Who he is: This is the man who saved Miho on her first night in Cheju, and then attempted to kill her. But it wasn’t someone else who stopped him, it was basically himself. After leaving a shocked Miho with the knowledge that more demons would be coming for her, he starts to walk off into the night. Miho calls out to him and makes him an offer he can’t refuse: slay demons for her, and name the price. He decides to charge fifty thousand, per demon (a steep price, even for Miho, especially when he’s hitting numbers like 49 in a single day), and begins his job as Miho’s bodyguard.

Appearance: For some reason, even from the first single issue I bought, I’ve thought Pan was very sexy. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been attracted to Asian guys, and Pan looks very Asian. He has very straight dark hair that’s been colored black, brown, and a dark-red/brown mixture. His eyes are very dark, with a smoldering look to them. He almost always wears a casual suit-type outfit consisting of pants, button-down shirt, and jacket. Once he was seen wearing what looked like a leather jacket with a t-shirt underneath. The outfits have been colored black, blue, and tan (I prefer black).

Skills: Pan is a very powerful fighter. Physically, he can move lightening fast and with the grace of an animal. He’s also very strong. He uses a weapon called the adamantine dagger, which is reserved only for Buddhist priests. He can do lots of incantations and spells, many having quite explosive effects. At different points in the story, he’s been seen flying (once, with what looked like big, glowing phoenix wings when he was carrying Miho to safety and then again while he was fighting John, minus the wings).

Personality: Pan is a mystery. He first appears as a bloodthirsty serial killer who seems to have a fetish for dismemberment, but gradually, we discover there is much more to this man than meets the eye. The first mystery is that Pan has a grudge against the demons (at the very least, the Burning Desire demons), and they all seem to know who he is. One (assumingly) female Burning Desire demon even sought him out, and said something along the lines of “Why are you fighting us now? You used to hate humans!” This line creates many questions about Pan’s history with the demons. We can assume that he was once on “friendly” terms with them (judging from this dialogue exchange, in which Pan does not deny anything the demon said, and in fact seems to support her claims with his response). But what made him decide to turn on them? Did they do something to terribly offend him, or did he simply tire of them? Pan hints to this demon in particular that he’s only doing it for the money (Miho’s money, to be exact), but why did he seek out and attack the first demon that was introduced? He claims that the demon killed a woman Pan intended to kill, but Pan seems to harbor a disgust for the demons, and a certain disturbing glee in chopping them up. Why? We may never know.

The next mystery is why Pan wants all that money. What does he do with it? He doesn’t use it for transportation (he can fly, remember?). He doesn’t use it for clothes (he seems to have the same outfit on 90% of the time). He doesn’t use it for food (I’ll get to this later). I once assumed that he had some debts to pay off, but as I read more, I decided against this theory. Pan being Pan, he’d probably sooner kill someone than to pay off a debt. So what in the world does he spend all that money on? There are many possibilities, but none of them seem to stick. Pan really doesn’t seem like a materialistic person, and doesn’t seem as if he really needs anything. A possible theory could be that he actually does have a friend (or something like that) who needs money for medical problems. Or maybe, just maybe, he really doesn’t want the money at all. Maybe he wants to protect Miho, and took her offer of money in an attempt to keep up his “evil serial killer” act (if it’s an act). Yet another mystery we may never solve.

A third mystery lies in Pan’s twisted sense of justice. He does kill several humans that we know of (probably many more over the years), and no details are given on these people. Were they good? Were they bad? The only clue we get is a short dialogue about it between Miho and John. Miho brings up the murders and asks John’s opinion. John brings up the law of casualty, which is more or less the manifestation of the saying “what comes around goes around”. This hints that maybe those people did something to deserve their fate. So how can we consider Pan an evil, merciless killer? Another occasion comes to mind here. After he saves a young girl from the clutches of a contract god (only after Miho argues with him), it’s revealed that the girl is now pregnant with the contract god’s demonic baby. Upon hearing this, the girl grabs a shotgun and blows her own brains out. Pan’s reaction is not directly shown (the focus is on Miho at that point), but later he says to Penjulae (the contract god) “How dare you force me to see the death of another young girl.” Later on, when he fights Penjulae again, he brings the girl up. He says something along the lines of “I can’t sleep at night, that girl is still crying.” Apparently, that girl’s death affected him deeply, but the question is why. Was it because she didn’t deserve such a horrible fate?

The fourth mystery (and probably the last I’ll discuss here) is Pan’s past, and his current status as a zombie. Yes, Pan is a zombie, as revealed in the last volume of the manga. Apparently, he was a very powerful Buddhist priest who was killed by a jealous peer (at least, this is what I gathered from it), but was returned to life by a Buddhist nun. Why he was brought to life, and what his relationship was to the Buddhist nun who did it is not clear. We can only assume that he had some sort of relationship with her before he died (or maybe, after she resurrected him), instead of it being a simple case of her resurrecting him (without knowing him) for her own ends. In one of the rare glimpses into his personal feelings, he says to Miho “the one that looks like her…” to which Miho asks “Who?” and he responds with “the one that looks like that Buddhist nun.” The look on his face in this scene is different from his other expressions. It looks almost sad, in a way. However, since he thinks Aikawa looks like the nun, and he seemed so eager to fight her, we can assume that the relationship went bad, so to speak. So here is my theory: the woman who resurrected Pan was someone who may have shared a romance with him, and resurrected him for the purpose of being with him again. But what she didn’t realize was that she had cursed him to forever walk the earth, without the ability to die or reach nirvana. Despite her intentions, Pan was extremely angry over her actions, and either killed her or simply left her behind. That’s what I think happened, but it’s just my own personal theory (if anyone else has a theory on this, please e-mail me!).

So Pan’s past has been discussed, as well as the major mysteries surrounding his character. But what about his general attitude? Since he is so mysterious, it’s hard to figure out what his true personality is. All we have to judge is his surface behavior. Pan is obviously sadistic, as he enjoys dismembering people (possibly one of the most horrifying, bloody deaths there is). He does it with a smile on his face and a gleam of pleasure in his eyes. He also seems to enjoy creeping Miho out (he leaves bloody demon carcasses in her hotel room). And then there was the “I want you to beg” scene in volume one. As I stated earlier though, I don’t consider Pan evil. A person can be sadistic without being evil. Anyway, Pan doesn’t like taking orders or talking about his personal affairs. He won’t even tell Miho his name, but instead tells her to “ask the old man”, someone who works for her and knows Pan. In general, Pan just seems like a rude, hateful person. But as I said, that’s only on the surface. Pan’s true personality is yet another mystery.