Monday, December 31, 2007

Yoshi



Yoshi (ヨシ, Yoshi?) (seiyū: Yoko Soumi), a female Bount, has dark green hair and wears a purple traditional Chinese-style pao with beige pants. She seems to be somewhat masculine and intimidating. Yoshi appears very eager to gain power when Jin offers it to her, but she is also somewhat reluctant to be blindly following him. Her doll, Nieder, is a sword and fan connected by a chain, both of which are capable of speaking independently. Yoshi also utilizes her feet for kicking opponents in movements that suggest she is a wushu fighter. This makes her the only close-combat Bount seen so far. During the Bounts invasion of Soul Society, Yoshi encounters Rukia and Ririn and tries her best to maim Rukia in her weakened state. However, Byakuya Kuchiki stops her from delivering the final blow. While fighting Uryū, she reveals that she likes to risk her life fighting to get what she wants, but seems irritated by the fact that she can't do so in the modern world; thus, she followed the other Bount into Soul Society, where she could fight as she liked. Her overconfidence proves her undoing, as Uryū exploits a weakness in her transforming doll to fire an arrow through her chest at point-blank range. Shortly before dying, Yoshi mentions that she had fun.

Nieder (ニーダー, Nīdā?, German for "down") is Yoshi's doll, a combination of a jian and fan which are connected with an extending chain. Both the fan and sword have separate personalities. The jian end has a male voice (although high pitched) and the fan end has a female voice. The fan acts as a shield while the jian is the main weapon. Nieder can transform itself into two different forms: defense and offense. In its defensive form, the fan part of Nieder becomes dominant, enlarging to a size bigger than Yoshi herself and growing armor over Yoshi's left arm. In its offensive form, called Happonjin, the jian part of Nieder becomes dominant and armor extends over Yoshi's right arm. Several energy swords trail behind the main sword, which can be thrown or used to slash from a distance. In either transformation, however, Yoshi can only use one of the weapons, effectively crippling her defenses when in 'jian form' and disabling her offense in 'fan form'. Also, when changing forms, she has to return to her normal form first, which causes a small lag time in which she is defenseless.

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