Sensui

Shinobu Sensui (仙水忍, Sensui Shinobu) also known as the Black Angel, was the main antagonist of the Chapter Black Saga, as well as a former Spirit Detective in his youth, having been recruited by Koenma for his prodigious talents and his unequaled sense of right and wrong. In the anime television series, Sensui is voiced by Rokurō Naya (adult) and Akira Ishida (teenager) in Japanese and Robert McCollum in English. In the Filipino Dub of the anime, he was voiced by Neil Yu who also voices Kuwabara.

Appearance

Sensui was a tall, thin, broad shouldered man with tan skin, an ovoid jewel in the middle of his forehead and a rather long neck. He normally kept his hair slicked back, with a bang arching slightly over his forehead. He wore a casual long-sleeved gray shirt, dark gray jeans with a matching black belt on his waist and a matching shoes making his outfit into a shades of gray. His long limbs gave the illusion of a slender build, though in reality, while he was not bulky, his torso at least was both very muscular and very heavily scarred on his chest, shoulders and arms, both of which were the results of his intense physical training.

Trivia

• So far Sensui is the only fictional character known to be able to create an alternate personality at will (not counting Kazuma from his initial mental breakdown.)
• Sensui and his successor Yusuke are complete opposites in every possible sense, from their viewpoints to their actions. While Sensui treated his job as an honor, Yusuke saw it as more of a chore. Sensui is refined, polite, calm, and hardworking, whereas Yusuke is hotheaded, foulmouthed, lazy, and shows little to no respect for authority figures. Their fighting styles are different; where Sensui uses the elegant martial arts style of Resshūken that revolves around kicks, Yusuke uses a brash and unrefined street-fighting style centered around punches. In the end, even their species differed, with Yusuke becoming a demon hybrid and Sensui dying a human.
  • These differences were in fact one of the primary reasons why Koenma decided to hire Yusuke to be Sensui's successor as Spirit Detective; after witnessing the problems that Sensui's dedication, intelligence, philosophical musings and inability to cope with shades of grey had ultimately caused him, Koenma decided that someone less intellectually and morally developed along with having less dedication might have an easier time coping with the potential encounters that would challenge their school of thought while on the job. Notably, when Yusuke and Kuwabara witnessed the tortures that Gonzo Tarukane (a human) was inflicting on Yukina (a demon) for his own petty reasons, they were able to take in the knowledge without having their beliefs turned upside down unlike what happened to Sensui and the events surrounding his breakdown.

• The aspect of Seichiro Hikawa of the Birdy the Mighty OVA is similar to him.

• While Kamiya (Wrath), Makihara (Gluttony), Hagiri (Pride), Mitarai (Envy), Amanuma (Sloth), Itsuki (Lust) and Elder Toguro (Greed) represent the seven deadly sins of Catholicism, the true Sensui (excluding Kazuya (Wrath), Naru the female personality (Lust) and Minoru (Pride), is devoid of any true sin, like a fallen angel who still upholds his duties even if they are warped from his original goals. Hence, his Black Angel title.
• His seven personalities may be a reference to the seven-headed Beast of Revelation.
• Sensui has seven points of hair on his forehead, and his Offense armor has seven spikes around the shoulders.

• Concerning his death, there are differences surrounding it in the manga and anime:
  • In the manga, when Koenma asks Sensui why he’s been so obsessed with making a portal to Demon World, he explains that he simply wanted to come here. After learning that the human race which he had fought to protect up until then was nothing but scum, he began to loathe having the same blood as them flowing inside him.  He wanted to be reborn in the Demon World, and get there by any possible means. The portal itself was just a gift to the demons; his real goal was simply to die in Demon World, and he’s glad he got to do it. He thanks Yusuke for making him enjoy fighting for just a brief moment and then says that he’s certain he’ll be reborn as a demon this time. He then passes.
  • In the anime however, he explains that Demon World is the home of the demons, so when he started having doubts about his simplistic black-and-white world view, he started wondering what had happened to all those demons he had killed without even thinking about it. He started to want to come to Demon World at all costs, and is glad he was able to see their home world. His true goal was to die in the Demon World and be killed by a demon, though he knows that this won’t really help the demons he killed to rest in peace. He thanks Yusuke for making him enjoy fighting for just a brief moment, then dies without saying anything else.
  • Besides changing Sensui’s motivation from wanting to be reborn as a demon to wanting to die by a demon’s hand, the anime leaves a little part of Sensui’s death speech out. In the manga, when describing his past, Sensui says that as a kid he soon “got used to the blood on his clothes nobody else could see” (from fighting demons) and believed the world was comprised of good and evil, even thinking that wars always involved a good country fighting an evil one.
  • When Itsuki comes forward to take Sensui’s dead body away, in the anime he says that Sensui’s desire was to be killed by the strongest demon in the Demon World, which turned out to be the reborn Yusuke, which must have made him happy.  Itsuki goes on, saying that in the end Shinobu overcame the different personalities he created to deal with his internal contradictions, becoming the pure Shinobu he once was, and perhaps his soul has been partially saved.
• Chrollo Lucilfer, a villain from Togashi's second hit series, Hunter x Hunter shares some similarities with Sensui.
  • Both are the leaders of their gang.
  • Both are the most polite of their gang.
  • Both have religious references. Sensui is known as the Dark Angel, where else Chrollo has a cross on his forehead and an inverted cross on his coat. Also the fact that Chrollo's last name "Lucilfer" is only one letter more than "Lucifer", the fallen angel who would become the enemy of God.
  • Both ended up being defeated for easily prevented reasons. Sensui chose to rest in peace because he planned to be killed by a demon and die in the Demon World while since Chrollo was bounded by Kurapika's Judgement Chain which prevents him from using his Nen, he set of on a solitary journey to fulfill his prophecy.
• In the Filipino Dub, Kuwabara's voice actor, Neil Yu was also provided to voice Shinobu Sensui into a sinister with a deep pitch during the Chapter Black saga as Kazuya one of Sensui's seven personalites resembles Kuwabara's voice with a manner of speaking kanto or a squatter accent. He later adapts it to his main voice role as Nakago in the manga and anime series Fushigi Yuugi.