Honjō Kamatari was a member of the Juppongatana, an organization under Shishio Makoto's orders.
Personality
A cross-dressing man, Kamatari is a member of the Juppongatana and takes pride in his 'womanly' status, at one point reprimanding Henya for throwing bombs at him since it could hurt his skin. He also is somewhat flirtatious, flirting with Yahiko whom he called cute and stating that he could be like him with practice. He has a rivalry with Yumi over who would win Shishio's love, though it would seem that deep down, Kamatari understands that he can never compete with Yumi. He is a happy easy going young man, often smiling and fawning over Shishio, but in battle, he becomes more serious, talking with a deeper harsher tone and utilizing his strength to the fullest. Honjō is very prideful both about his abilities and skills. He refers to himself as serious all the time, although this, in conjunction with his cross-dressing, is a pretext to hide his unrequited love for Shishio. As a result, Kamatari ensures he follows Shishio's orders to the end while putting all of his love and care into these orders. His loyalty is so extreme that he attempted suicide when he lost to Kaoru and Misao, since he didn't want to face Shishio afterwards.
Appearance
Kamatari looks like a woman to the degree that he throws Makimachi Misao off completely when Kamatari reveals that he is, in fact, a man. In the manga, he lifts his kimono to reveal a huge penis. Kamatari loves Shishio Makoto deeply, but knows that he will never be loved like his rival Komagata Yumi nor will he ever become as talented as Seta Sōjirō, who serves as Shishio's right hand man.
Kamatari uses a very heavy scythe-like weapon, a reaper, with a chain ball on the end of the weapon; this is called Ogama. Kaoru estimated that the weapon weighed at least 50 Kan (30 kilograms or 78 pounds). He practices Honjō-ryū, his own style of martial arts. Three of his special techniques are seen in the series, two of which are named after Benten, the only female of the Buddhist Seven Lucky Gods: Midare Benten (Disheveled Benten) is when the scythe is whipped over his head, and the chain forms a sphere, therefore creating both an offensive and defensive attack. Benten Mawashi (Unwrapping Benten) makes use of his broken scythe by twirling the blade and chain rapidly like the blade of a helicopter. The third was unnamed but is an offensive move used by swinging the iron ball at the end into the opponent if the scythe can not be used. In the battle at the Aoiya, Kaoru defeats Kamatari with her Tsuka no Gedan: Hiza Hishigi after Misao helps to destroy his weapon with her kunai. Kamatari tries to commit suicide with a pin afterwards, but Misao hits him, preventing him from driving it into his neck. As Kamatari recovers from his injuries, Sawagejō Chō convinces Kamatari that Shishio wanted for Kamatari to live so that the world would know of the work done by Shishio's faction; Chō in fact made up the story so that Kamatari would not kill himself. Kamatari becomes a spy afterwards for the Meiji government.
Creation and conception
There were a lot of options to create the character Kamatari. It all started with a play on words: in Japanese, okama is slang for homosexual and scythe is kama. Then, the character's image. First, the character was supposed to be male-appearing on the surface, but would act like a woman or the exact opposite, erotic and seductive, but manly on the inside. Watsuki also has stated that he credits Oda Eiichiro (creator of One Piece) for Kamatari's creation.
The visual model for the face is Ikari Yui from Evangelion, with only some small changes, like the hair and forehead. The body was influenced by Hsien-ko (Rei-Rei) from Darkstalkers (Vampire Hunter).
In Live Action film
He is portrayed by Hiroko Yashiki in the sequels to the Rurouni Kenshin live action film.
Techniques
| Voiced | |
| Japanese | Junko Takeuchi |
| English | Sonja S. Fox |
Kamatari's scythe actually exists, although the blade was made a bit bigger than it's supposed to be. This scythe is called Ogama and Kamatari uses his own style called Honjo-Ryu. Honjo-Ryu has two different techniques: the first is Midare Benten, wherein he spins the scythe causing the chain and the ball to form a sphere around his body to destroy anything that comes into contact and to block anything that tries to attack his body; The second is Benten Mawashi and can only be done when Kamatari's weapon is broken: using the steel forked tip of the handle, Kamatari spins the blade and chain rapidly as an attack.
Gallery
Appearances
We can find Kamatari:
- Episodes: 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 52, 54 and 61
- Volumes: 15 and 17