Nurugai
Nurugai is a character from Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku. She is the sole surviving member of the Sanka, a tribe of mountain dwellers who lived outside the authority of the shogunate. Because her community refused to submit to central rule, she was branded a rebel and sentenced to death. Selected to join the expedition to the treacherous island of Shinsenkyo in exchange for a pardon, she searches for the Elixir of Life alongside her assigned executioner, Yamada Asaemon Tensa, and his master, Yamada Asaemon Shion.
Overview
Nurugai is a character from Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku. She is the sole surviving member of the Sanka, a tribe of mountain dwellers who lived outside the authority of the shogunate. Because her community refused to submit to central rule, she was branded a rebel and sentenced to death. Selected to join the expedition to the treacherous island of Shinsenkyo in exchange for a pardon, she searches for the Elixir of Life alongside her assigned executioner, Yamada Asaemon Tensa, and his master, Yamada Asaemon Shion.
Appearance
Nurugai is a small child who wears her dark hair tied back in a single ponytail. She wears traditional Sanka tribal accessories, including earrings and a necklace, and her official image color is ochre. Due to her flat chest and boyish attire, she is initially mistaken for a young male. In the post-expilogue period, she grows into a beautiful young woman with long, straight hair.
Personality
Nurugai possesses a pure and honest heart. Although she uses masculine speech and refers to herself with boyish pronouns, she harbors a sensitive side and gets annoyed whenever others mistake her for a boy. She initially carried deep guilt for accidentally leading samurai to her hidden village, which led to its destruction. After receiving encouraging words from her executioner, she reclaims her desire to live and freely expresses her feelings of affection and gratitude.
Abilities
Nurugai possesses the Water attribute of Tao (Ki). To survive on Shinsenkyo, she trains under Yamada Asaemon Shion alongside Gabimaru and others to master combat tactics and Tao manipulation. In battle, she wields a short sword left behind by Yamada Asaemon Tensa and fights in tandem with Shion against powerful foes, including the Tensen Zhu Jin and Banko.
Background
Raised in a Sanka village independent of the shogunate, Nurugai accidentally revealed her village's location by guiding samurai she thought were lost. Her people were massacred, her grandfather was killed, and she was arrested as a convict. On Shinsenkyo, her monitor Yamada Asaemon Tensa convinced her to fight for survival. After Tensa was killed by the Tensen Zhu Jin, she traveled with Yamada Asaemon Shion and saved his life by stopping his desperate sacrificial attack. After surviving the island, she travels across Japan with Shion.
Relationships
Yamada Asaemon Tensa was Nurugai's assigned executioner and savior, who reignited her desire to live. She developed deep affection for him and even proposed marriage before his death at the hands of Zhu Jin. Yamada Asaemon Shion, Tensa's teacher, took her under his wing to teach her combat and Tao. She stopped Shion from throwing away his life in battle, and the two formed a lasting bond, traveling the country together after returning from the island.
Trivia
During her travels after returning from the island, her dynamic with the blind samurai Yamada Asaemon Shion earned them the description of a wandering blind master and child (Kozure Zato). To conceal her identity while traveling across the country, she used the pseudonym Koto, while Shion went by Kuon.
