Mikihisa Asakura

Mikihisa Asakura is the father of protagonist Yoh Asakura in the manga and anime series, Shaman King. In the manga, he belonged to Team Kabbalahers together with Redseb and Seyram. He has two spirits, a tanuki and a kitsune, and the Over Souls make use of stones as their medium.

Past
Before Mikihisa became a Shaman, he was an unemployed musician who aspired to be like John Lennon, while living in an apartment with two other members of his band. He met Keiko Asakura while busking near a train station one night, after she had been dumped by her boyfriend. She paid him ten yen to play a song for her, and revealed that she was dumped because she could see ghosts. Keiko then invited Mikihisa to her rented house, and their relationship started from there.

It is noteworthy that the Asakura family had no male heir in Keiko’s generation, since she was Yohmei and Kino's only child and had no brothers. Thus Mikihisa married into the family, following the Japanese muku no naru tradition; he took up the Asakura surname and allowed them to continue the family line.

After Keiko was found to be pregnant with Hao, Yohmei Asakura, as the head of the Asakura family, made the decision to kill the baby the moment he was born, so that Hao will not grow up in time for the upcoming Shaman Fight. However, as Keiko was carrying twins, they had no method to predict which baby was Hao. In the end, Yohmei made the decision to kill both the babies, just to be safe.

Immediately after the first baby was delivered, Yohmei summoned his shikigami, but as he hesitated to kill his own grandchild, the Spirit of Fire appeared, destroying the shikigami. The Spirit of Fire then turned to attack Yohmei, but Mikihisa blocked the attack and subsequently suffered burns to his face. Before Mikihisa could get his own spirits to attack Hao, the Spirit of Fire had lifted him out of the way.

With the Spirit of Fire gone (along with Hao), Keiko gave birth to Yoh. Mikihisa wears a mask to hide the burn scars he received from the Spirit of Fire.

Mikihisa blamed himself for failing to kill Hao when he had the chance. To make up for his own incompetence, he took to a rigorous training regiment, travelling around the world. It was also then he met Tamao Tamamura; Mikihisa took Tamao as an apprentice, and he often took her on his training.

Shaman Fight
Mikihisa’s role in the Shaman Fight tournament is to watch over Yoh, and he can often be seen shrouded in the shadows, observing Yoh’s battles from the top of trees. He also took the responsibility of imparting parts of the Cho Senji Ryakketsu to Yoh and his group, including the FumonTonkou to Ren.

He was a close friend of Professor Camel Munzer (who was the father of Redseb and Seyram). Upon the death of the professor, he took the responsibility of looking after Redseb and Seyram. At the same time, he had learnt about the Golem’s destructive capabilities, and his forming Team Kabbalahers was also to make sure Golem did not fall into the wrong hands.

Team Kabbalahers were one of the top six remaining teams in the Shaman Fight main tournament. During the decisive battle between Team The Ren and Team Funbari Onsen, Team Kabbalahers withdrew from the tournament, thus allowing both teams to qualify together with X-I and the Hoshigumi.

In the Anime
Mikihisa appears to play the same role in the anime as he did in the manga; however, because Redseb and Seyram are manga-exclusive characters, he was never mentioned to be part of any team in the Shaman Fight main tournament.

Mikihisa Asakura