Shō Kanō (叶翔 Kanō Shō) was the main disciple of Akira Hongo, the original leader of Yomi, and the "sole disciple" of all 10 masters of the One Shadow Nine Fists. He is nicknamed Suparna, a mythical creature in Hindu mythology said to possess beautiful wings. He is also a descendant of the Kuremisago Clan, which is an infamous tribe of martial artists who were known for their physical superiority.
Physical Appearance[]
Shō was a tall well-built with platinum hair that hung in a ponytail style in which to it passes his waist. He noticeably has two eye colors, indicating he has heterochromia, meaning he has two differently colored eyes; his right eye is ice blue, while his left eye is red. He has various bird motifs on his clothing, from the caged bird earring on his ear to the mark on the left side of his face, and even his jacket and necklace. He wears what appears to be a blue jacket with a red dragon tattoo on the left sleeve and sports pants and ties back his long silver hair with a band.
Personality[]
Shō often keeps a smile on his face even when fighting and acts in a funny and playful manner. But when particularly annoyed or upset, he turns cold and attacks his opponent mercilessly. Shō is a bird lover and a bug hater. He refers to people other than Miu and himself as 'the ones without wings', and terms Kenichi as a 'worm' that must be squashed. He has a bad habit of forgetting to keep his presence concealed while he is preoccupied with something.
Despite his cold nature, he seems to have a compassionate side towards people who share the same imprisonment as he did in his early childhood. He was shown to have spared the life of a young bird in the past despite being ordered to kill it by his master, and he had also assisted the Pankration team in its escape plan by covering up its departure from the island, pretending to have killed its members and even taking the ponytail of Spartacus as proof. He is somewhat afraid of his Master's anger (despite calling him a bug without wings) and feared that his master would kill him if he found out he contacted the enemy. Nevertheless, Shō appears to indeed respect his master and Hongō himself deeply cared for Shō and was very angry that he died and even considered Shō like a son to him.
Shō is deeply infatuated with Miu, having fallen in love with her upon first sight. He describes her as the 'light in the darkness of his life'. Shō's motives were focused mainly on Miu throughout the D of D plot, and on defeating Kenichi because Shō thought Kenichi was unable to protect her. Shō's devotion to Miu was so great that his last wish was for Kenichi to protect Miu in his place, despite the fact that they were enemies.
Shō also has a penchant for motorcycles as seen when he replaces the motorcycle destroyed in his confrontation with Kenichi with a new one while waiting for Boris Ivanov and hates helicopters because they fly without wings.
Nevertheless, even Shō, who was considered "perfect", was disapproved of by Sehrul Rahman, Ro Jisei and Mikumo Kushinada, particularly for the large amount of emotion he puts into his fighting style, while Sehrul and Mikumo favor the lack of emotions in fighting. In stark contrast are Akira Hongō and Isshinsai Ogata, the former of whom was his original master and the latter of whom taught him many techniques in ancient martial arts, which he incorporated extensively. This could imply that he started fighting as a Dou style fighter, and later incorporated the Sei style, making him predominantly Dou despite possessing both ki.
Skills[]
Shō was regarded as the strongest member of Yomi. He was described by more than one member of Yomi as being perfect, even to the point of being too perfect where he ended up being defeated by Kenichi. While it was never truly said that Shō was the strongest in Yomi, it was believed that he was the one to have the most potential. He was capable of overwhelming Ikki Takeda, Thor and Kaname Kugatachi with little effort and even keep Miu at bay when the latter was in her Dou Ki berserker mode. Miu claimed she may not have been able to defeat Shō if she fought him.
- Mixed Martial Artist: Like Kenichi Shirahama, Shō Kanō is considered to be a very accomplished Mixed Martial Artist. Although Shō's primary fighting style is Karate, he was chosen as the Sole Successor of the One Shadow Nine Fists martial arts, similar to how the masters of Ryōzanpaku are training Kenichi to be their sole successor. In earning such a right, he has become highly proficient in all Yami's Master's respective fighting styles and techniques. With these various styles, Shō was very adaptive in battle, able to quickly change his battle style to better suit the situation. What is notable is his fighting style with Kalarippayattu and Jujutsu: when he uses a finger attack on Kenichi with his Kyūgeki Issatsu, he doesn't aim for a particular marma point and aims instead to pierce his skin, and when he uses several Jujitsu throw moves on Kenichi, all of them incorporate some amount of strength, implying that he primarily used Kalaripayattu as another strike laden martial art and that he was taught normal Jujitsu instead of Kushinada-style Jujitsu. This is further confirmed by both masters' respective disapproval of him after his death. Despite not being worthy of learning the Kushinada-style Jujitsu, and despite only learning Kalaripayattu as a striking martial art, Shō has proven that he was worthy of learning Pencak Silat from Silcardo Jenazad, and was also worthy enough to catch the attention of Ogata Isshinsai and learn various techniques of the Ancient Martial Arts, including the Seidou Gōitsu technique. Based on the fact that he was chosen as their sole successor, it can only be said that possibly all of the masters of the One Shadow Nine Fists (excluding Cyril Rahman and Mikumo Kushinada) has in some way deemed Shō to be worthy of learning their martial art styles. As a descendent of the Kuremisago Clan, Shō is able to use their instinctive/defensive body style of the clan, how much of it he actually knows is unknown.
- Enhanced Strength: Shō is able to defeat most enemies with a single hand and lift things using one hand. His fingertips can pierce flesh and create potentially lethal wounds and when his hand is used as a fist can knock out other high-class disciples like the captains of the Shinpaku Alliance with ease.
- Enhanced Reflexes: Shō is capable of moving so fast that the spy and a guard around him didn't even see his hand move and steal the disk that the spy planned to smuggle away. Sho's reflexes are great enough to protect Miu from a soldier's gunfire.
- Enhanced Speed: Shō moves fast enough to take out the whole Mongolian Sumo team before Diego could even give them a warning. Even when carrying Miu away to kidnap her, he easily took out Thor, Freya and Takeda in a flash and caught Miu before she fell to the ground.
- Enhanced Endurance: Shō was able to fight while taking numerous major injuries during his fight with Kenichi and even continue fighting after losing consciousness alongside with enduring the strain of overusing Seidou Gōitsu for a short amount of time. He was able to take several gunshots to his torso in order to protect Miu, delivered a counterattack to the soldier who shot at Miu immediately afterwards, and remained conscious for some time to impart some last words to Kenichi and Miu before ultimately dying.
- Heightened Senses: Shō is able to know where bullets are coming from just from hearing the pull of the gun's trigger. He then can find the shooter and take him out in an instant.
- Immense Dual Ki: Even without moving he can expel about the same amount of Ki as low-ranking master- class martial artist. He obtained the ability to use both Sei and Dou Ki and learned to use them together with the Seidou Gōitsu through his training with Ogata.