Horse, Crane and Snake

I don't know if this is the first time the Orphenok have ever had to deal with obstinate rebels. I have my theories about the president of Smart Brain who was a father to Mari. But they don't seem to understand why they have this small trio. They do know what to do with them, though. It seems the attitude is kill them, but draw it out by attempting to beat them into submission. They've put Yuji and Kaido on their Black List, but Yuka is not on it. Probably because they know she's been killing. Possibly also because she's female. We've only seen one other female Orphenok, unless you count the Smart Lady, and we don't know for sure what she is.

The first of these rebels is Yuji Kiba, the Horse Orphenok. I think he's around twenty-one years old. I base this on the fact that in Japan you can't get a license to drive a car before you're eighteen years old. He didn't have a license when he went on his first date with Chie. He did when his car was hit by a truck exactly one year later, killing his parents and plunging him into a two-year coma until the day he died. But no one knew he died, the doctors and nurses thought they had made a mistake when he sat up and opened his eyes, terrified. And he didn't know it, either. When he was released from the hospital he went home, only to find that someone else lived there. I'm sure they'd told him his parents were dead, but it didn't really sink in. He went to an old man who was either a relative or close business associate of his father, only to learn that the position which should have been his had been given to the man's son. His entire life had been cut out from under him. After he left he had the bizarre experience of being able to hear what they were saying when he was far away from them. Eventually he went to Chie, only to find she had been taken from him, too. She was trying to find a gentle way to break this to him when the man who is either his cousin or something like that, who'd been put in his place, threw it cruelly in his face. The psychological toll was heavy, and he went mad briefly. This was just long enough for him to kill his cousin. When he came to his senses and realized what he'd done, he tried to commit suicide. But an Orphenok doesn't die easily. He was taken and installed in an apartment, where the Smart Brain lady explained what he was and about the war between the Orphenok and humans. She set him loose again and he ended up meeting Chie, who'd kind of gone a bit mad herself when her fiance had returned home and crumbled to dust on their kitchen floor. In that madness she fingered him (rightly) as the murderer in order to distract the police detectives. And when he found her later, he'd gone mad again and he killed her.

The Smart Brain lady felt secure about him, and sent him out to retrieve another new-born Orphenok. That may have been the big mistake. In gathering Osada and helping her pull herself together, Yuji found his balance and sanity again. In feeling compassion for the young girl, in trying to take care of her, and then in having what Orphenok can do to humans shoved in his face (this happens to him a lot). He had killed twice, when he was half out of his mind. He could not bear to become a person who would turn around and kill some random person just to see if that one would stand back up an Orphenok or not. And then he ended up with another person to care about. Kaido, victim of Orphenok attack, and by some quirk of fate a survivor because his body had whatever it takes to become one.

Yuji became judge and jury. He set himself to keeping Kaido from killing during his adjustment period. He set himself also to killing the Orphenok who had destroyed Kaido's future and was amusing itself by killing its most promising students. And he insisted that he was human, to the extreme annoyance of the other Orphenok. They finally decided he had to be slapped down. They've failed to kill him yet, but I'm not certain they're trying very hard. They may just be playing with him.

Yuka Osada, Crane Orphenok. She's probably about sixteen years old. Since she's pretty much only had Kiba and Kaido for company I'm quite certain she does not quite grasp what the Orphenok are about. Kiba has been honest with her, though. And she was with him when they were shown bluntly. Yuka was in a foster home. The family keeping her consisted of a father, mother and daughter her age. And they treated her like dirt. Heck, they treated her worse than that. The parents made her their servant, pretty much ignored her. And the other girl was cruel. She took her money and with her cronies basically bullied and tormented her at every opportunity. The parents didn't care to notice, and their teachers didn't care to interfere. Yuka was a doormat, allowing them to walk all over her, clinging desperately to any imagined sign of approval. Somehow she hooked up with an e-mail friend, Keitarou. She is just as unaware as he is that they personally know each other. But she used to lie to him. She told him she had a happy home life. His e-mail always cheered her up. It was a sweet pseudo-romance. Rather cut off when she fell down the stairs on a cold, snowy day and died. Except of course she was an Orphenok, and got back up and walked home. Hearing the voice of the other girl in her head later, she led the parents to where the girl had fallen after being brushed by a car. Unfortunately, the girl decided Yuka must have been driving the car or something, or how else had she known? This led to her getting thrown out, and far crueller torture at school the next day. Which led to Yuka snapping and killing the girl's basketball team (they did have a tasking coming, but maybe not such a final one). Yuji Kiba found her weeping in a stairwell and brought her to Tokyo, being kind and gentle with her. A rock in the storm of her life, even in the confusion of finding out what an Orphenok is and that she was one, she quickly came to believe in him. It had to be very quickly, for they soon ended up with Kaido to nursemaid. Yuka has slowly come into her power, but she suffers a terror of humans. And she has killed, sanely, several times now. The young men she's killed were cruel, the type who would rape a woman if they thought they wouldn't get caught. And then there was the punk gang of biker-kids. The Orphenok may not know she targets her kills, or may not care. They only know she is still killing humans. Hopefully she'll pass that stage. She has feelings for Kaido, brought on by watching him with the boy he taught to play guitar better. Brought on by learning how he lost his ability to play and seeing his broken heart. She's quite possibly in love with him. Here's hoping he proves worth it, but there are many complications. For one thing, she doesn't seem to notice that Kikuchi adores her.

Naoya Kaido, Snake Orphenok. Presumably he is around 19 years old, but that really is a wild guess. Kaido seems to have two states of mind: Lunatic and thoughtful. But a lot of this he's not to blame for. He was a fantastic student at a music school. He had magic fingers, the guitar was his instrument and music runs in him beyond anything. And then one day someone sabotaged his motorcycle. Going down a hill on his usual route he could not stop and crashed. And then his left hand was run over by a guy in a truck. Though the sabotage of his motorcycle was clear, the police were unable to identify a suspect. And perhaps no one connected the truck, either. His hand effectively destroyed for playing music, Kaido ran the fine edge of sanity. He might have gone into drums except one afternoon at lunch, a guy at the next table turned into a monster and squirted ink in his face. He eventually collapsed, only to wake in a bed and find himself hovered over by a lovely young girl. When he went to an appointment he had, he found himself smelling scents off the man in front of him, including blood. Puzzled, he wondered if he was now a werewolf. But when Yuka and Kiba explained that he was an Orphenok, he was more wild with delight than anything. The man he'd smelled blood on attempted to murder him but, you know, Orphenok now. That man so far has been Kaido's only kill. Kaido went back to the music school, possibly intending revenge on his classmates... he thought one of them had sabotaged his bike. However, he met a new student there who, utterly enthralled by the things Kaido said about music being his life, nearly worshipped him. Kaido spent two afternoons there, stunned into helping the boy improve his playing. Stunned into sanity. But other students were being killed by an Orphenok. And that turned out to be their teacher, who was the same man who had sabotaged Kaido's motorcycle and then driven a truck over his hand.

Kaido briefly was given the Phi's armor. He had fun beating on Snail Orphenok, but then the president of Smart Brain sent him after Yuji. And he couldn't bring himself to really fight the man who had helped him. Yuji beat him down and then took care of him with Yuka again. Slowly, Kaido's committed to not killing humans and to respecting Yuji. But he's been rather nasty to Yuka apparently because she lets him. He was rather surprised when she told him she liked him. But by then he'd gotten a hell of a crush on Mari because she found him grouchy and sick, and told him where to stick it when he was nasty to her. He is still pursuing Mari, unaware that she is interested in Yuji. Boy, when that cat's out of the bag.... He has become friends with Kikuchi, and he recently started work at a pizza restaurant run by....

The Dolphin Orphenok. Shigehisa Aoki, proud owner of Pizza House. This man is a renegade, too. I don't know if we'll be seeing him again, but he's a renegade because he tries to live as a human and refuses to kill. The Orphenok targeted him, threatened his life if he did not kill. What he still does not know is that the two men who were working for him, Yuji and Takumi, are the Horse Orphenok and Faiz. They managed between them, in seperate battles, to secure his safety for now.

It looks like the mysterious Goat Orphenok is a rebel, too. Whether or not he's good or evil, that is quite a different question.

There were another two, one a young man we saw briefly jogging at night. He is already dead. Another a businessman whose employees loved him dearly. He refused to fight, and the Lobster Orphenok (also known as that extraordinary woman who seems to run the Lucky Clover Bar) killed him.

Summaries. Only episode one as yet.

Primary Characters

The Orphenok

Other Significant People