Until Death Do Us Part (manga)
Until Death Do Us Part is a Japanese manga series written by Hiroshi Takashige and illustrated by DOUBLE-S. Until Death Do Us Part began its serialization on Young Gangans December 2005 issue and ran until November 20, 2015. The story centers around a young girl with strong precognitive abilities. Due to these abilities, she is held hostage by a Yakuza group looking to make a profit off of them. However, knowing what was to come, she spots a blind swordsman in the crowd and immediately recognizes him as her only way out. She hires him to protect her "until death do us part", and thus begins a long road of action-packed confrontations to keep the young girl safe and her abilities out of the hands of those who would exploit them.
Plot
Haruka Tōyama, a young girl, is kidnapped by agents of a company named EX-SOLID due to her precognition abilities. She quickly finds sanctuary with a man named Hijikata Mamoru, a blind swordsman, ex-kendoka, and convict who is proficient in the use of a katana, and desperately runs him down in the street. Upon meeting, Haruka told Hijikata to protect her "Until Death Do Us Part." Confirming the terms of the contract, Mamoru quickly dispatches the pursuers on her tail and took her in for protection.Soon it becomes apparent, however, that nearly the entire underground is targeting Haruka. It is then up to Mamoru, and his partner Igawa, to provide consistent and unending protection for Haruka. Needing a bit more help, contact is made with their parent company, a secret and elite vigilante paramilitary group called the Element Network. Many different members of the Network get involved in protecting Haruka and placing her under EN protection from unknown forces who seek her ability. In turn, Haruka assists EN forces in defeating mercenaries and assassins who are out to get her and the network.
Characters
Blade
- Mamoru Hijikata is the protagonist. Despite how he is almost blind, he is a kenjutsu master. To compensate for his vision, he uses glasses that project a wire-frame model of his surroundings onto his retinas. He mainly fights with a katana hidden inside his walking stick.
- Haruka Tōyama is the female lead, who is 12 years old at the start of the series. She uses the fake identity "Haruna Tachibana", posing as Sierra's daughter.
- Ryōtarō Igawa is Mamoru's teammate, and deals with the technical aspects of Blade's operations.
- Dai Ibuki is a newly assigned Blade member.
The Wall
- Alpha is the leader of the Element Network's international anti-crime unit, The Wall. His real name is Jack Garvey.
- India is an ex-Marine who joins The Wall after losing his child to a terrorist.
- Juliet specializes in infiltration, and looks after Haruka in Sierra's absence.
- Kilo specializes in covert ops, using knives, and is Sierra's ex-husband.
- Sierra is the mother of Cindy and ex-wife of Kilo, and a member of The Wall. Her real name is Serena.
Others
- Teppei Genda is a detective assigned to solving the attacks Mamoru caused when protecting Haruka.
- Inaba Tesshuu is Mamoru's kendo teacher.
- Tatsumi Daiba is the wealthy manager of Element Network, famous for having created the search engine MENTOR. He also appears in Takashige's Alcbane.
- Aegis, also called "The Praetorian", is the strongest underground bodyguard, capable of deflecting any bullet. He also appears in Aegis in the Dark.
- Senji Tamagawa is a swordsman and a member of the Yakuza in Kakuhōkai.
- Pyro is a man who is ordered by Daiba to support Haruka from behind the scenes.
- Anna Riddle is the broker of "Aegis", and only provides service to clients who can answer her riddles. She also appears in Aegis in the Dark.
- Jesus is an underground hitman who seeks his kidnapped pupil. He also appears in Jesus.
- Luna is the second-in-command of The Canes Venatici in Chechnya.
- Shot is a member of the UDDUP team, and one of the top elites in charge of South Africa.
Antagonists
The Republic of Galboa
;Zashid Turus- He is the substantial controller “hero” of Galboa and Duhana though also the backbone to the country's black ops. A person whose alas is called “Mr. Dark Side” in the underworld and Gene's real father.
- For generations, his ancestors have been a freak family that's been testing tons of possibilities. Brought into existence from various lineages of beings of superior physical strength, intelligence, and speed, and the end result is Zashid Turus. Since he is the pinnacle of superhuman, he plans to clone himself and add Haruka's clairvoyance into the mix.
- Other than his four likely successors, Gene and Fen, he has many children who don't fight or are women. There are rumors that he has over 100 children.
- Zashid, after being severely wounded by Mamoru, requests Haruka to look after Galboa and Duhana. He agrees to all her conditions and grants her full authority, with Gene as his successor.
- He is the Galboa ambassador to Japan. He had plans to kidnap Haruka due to her precognitive abilities as well as the EX-SOLID biochip. Since then, he has been obsessed over kidnapping Haruka. He was disabled by Mamoru when he sliced his right arm after Alpha led 'The Wall' commandos to storm a freighter he used to meet with Mamoru. Later on, Mamoru cut off his left arm. After the incident, Komura took over Edge's position. He currently hospitalized. Gene gave him the prosthetic arm that was stolen.
- With artificial left arm and right leg and what supposed to be Aegis's new right arm, Edge is able to fight Aegis and Genda while standing up but was ultimately defeated and captured. Mamoru uses the captured Edge to start an internal dispute within Duhana and against Zashid for what Edge did to Haruka. He is “rescued” by Gido in chapter 197 where Edge got new limbs in Dante 313 though the limbs were imperfect, as seen in chapter 214.
- As punishment for attacking Haruka, Mamoru performs “Kubi-jochin”, leaving Edge half-alive and half-dead. If he moves even an inch, he will die.
- He is one of Zashid's sons and one of the four sons to become his successor. He controls the southern part of Duhana.
- He is one of Zashid's sons and an assassin hired by Edge. He has a strong interest in Mamoru. He uses portable, computerized mini helicopters armed with turrets to fight Mamoru. However, Igawa sees through it and was able to find him. It is later revealed that he is Edge's half-brother. He is killed by acquaintances in the end, as per his wishes, escaping his nightmares of being killed by Mamoru or other assassins.
- He is one of Zashid's sons and one of the four sons to become his successor. He controls the northern part of Duhana. He is captured by UDDUP but is rescued by Misalt.
- He is one of Zashid's sons and one of the four sons to become his successor. He controls the western part of Duhana. He wears an eyepatch on his left eye. He doesn't fear Zashid. He is the Minister of Defense.
- Zashid's fifth wife and chief physician in the Court.
White Unit
- He is one of Zashid's sons and one of the four sons to become his successor. He controls the eastern part of Duhana. The unit he commands, the White Unit, the similar to the Black Unit of the Duhana state. He is in charge of their intelligence agency. He is defeated by Mamoru in chapter 199.
Duhana Semi-State
- He is Edge's younger "brother" and works for Plunder. He is from the Duhana semi-state and is the leader of its special forces, particularly the "Trump" group, which consists of seven members. He was the one responsible for stealing Aegis's arm as a gift for Edge. He was trained by Zelm. He wears a headset connected to a PDA. He is one of Zashid's sons.
Trump (The Black Unit)
- He is one of the members of "Trump". He is known as “Death Instructor Zelm”. Whether as a soldier or as an instructor, he's the best. He has a talent for devising new methods of murder. All of Trump's soldiers are his students. He uses a cane that fires needle shaped objects at a speed of. The range is about. He knew Tiger back in the day and respected her. Since Mamoru cuts off his left arm in chapter 143, he let the others capture him.
- He is the sniper of "Trump".
- He is one of the members of "Trump". He is using two balls made of special high-tech material during his fight with Jesus.
- He is one of the members of "Trump". He fights with hardened ceramic knuckles.
- He is one of the members of "Trump". He fights with nearly invisible boomerangs. He got severely injured by Yijian in chapter 125.
- He is very tall member of "Trump". He uses chemicals, one which creates hard foam on contact while the other freezes the foam into ice. Both of them combined create a MDS weapon. The gel is a non-lethal weapon, originally conceived to stop vehicles, creating an adhesion coefficient of the ice. He got his right arm broken by Mamoru.
- He is one of the members of "Trump". He uses a Geometric Optics cloak to be invisible. Kaeser figured out that he is not one person but two invisible people. Tebor is the female while Teboul is the male.
24
- He is the operating unit Night Gaunts. He is presumably the platoon leader of 24. He is the sniper with the alias Jouji Kaieda at the school Jesus works at.
- She is one of the members of 24. She is the sniper with the alias Naomi Ragi at the school Jesus works at.
- She is one of the members of 24. She is the sniper with the alias Ashford Manami at the school Jesus works at. She is the disciple of a woman named Tiger.
- He is one of the members of 24. He is the assassin with the alias Kensuke Itou at the school Jesus works at. He is the head of the Chinese mafia “Dragon Gate”, even recognized as the organization's top assassin.
Others
- To the general public, he is Thomas Jefferson, a former college professor and expert on crime, but he is actually a renowned and respected criminal in disguise. He is known as Mr. Wiseman, the man who taught Edge.
- His financial power is best described as frightening as he looks down on the 100 million dollar bounty, calling it "mundane".
- The Kakuhōkai Yakuza clan's waka gashira, an overseer and the second in command. He was present during Mamoru's raid of the Kakuhōkai's Tokyo branch and vowed to take revenge on the swordsman down ever since. He was allied with Edge Turus and Mister Wiseman and replaced Edge's position. He sometimes goes by the name "Professor". Even though he uses handguns, he is still accurate with a sniper rifle.
- In recent chapters, he was found by Mamoru and nearly killed, but Aegis was hired by Daiba Tatsumi to prevent Mamoru from killing him. After Aegis told him to go to jail or both of them would be after him, he turned himself in for illegally possessing a gun.
- A black market organ seller in Chechnya from 3 years ago before Mamoru lost his sight. He harvests organs from poor children. He thinks the Element Network is a fairy tale. He was captured by Jesus in chapter 109.
Publication