Banjuro Tokieda

Banjuro Tokieda (時枝 蛮十郎, Tokieda Banjūrō) is a ninja and capable lieutenant to Toko Kusumi who is a part of the Bureau of Espionage where he can do everything from chauffeur to participate in active battle.

Afterwards
Originally a mercenary hit man, Banjuro fled to the mainland to avoid pursuit by police and enemy yakuza gangs. Traveling from the Korean Peninsula through China, he went back into business as a hit man in Russia. There, he picked up the Russian language as well as the Russian martial art of Systema, folding it into his own personal assassination style. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Banjuro returned to Japan and once again began working in the Japanese underworld.

During one job he found himself battling his target's bodyguard, who happened to be a mononoke. Though he came out of the fight gravely wounded, he still managed to get the job done. Onmitsu hunting the mononoke arrived in time to get Banjuro medical care and, after a period of detention, he was officially recruited into the Bureau.

As an onmitsu, he carried out assassinations of terrorists and dangerous criminals. Quickly amassing an impressive record, he was soon assigned to the elite squad, Black Cloak. Given his talents both for work and in practical matters, the higher-ups even thought about promoting him to an upper-level managerial role, but when they considered his history prior to joining the Bureau that promotion was dropped. Not only that, Banjuro himself said that he did not have the personality or the qualifications to be a leader of others. Instead, he said, he was more fit to be used as a tool by others, like a knife or a gun, and had no intention of accepting any further promotion.

Banjuro always speaks and acts in a pleasant and polite manner, but this is mostly a tactic for getting by that he learned working in the underworld. Perhaps because of that natural poker face, he is extremely good at cards, mahjong and any other gambling game played against other people. In particular, Takeru Inui routinely gets fleeced.

Toshimasa Azuma has said this about Banjuro: "To him, human life - even his own - is just an object. If told to kill, he'll kill. If told to protect, he'll protect. It's that cut-and-dried to him. Personally, there are lots of mononoke out there I'd rather as an enemy than him."

Etymology

 * The name Banjuro means "barbarian" (蛮) (ban), "ten" (十) (ju) and "son" (郎) (ro).
 * Banjuro's surname Tokieda means "time, hour, occasion" (時) (toki) and "branch" (枝) (eda).