Shirahama Kenichi
First appearance: Battle 1
Age: 17
Type: Sei (Dou-Type traits also present)
Martial Arts Style: Katsujin Ken
Fighting Style: Hybrid of Karate, Jujutsu, Chinese Kenpo, Muay Thai, Kosaka Style weapons techniques, and Furinji Style
Kenichi's a second-year high school student—soft-spoken, polite, and genuinely kind. He's into gardening and reading, the kind of guy who'd rather avoid conflict. At the start of the series, he's the textbook friendless loser, but that changes the moment he meets Furinji Miu. Their meeting becomes his turning point. He decides he wants to actually be strong, not for glory or ego, but to protect the people he cares about. It's a surprisingly earnest motivation that defines everything he does.
When Kenichi encounters Miu again on the way to school (he doesn't recognize her at first), they hit it off. He's in the karate club, though not by choice—he spends most of his time doing grunt work and getting used as a human punching bag. When he finally stands up to one of the bigger members, they make a deal: loser quits. Miu helps him pull off the win, but he leaves the club anyway. That draws unwanted heat from the club president, and worse, it catches the attention of Ragnarok, a rising delinquent crew looking to recruit or crush him. His real education starts at Ryozanpaku dojo, where he trains under serious masters and eventually moves in full-time.
Everyone agrees Kenichi has zero natural talent for martial arts. What he does have is work ethic that borders on obsessive, combined with a training regimen so brutal it's almost inhumane. That combination alone takes him from the weakest guy in school to someone capable of going toe-to-toe with skilled fighters and even people with superhuman-level abilities.
Morally, Kenichi's almost painfully principled. He studies martial arts purely as a means of protection, refuses to kill, won't hit women even if it costs him a fight, and generally won't compromise his code. But here's the thing—he's also a complete pervert. He'll drop everything to catch a glimpse of Miu or Shigure bathing, and he buys (mostly fake) pictures of them from Ma without hesitation. He's even developed an actual "technique" called "ecchi mode" where he gropes women, which somehow has actually gotten him out of trouble. It's a funny contradiction that works because it never overshadows his genuine decency.
His kindness wins people over. Former enemies become friends. Ma Renka and Li Raichi have both fallen for him, though he's completely oblivious to most of it.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
