First Appearance: Battle 7
Age: 22-23
Height: 159 cm
Type: Sei
Type: Katsujin Ken
Martial Arts: Kosaka Style (All Weapons)
Shigure is quiet and deliberate—a slow talker who comes across as mysterious. She's a master weaponsmith in her own right, having trained under her father in the mountains. Her whole philosophy is that weapons are just extensions of your body; raw blade strength means nothing if you don't understand how to move with it.
At first she kept to herself at the dojo, rarely talking to anyone except Apachai. But as the series goes on, she gradually opens up, actually joining the group for meals and other daily stuff. She trains Kenichi in weapons and helped him get over his fear of being on the receiving end of a blade—though he's remained pretty reluctant about the whole thing, which seems to disappoint her.
There's something protective about her when it comes to Kenichi. Kensei has implied she worries about him getting into dangerous situations when he's not around, and she's clearly developed real feelings for the guy. When she lets Akisame tell Kenichi about her past, she makes it clear it's only because it's him. Still, she trains him less than the other masters, mostly teaching practical survival skills like swimming and rope work rather than pushing the weaponry angle.
Her backstory is heavy. Her father raised her isolated in the mountains and taught her everything about making and wielding weapons. When Akisame showed up during one of his travels, her dad was already dying. He wanted to go out like a warrior—asked Akisame to kill him in a duel. Akisame refused at first, but they ended up fighting anyway, and her father went off a cliff. Before he died, though, he admitted he'd actually been trying to set a bad example so she wouldn't follow his path. Akisame gave her the name Shigure (she never had one) and sent her to train under the master of Kosaka-style swordsmanship, eventually bringing her into Ryozanpaku once that master died.
Now Shigure hunts down the swords her father made and removes them from circulation. She won't say exactly why, but it's pretty obvious she doesn't want his weapons being used to kill people.
She's got a constant companion in Tochumaru, a mouse with weird abilities. The thing can take down cats and armed mercenaries without breaking a sweat, though it mostly just steals food (which everyone blames Apachai for). Shigure gets along with Honoka and Apachai, and she's got no patience for Kensei's harassment—regularly beats him down for it.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
