Kensei Ma (けんせい Mǎ Jiànxīng) is the lecherous master of all Chinese Kenpō, though he prefers to fight using soft forms. He was the headmaster and leader of the Chinese organization, the Phoenix Alliance, but has since given up his position and moved to Japan. He is currently the second oldest of the six masters of Ryōzanpaku.
Appearance[]
Kensei can be described as a fairly short middle-aged man, who is balding with a long pointed out Chinese mustache. He wears typical Chinese clothing used in martial arts with a hat to cover the bald part of his head.
In his youth, he had long braided hair, was much taller and very handsome. He basically a Bishōnen as he was quite popular with women.
Skills[]
Despite his short and unimposing appearance, Kensei is a remarkably powerful combatant. While a firm promoter of Katsujinken and well-known for his specializing of soft-style forms in form of combat, Kensei can demonstrate great destructive power when provoked. In all the fights he has been seen in, he has yet to take any serious injuries, often stopping just in time to inflict as little harm as possible to his opponent.
- Master Chinese Martial Artist: Whether modern, traditional, or forgotten to the rest of the world, Kensei has mastered with absolute knowledge and proficiency all types and styles of Chinese Kenpo, both unarmed and weapons, as well as all their respective techniques. His prowess has been recognized all through-out China as its greatest ever martial artist (rivaled only by his older brother Sōgetsu). Kensei mentions during his fight with Diego Carlo, that if the sky is the domain of Lucha Libre, then the Earth is the domain of Chinese Kenpo which is demonstrated in that he was able to penetrate through the latter's iron defense once he was able to channel his inner strength while on the ground when in mid-air he couldn't.
- Highly Perceptive Combatant: Kensei is a very studious individual, able to quickly determine a person's battle style after a single glance. Kensei has also shown great insight into the teenage behavior, regularly giving advice to Kenichi to help him in his many times of self-doubt. Like how Akisame knows what Kenichi is thinking most of the time, Kensei can easily determine what peaks Kenichi's interest such as the thought of living under the same roof as Miu in the attempt to persuade the disciple to move into Ryozanpaku showing great insight and salesmanship. also, during Kenichi's first fight against Shinnosuke Tsuji, Kensei was able to easily determine that Shinnosuke would win due to a greater amount of fighting experience from the beginning.
- Immense Speed: Kensei is a very quick combatant, able to close a great amount of distance in the blink of an eye. With a single arm or leg, he can nonchalantly unleash a huge barrage of strikes while cutting his attention in half on one of his magazines. His speed also greatly enhances when he is in the process of harassing women that makes him the most agile master of the Ryozanpaku.
- Immense Physical Prowess: While scrawny in comparison to the other masters of Ryōzanpaku, Kensei is in excellent physical condition. During his training demonstrations for Kenichi, he has shown remarkable flexibility, balance, and dexterity, able to slow down his movements to almost nothing while maintaining perfect form. Through great core strength, he can easily absorb most attacks and repel his opponent's several feet away even if they are attacking with multiple weapons simultaneously that had amazed the elders of the Black Tiger White Dragon Alliance. He is also remarkably nimble, able to jump from one speeding car to another with no loss of control.
- Medical Master: Working along Akisame at his clinic, Kensei is a highly skilled and knowledgeable medical expert. Using various ancient techniques, he can easily soothe away pain from most injuries. With his knowledge of the human body, he can easily target its various pressure and ki points with needles to control its natural functions, even produce temporary paralysis or unconsciousness. He is also very capable in herbal remedies, regularly using them to help Kenichi when he is out cold from his training. He is also capable of "reviving the dead back to life" using Chinese medicine.
- Expert Photographer: Stemming from his perverted antics, Kensei has become very skilled in photography. While most of his photos are for his own personal enjoyment, Kenichi has noted that many of the childhood photos of Miu were very beautifully done.
- Master Chef: While normally letting Miu do the cooking, he has recently revealed to be a master chef in all Chinese meals. Not wanting Miu to waste her childhood on chores, Kensei has since periodically taken over cooking for Ryōzanpaku.
Personality[]
Kensei Ma has been shown repeatedly throughout the series as a very active pervert, and he has shown that he is more than comfortable with this fact. Kensei is most often seen attempting to take revealing pictures of beautiful women (especially Shigure and Miu]), which often earns him the wrath of the pair, though this does nothing to deter him from the habit. His perverted behavior has even gotten worse as the series progresses, such that whenever he fights a female opponent, he wants to use his "Ma Style Restriction technique", which is basically where he ties them up with their own clothes, leaving them basically naked. He is proven to be very persistent, as he repeats his perverted antics on a daily basis, despite dangerous traps set by Shigure near the spa, where she and Miu takes a bath. He even made a picture book of Miu which he sold for a profit to Kenichi (he said he has one of Shigure too) and convinced Kenichi to move into the dojo by introducing the prospect of developing his relationship with Miu, demonstrating good salesmanship. Sakaki commented that he could 'sell ice to Eskimos'. In contrast with his present-day image, he was said to be a charming and handsome young man in his youth and was very popular with women. This came as a shock to Kenichi, who then sympathized with his aging master, who bluntly refused to accept the sympathy.
He seems to enjoy reading, as he's typically seen reading perverted magazines of beautiful women. He has an odd habit of standing or sitting in odd positions whenever he's either training or something is bothering him or even reading something upside down that he doesn't seem to notice till someone points it out for him. He even stands on objects while balancing himself while reading when he's training.
Under all of this, however, he is shown to be a very kind and wise person at heart who seems saddened at the violent uses of Martial Arts in the world, wishing the world could be more peaceful (and perverted) which was perhaps born from his own estranged relationship with his brother. In battle, he prefers to disable enemies without lethal force, only foregoing this practice when fighting other Master class Martial Artists. Kenichi also states that despite all of Kensei's character flaws, they were "nothing compared to the greatness of Master Ma" and readily admits that he had never doubted Kensei even once. As noted by Kenichi, he has a habit of yelling "Chowa" whenever he fights. Ironically enough, he is the only one among the Masters that is actually capable of cooking and generally does so whenever Miu is in a position unable to cook. He has an odd habit of calling all the other masters their names with "don" at the end.
Kensei, despite his poor parental skill, is shown to love his daughter greatly. His relationship with his other two children is unknown, but he was shown to be afraid of his wife when Renka threatens to tell her mother about Ryōzanpaku and where he is, he, on his knees, begged his daughter not to tell her mother.
Despite being a pervert, he was shown to take his job as a doctor seriously when Miu had to be treated after she was saved from the Demon God Fist. He was shown to be worried about her well-being and didn't care that she was almost naked.
In the manga series, his surname is pronounced Ba. In the anime series and some translations of the manga series, it is changed to Ma, possibly because this is the usual Chinese pronunciation.