Who He Is: Monk Seinan is the fourth and final Japanese spiritual warrior that appears in the series. He spends his time searching for the skulls and beating up John. ^^;

Appearance: He would almost seem like the usual monk (bald head, very traditional Buddhist clothing, the beads, the hat, the staff, etc.) if not for the fact that he’s huge. This guy is majorly intimidating, with a glare that could make a tough man go weak in the knees.

Skills: He’s very powerful in his own area of Buddhist magic. He can do some incantations and spells, and he’s a fearsome warrior with just his staff. Physically, this guy can handle just about anything. He takes a licking and keeps on ticking, so to speak. Though despite all this, he’s possibly the weakest of the three spiritual warriors (come on, we all know Aikawa’s tougher, and then Kyoichi doesn’t seem to bat an eye at getting in Seinan’s way or even shooting him in the back).

Personality: Of all the characters, I think Seinan had the least development. Because of this, I really didn’t get to know this character very well, and he became my least favorite. So I’ve been dreading writing this evaluation. Please bare with me, as I can only write what I see, and if I haven’t seen a whole lot of this guy, then, well, I can’t make information just pop out of thin air, you know.

Seinan is obviously a very stern, no-nonsense type of person. He takes his mission very seriously, probably more seriously than anyone else in the series. He probably doesn’t approve of Kojima’s flirting with Miho, Kyoichi’s running off, or Aikawa’s obvious preoccupations with Kojima. Though, as far as I can remember, he doesn’t openly complain about these things. Or at least, not very much, considering. He tries to stay completely focused on the skulls, even meditating for hours on end in his attempts to track down the killer.

Seinan is also racist against Koreans. He calls them “chosenjin” which, we are told, is a very nasty and insulting way to refer to a Korean person. He seems to believe that Koreans should have stayed under Japanese rule, and that they belong to the Japanese. Therefore, he considers himself above all the Koreans he meets on Cheju, particularly John and the killer. Perhaps it was this overestimation of his own self, and accompanying underestimation of John, that lead to his gory defeat by John.

Another trait of Seinan’s is that he’s merciless. He murdered the man behind the skull attacks without so much as a second thought, and grinned while he did it. Was it because he was eager to put an end to the skull massacres? Or did it have something to do with the fact that he hates Koreans? I believe it’s the latter. Sure, he was concerned about his cause, but he was simply too joyful at having killed the skull murderer. Maybe the guy deserved it, maybe it needed to be done, but Seinan was relishing in it. In this regard, we see a striking contrast between Seinan and John, as John gets the opportunity to kill Seinan in the exact same way, and refuses. And then Seinan goes a step further by attacking John again, only to be stopped by Kyoichi.

So in almost every area of characterization we get from Seinan, he doesn’t seem to be a nice person, does he? However, Kyoichi herself says “We’re all good people, we just got on the wrong path.” Obviously Kyoichi knows Seinan far better than we do. The fact that she stood up to him twice (once, she got between Seinan and a battered John, telling him that he better not kill John, and then again when she blasted him in the back to help John again) and didn’t seem the least bit concerned about how angry he would be later tells us that she’s not afraid of him. Perhaps she knows that he would never hurt a friend, or that, deep down, he’s a decent guy. Who knows? The series doesn’t give us any background information on Seinan, and not a whole lot of time to fully grasp his character. All we get is a harsh view of the surface, and a few small hints of what lies beneath.