when she and Kirito form a relationship and adopt an NPC AI called Yui.

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Alucard has been one of my absolute favorite characters since I first watched Hellsing. This anime is a strange combination of Horror and Comedy. It comes in two incarnations Hellsing and the newer Hellsing Ultimate.

There is no way to describe him other than he's crazy as all eff, seriously deranged, and psychotic to boot.  He has a tendency to go overboard on his enemies in a fight.

As an ageless creature, Alucard is the ultimate vampire. He is all powerful and very bored.  His ennui leads him to turn Seras Victoria, a police woman, into a vampire.

He works for Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, a woman that takes no sh*t from anyone but deals a great deal onto her enemies. She runs the Hellsing Organization, which is responsible to protect England from vampires bent on destruction.

His archenemy is the Paladin Alexander Anderson who works for Iscariot (Vatican Section XIII) a top secret section of the Vatican.  He is as insane as Alucard.

A TO Z CHALLENGE 2016 -- WA NYŪDŌ (VERY DISTURBING. BEWARE!)

He is coming.  You can see the burning flames from the end of the street.  You know there is no mercy in the creature.

Don't look.  Don't look, you tell yourself as you huddle down in fear in your house.

The fire lights up the whole of the room from the window.  You can see the blazing of it even through your eyelids.

It passes by, and you relax.  You survived.  Your head rests against the wall in relief.

Screams sound.  You cringe, praying for those souls that were not so lucky as you.




The Wa Nyūdō is one of the deadliest yokai in the Japanese pantheon of them.

He's described as a flaming ox-cart wheel with a man's head at the hub.  This man was -- according to two different versions -- either a nasty daimyo or a corrupt monk that died and is serving penance.

He works for Hell and loves to haunt urban streets for whatever victims he can find.  This yokai haunts urban city streets.  To look at him will have your soul stolen and taken to Hell.  To fall into his path will have your body torn asunder.

One story had a woman looking at him.  The Wa Nyūdō yells at her that if she had time to look at him, then she had time to look after her baby.  When she turned back to the baby, its limbs had been ripped from its body by the creature.

He appears in the Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki in 1779, but may come from an older work called the Shokoku Hyakumonogaturi from 1677, which is a collection of ghost stories. Evidence suggests that this yokai goes back even farther to the Heian Period (794 to 1185).

There is a specific ofuda that protects against it.