Musashi Murayama

"Call me Musashi."

―Murayama's catchphrase to other people

Name	Musashi Murayama
First Appearance	Chapter 6
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Age	16
Birthday	N/A
Dôji	Sophia
Affiliation	Good
Team	The Good Dôji Club

Musashi Murayama (村山 武蔵 Murayama Musashi) is a 16-year-old student, in the current The 21st Century, and has been the master of Sophia throughout the eras in which the series occurs.

He was originally from The 30th Century, but was forced by the all-powerful Roger Dunstan into past and uses this situation as means to issue a warning of the cataclysmic One Hundred Machine Funeral to his allies in The Good Dôji Club. His goal is to capture Dunstan for destroying his world by unleashing the Karakuri Dôji in the past.

Appearance

Musashi's N. I. P. D uniform

For his age, Musashi is relatively normal in both height and build, but compared to other teenagers in his class, he is shown to be the only one that is near Yamato's unusually tall height. His facial features comprise of medium length blonde hair, that is arranged with a large prominent fringe, commonly swept so as two longer extensions frame either side of his face, and light blue eyes. For more than half of his appearance, Murayama wears a different school uniform than those who attend Senjo Academy, meaning that the composition of his uniform was different than most of the teenage characters. These clothes consist of a simple pair purple trousers and jacket, with a small upturned collar, worn over a plain red long-sleeved t-shirt. Most of the time, he is shown holding the first issue of Shonen Jump, which was given to him by Eco.

In order to fight crime in The 30th Century, Musashi modified his entire body, making him a highly advance cyborg. Musashi is able to transform his limbs into weapons at will, from transforming his arms into large guns or turning his legs into rockets for high speed. According to Jealous, Musashi is rigged with an Anti-Noh device within his body, therefore some of the Karakuri Dôji's Nohs doesn't work on him.

Musashi working at Eco Sushi

When under the guise of an apprentice Sushi Maker, Murayama wears a sushi chef's outfit with a hat commonly seen in delis and convenience stores. Starting in Chapter 27, Murayama wears the same uniform as every other student at Senjo Academy. He also carries his ray gun from the future in his pocket at all time, but only to use it against enemies.

Personality

Musashi perfectly exemplifies the quality of his respective dôji, clearly demonstrated through his often wise and respectful mannerisms. His good looks and cool demeanor causes many girls to easily fall for him. While he is often perceived as laid-back with a calm smile, he is very serious and can be rather rash or impulsive at times. He prefers to be called by his given name rather than his surname, constantly telling others to call him by first name.

Musashi is inexplicably dedicated and focused on achieving his goal of stopping the One Hundred Machine Funeral - resulting in him deliberately taking things to the extreme. He even goes as far as threatening to destroy Ultimo, and kill Iruma Tomomitsu and Jealous just because they are on the evil side. Yamato has said that he looks "lonely" because of the burden he carries.

As policeman, Musashi takes his job to uphold law and order very seriously, but was shown to be very narrow-mind, following a moral absolutism mind-set and inflexible about the moral relativism of some situations. He both internally and openly critical of Yamato, who was a bandit in his past life, even though Musashi knows Yamato's bandit incarnation's actions was for stopping corrupted nobles. When he met "Single-Shot Hibari", Hibari Oume's past incarnation from the 1940s of post-war Japan, and acknowledge her illegal black market help the poverty-stricken people, he still hold on to his ideals that the law solely protect and preserve society. Although Musashi mind-set understandably comes the fact his police parents were killed by criminals, even his sister Miyu Murayama tries to teach him to be more merciful towards criminals, but he rejects her lecture and stubbornly hold to his beliefs.

Biography

History

Born in The 30th Century, Musashi and his sister Miyu Murayama were children of respectable and loyal police inspectors. After their parents were killed by yakuza members, Musashi was raised by his sister.

Musashi grew up to be a genius warrior and joined the the New Island Police Department (N. I. P. D.) as a special investigations officer, following in his parents' footsteps. He was part of the police force that came to stop Roger Dunstan from destroying the world after they found out about his illegal space-time experiments. He was sent out specifically on his own for his top investigation skills by his sister and captain, Miyu. Dunstan and Milieu learned that he was coming, and they sent out a defending army of dôji. Musashi defeats them, and used his modified body and backpack to propel forward into Dunstan's tower. There, he successfully ripped apart Dunstan's body with his ray gun, but to no avail does he kill him. While in the mist of the battle with Dunstan, he unintentionally became Sophia's master because Dunstan used the dôji as a shield, initiating the Pledge Ritual.

Dunstan took Musashi along to the The 21st Century just as their time period began to vanish. Musashi first appears in front of Eco Sushi where Shin Ekoda found him and took him in, fed him, and clothed him, which he is truly grateful for. While living under Ekoda's care, he told him about the One Hundred Machine Funeral and they began gathering The Good Dôji Club in order to stop it.

Relationships

Yamato Agari

Musashi is continuously annoyed at Yamato for letting his emotions get in the way of battle, constantly arguing with him and even aim a gun at him once. Musashi openly ridicules Yamato and believes his "foolish" because of his naivety. Instead of telling Yamato that Dunstan was invincible, he lets Yamato travel to the past to learn for himself because he knew he wouldn't listen to him unless he saw it for himself.

He knows of Yamato's shortcomings, and as a result he tries to take the responsibility of defeating the evil dôji by himself. Although, he does try to have some faith in Yamato because of Eco's faith in the young man. However, he still questions why someone like Yamato leads The Good Dôji Club.

Shin Ekoda

Musashi first meeting with Eco

Eco and Musashi seem to had a father-son relationship, as he cares about the older man very deeply and loses his temper if he's hurt. Musashi feels grateful towards Eco for taking him in after he traveled back in time, and it is Eco who Musashi first tells about the One Hundred Machine Funeral. He stays at Eco Sushi with Eco and his family, working as an apprentice so as not to look suspicious living there.

Musashi listens to Eco and gives his ideas a chance, even though he doesn't always agree with all of them. Eco is possibly the only person that stops him from killing Yamato or doing anything reckless to him. Eco lets Musashi read all of his collected copies of Shonen Jump in order to have him understand why Yamato must be the hero. After Eco was revealed to be dead to Musashi by Yoichi Oizumi, he is visibly angered and tries to call Sophia into battle so that he can kill Vice.

Sophia

Musashi has been the master of Sophia throughout the series. However, he became Sophia's master not by choice; Roger Dunstan used Sophia as a shield when Musashi tried to attack Dunstan with his modified arm, causing Musashi's arm to connect with Sophia's soul sphere, binding them in the Pledge Ritual and damaging Sophia from the inside.

Musashi does not hesitate in using the full extent of his dôji's abilities, which has led to Sophia running out of fuel from overuse multiple times. Although, Murayama does display some guilt for damaging Sophia in the first place.

Musashi and his sister, Miyu

Miyu Murayama

Musashi and his sister were very close as she raised him after their parents died, and they worked together on the police force. He affectionately called her "sis", but only in the comfort of their home, since he wanted to be professional at work.

He was determined to make his sister proud by going in by himself to capture Roger Dunstan, and greatly misses her in the 21st century. When Dunstan goes as far as to mentioning her, Musashi lost his temper and tries to shoot him while screaming.

Trivia

• There some discrepancies in regards to Musashi's age within early chapters; when he was initially displayed in Chapter 6, his age was originally displayed as being 19, but by Chapter 8, this had been changed to 16, which was retained when it was demonstrated again in Chapter 11. When these chapters were collected and released in volume format, however, the mistake in chapter 6 was corrected.
• Murayama e-mail address is "30th.boy", referring to the fact he is from the future.