Kamikaze

There is nothing I cannot cut.

Kamikaze (カミカゼ, Kamikaze), better known by his hero alias Atomic Samurai (アトミック侍, Atomikku Zamurai), is the S-Class Rank 4 professional hero of the Hero Association. He is a swordmaster and a member of the Council of Swordmasters.

Appearance
Atomic Samurai has long black hair tied in a ponytail. He has dark eyes and a defined jawline. He sports a small goatee and is usually seen chewing on a blade of grass. His attire consists of a hooded red cloak with an atom symbol on the back draped over his open black haori. Beneath the haori is a traditional loose-fitting white robe tied with a white sash and two haori himos. He wears his swords on his left side.

Personality
Atomic Samurai has a rather prideful and jocular personality, as seen when he refused to shake Saitama's hand, telling him that he only acknowledges the strong, and telling Saitama that he would greet him properly only if he makes it to the higher ranks of S-Class. He also appears to be quite sensitive about being called middle-aged. Kamikaze looks out for his disciples and pushes them to do their best, as seen when his disciple, Iaian, lost his arm, he refused to let his swordsmanship end. However, what he hates the most is being disregarded as a weakling, as he almost loses his composure when Sweet Mask declared Kamikaze weaker than him.

At the same time, he only seems to tolerate people calling his disciples weak, but with great discomfort. Despite his prideful nature, he behaves humbly to those he respects. This is seen with Bang, a fellow hero whom he holds the utmost respect for, and also his fellow Master Swordsmen.

Atomic Samurai also enjoys his swordplay and makes a game out of it, often taunting monsters and showing off as he cuts them to pieces. Specifically, in the raid on the Monster Association, he yawns while fighting Machine God G5 and implies he wouldn't even be good enough as a sparring partner for his disciples, as well as ignoring Rhino Wrestler after cutting him and subsequently killing a monster with the blade of grass in his mouth.

Kamikaze also is straightforward to a humorous degree in many ways, and is incredibly confident and cocky. Atomic Samurai's advice is always to "do it more". This aspect of his personality is most prominently seen when giving advice or improving himself, telling Iaian who had just lost his arm to simply stop bleeding in the Alien Invaders arc, explaining to his disciples that to beat people stronger than themselves they simply need to get stronger and faster, and even the Focused Atomic Slash is simply Atomic Samurai slashing faster. Despite this seeming nonsensical, it is inspirational to Atomic Samurai's disciples.

He has unwavering confidence in himself, even when he clearly has no reason to. Atomic Samurai taunts and cuts Black Sperm shortly after losing to him and being saved by Tatsumaki, showing an uncalled for level of confidence in himself.

His confidence has proved to have been his greatest downfall on a few occasions though. One primary example was in his encounter with Black Sperm, a Dragon-level threat with the ability to multiply. Confident he could defeat the monster, he slashed the copies in half multiple times, even though they were replicating into thousands, which ultimately led to his own defeat. He also was very brazen while fighting Melzargard, refusing to find another way to kill him besides melee combat and brute force.

He is also eager to test his strength against strong opponents. As a result, he thought to challenge another hero to battle and test their spirit. He chose King, who was known as "the strongest man on earth". The challenge was proposed out of curiosity about King's fighting style as well since it was largely unknown to him. He remains calm even against the most persistent of enemies.

He has a way of judging a person by having them cut an apple. This was how he chose his three disciples. He later used this method of judgment on King and mistook King's inability to draw his sword (and therefore inability to cut the apple) as him cutting the apple so fast and perfectly that it went back to its original state.

Rather than simply discourage or impress Atomic Samurai, the events motivate him to restart his training, showing an underlying passion for his craft, and a respect for those stronger than him.

Abilities and Powers
Atomic Samurai is one of the top S-Class heroes. He is regarded as one of the most powerful of them, and the strongest backup hero in the Hero Association. He is also considered Earth's strongest swordsman. According to Darkshine, if Garou were to fight him, he would most likely die before being able to show any of his techniques.

He has the ability to perceive a person's life by asking them to cut an apple, which is the method he used to recruit his three disciples.

Physical Abilities
Immense Speed and Reflexes: Atomic Samurai possesses extreme levels of speed, being able to cut his opponents to pieces in the blink of an eye using his sword. He was able to counter many of Melzargard's attacks, which were extremely quick in their own right. His amazing speed is shown again when he defeats a transformed Haragiri, who claimed to be faster than the speed of sound whilst a human. Atomic Samurai slashed him dozens of times so quickly that Haragiri appeared to have not moved at all, and died. Atomic Samurai's sword drawing speed is so fast that even Sonic could not see its execution. He attacked the Demon-level monster Rhino Wrestler so fast that the monster assumed he had not attacked at all, shortly before dying. He was fast enough to react to and cut lightning generated by Monster King Orochi using his sword alone. He was also able to effortlessly keep up with G5, a robot who is specifically built for fighting with a sword, with only one arm.

He was also the only one capable of consistently dodging Evil Natural Water's attacks, which were stated to be faster than any speed that Child Emperor could process.

Immense Strength: Atomic Samurai appears to have an extreme deal of strength, as he is able to easily cut through solid matter with his sword, as well as create a powerful shock wave with a single slash. His strength is said to be "nuclear-powered." Additionally, he was able to slice a monster into several pieces using only his toothpick. During his fight with G5, he was strong enough to cut apart the tough machine but not its extremely durable core, which he did not anticipate.

Immense Durability: As an S-Class hero, Atomic Samurai has very high durability. His amazing durability is shown when he was able to withstand multiple strikes from Black Sperm, a Dragon-level mysterious being. Even after being put in a weakened state, he was still strong enough to destroy the roof of the hallway and bring it down on the Black Sperm copies.

Enhanced Stamina: Atomic Samurai possesses a high level of stamina, this was shown in his battle against Black Sperm, a powerful Dragon-level Mysterious Being. Despite being severely beaten down by the monster, he managed to remain conscious long enough until Tatsumaki interrupted the battle and shielded him with a barrier. Furthermore, Atomic Samurai was also shown to remain in fighting condition even after a tough fight with Black Sperm that happened not too long ago when he was on the ground, showing great stamina.

Fighting Style
Master Swordsman: Atomic Samurai has shown to be a formidable swordsman. Legend says he can cut down over 100 enemies with each strike. His sword attacks are so fast and strong that the enemies are slashed into many pieces in an instant without even being able to react. He was able to cut a monster to bits using a mere toothpick. His slashes were even capable of dispersing Orochi's beams.

Not even Dragon-level monsters such as Melzargard and Black Sperm managed to defend against his strikes.

However, his swordsmanship does have a limit, since he cannot slice through the gap between cells, and he can only prevent his sword from cutting blood vessels or organs, not atoms.


 * Atomic Slash (アトミック斬, Atomikku Zan): Atomic Samurai's signature attack. He performs over 100 quick sword slashes within a second, leaving his opponents in pieces. He primarily uses this technique while dashing past the opponent, but has also shown a stationary version in which he slashes everything around himself. Kamikaze is the only swordsman in the world capable of performing this technique. This is one of the most powerful techniques in the series, with only Dragon-level monsters with regeneration or duplication powers able to survive it.


 * Air Blade (飛空剣, Hikūken, Viz: Flying Sword): Kamikaze slashes with his sword and sends a blade of compressed air at his opponents. He can perform the attack upon drawing his sword, blocking an attack and finishing with the air blade in one motion. He taught this technique to Okamaitachi.

Miscellaneous Abilities
Master Teacher: Atomic Samurai is shown to be very skilled at instructing and raising disciples in the art of the sword. This is demonstrated by his three disciples, who are all at the top of the A-Class rank of the Hero Association, right underneath Sweet Mask himself. According to Fubuki, all of Kamikaze's disciples would have already been in S-Class, if it weren't for Sweet Mask's gate-keeping.

Equipment
Swords: Atomic Samurai carries two swords: a katana and a wakizashi.


 * Katana: His primary blade has a black hilt with a cross-guard that resembles the Rutherford atom model. His primary sword is a custom-made sword, supposedly crafted by a famous blacksmith.


 * Wakizashi: Atomic Samurai carries a wakizashi. He uses it to deflect one of G5's lasers and then launch a counter-attack with an Air Blade. The weapon signifies that he is a samurai.

Stick: Atomic can use the stick he normally chews on as a weapon.

Hero Rating
Atomic Samurai's rating determined by the Hero Association:

Quotes

 * "I only acknowledge the strong."
 * "Any problem can be solved by cutting it in half!"
 * (To Black Sperm) "Farewell, special blade-testing monster."

Trivia

 * Atomic Samurai is ranked 16th in the character popularity poll.
 * According to the databook:
 * What he likes are his disciples, worthy opponents, people with great strength, and washed fundoshi (Japanese-style loincloth).
 * What he dislikes are weaklings, being called a weakling, interviews, and bothersome things.
 * His hobbies are practicing his swordsmanship and traveling with his disciples.
 * When he is furious, he transforms into a demon that emits a powerful fighting spirit.
 * Kamikaze only allows his best disciples to join the Hero Association with him.
 * Atomic Samurai has many disciples within the Hero Association, all of which are ranked quite high among the heroes, such as Iaian, Okamaitachi, and Bushidrill. All of these disciples' names are portmanteaus, containing a Japanese term related to samurai or swordsmanship.
 * Murata modeled Atomic Samurai after Kyuzo from "Seven Samurai."
 * In the webcomic, his sword's handguard resembled a swastika, but it was changed into the atom symbol in the manga and anime.
 * His name holds a double meaning, one for his atom-cutting swordsmanship and two for his nuclear weapons reminiscent strength.
 * It should be noted that the word Kamikaze separated means: Kami meaning "god" and Kaze meaning "wind." The combined word literally means "divine wind" or "spirit wind." It was originally the name given in folklore to a typhoon which saved Japan from Mongol invasion by wrecking Kublai Khan's fleet in August 1281.
 * Atomic Samurai's fight against Black Sperm was teased back in 2017 in a Halloween cover, where Kamikaze was depicted as the Taketori no Okina (竹取翁, "old man who harvests bamboo"), protagonist of the Tale of the bamboo cutter, whereas three Black Sperm cells were "cosplaying" as bamboo stalks.

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原子武士 Kamikaze