Gouenji Shuuya

Gouenji Shuuya (豪炎寺 修也) is one of the main characters of the original Inazuma Eleven series. Introduced in the franchise as a transfer student from Kidokawa Seishuu, he soon joined the Raimon soccer club. In Inazuma Eleven GO he initially appeared under the guide of the antagonist Ishido Shuuji (nickname: イシド, full name: イシドシュウジ), the Holy Emperor of Fifth Sector, and coach of Seidouzan. But later on he revealed his true identity, and motives. In the Inazuma Eleven GO Galaxy series, he acts as the chairman of the Nihon Shounen Soccer Kyoukai.

Background
Gouenji was born on the day of May 30th as the first child and son of Gouenji Katsuya and his unnamed wife. Even in his early childhood, Gouenji was shown to be a great talented soccer player. His parents would often come to his games to cheer for him, saying that he had a talent for soccer and that they were tremendously proud of it. However, after his mother's death, his father, Gouenji Katsuya became a completely different person. Despite his pride for his son in the past, his father wanted Gouenji to quit soccer and become a doctor like himself and has been arguing about this issue with Gouenji ever since.

Before the finals in the Football Frontier, a year before the series' main start event. Ironically which was a match between Kidokawa Seishuu and Teikoku Gakuen, Gouenji's younger sister, Yuuka, she had become a victim of an accident and was in a coma ever since. Due to this, his father's condition grew worse. Yuuka was then hospitalized in Inazuma General Hospital, where Gouenji's father worked.

Ever since the accident, Gouenji thought that if he hadn't played soccer, the accident wouldn't have happened to Yuuka, and wondered how he can simply relax and play soccer when she is suffering. Gouenji keeps an amulet made by Yuuka, transferred to Raimon, and swore that until she wakes up, he wouldn't play soccer.

Personality
He is seen as being cool, and calm at most situations. He cares deeply for his sister, and has a strong passion for soccer. When one of his team members aren't doing well, he kicks the soccer ball hard at them. And when they look at him in surprise, he makes them realize their mistake and corrects them. This shows that he takes interest of other people and understands their feelings and shares their sorrow and happiness at all time. He's also seemed to have a quick thinking at most times (in the manga, too). In the manga, he is portrayed more mysterious, and is easily annoyed by Endou Mamoru's attempts to recruit him into the soccer club. After he was recruited, he still wanted to quit the club, because the soccer club itself was not functioning well, and that Kabeyama Heigorou's defense was not good as well. However, when Kabeyama used his hissatsu, he finally stayed at the soccer club. He's also shown to care about the others.

For example, when Onigawara told Endou that Kageyama's the one who killed Endou's grandfather, he was about to punch him. Luckily, Endou held him back. In GO, when he was revealed to be Ishido Shuuji, his personality has drastically changed, he starts with having no remorse for controlling soccer. He states that soccer cannot be brought back anymore, and he doesn't seem to care for his old friends, teammates and those who love playing soccer. He also started having the "sly" smile while watching the matches in the Holy Road tournament. Though, some of his characteristics like cool, calm and serious remained. He also starts to deny his past identity of being "Gouenji Shuuya", and states his name is Ishido Shuuji when he was confronted by Endou. He does have some guilt in controlling soccer as shown during the series.

In Galaxy, Gouenji is shown to be very serious in his job as chairman of the Nihon Shounen Soccer Kyoukai. He has a close relationship with Kidou Yuuto, as they were friends in the past. He is not easily persuaded, as both Shindou and the vice-coach for Inazuma Japan asked Gouenji to change the coach, Kuroiwa Ryuusei, but he denied.

Appearance
He has white hair which resembles to flames as in his element 'fire', zigzag eyebrows, and black sharp eyes. He also has a fair skin tone. He usually looks very serious. Casually, he wears a plain white hoodie with an orange jacket over it having two pockets on each side, brown pants and red sneakers. During season 2, when he was in hiding, he wore brown shoes and an orange jacket with blue side stripes. In one of the Inazuma Eleven 2009 artwork covers, Gouenji is shown to own a dark grayish-brown yukata, with grey stripes going vertically downwards.

Whilst wearing the Raimon uniform, notably, he wears orange colored socks instead of the white socks most other members wear. He also has a habit of raising his collar with any soccer shirt that has one.

In an artwork of Gouenji in the Inazuma Eleven game, he was shown to be wearing a hoop earring in his right ear, however he has never been shown to be wearing an earring in the anime (apart from when he was acting as Ishido in the GO series) or in any of the other games.

In Inazuma Eleven GO, as Ishido Shuuji, he has his spiky hair straightened down, and now he has azure highlights in them. He has a fairly darker complexion. He wears a red suit coat over a white shirt, with grey combat boots over his pants. Over this, he wears a black scarf around his neck. He wears two necklaces, one over his white shirt and has two green beads and one orange one. The other necklace is around his neck, with just three light orange oval colored beads close together. In his left ear, he wears light green and violet earrings. In the first episode of GO, he was seen wearing a black cloak and hood.

From episode 45, Gouenji had changed his appearance again. He now has removed his blue azure highlights, and has cream hair that ends in a pony tail. He wears a plain black shirt, on top of that, he wears a red jacket, with a blue white and red (occurring twice) pattern for the collar and the end of the sleeve. In this appearance, he seemed a lot more cool and like the usual Gouenji.

In the Crossover movie, Gouenji was shown to have changed back to his appearance as a teenager, and spiked his hair up with gel.

In the Inazuma Eleven GO Galaxy series, he has changed his appearance yet again. He now has his hair shorter, just falling down, reaching down to his neck. He wears a light sky blue blazer, a grey waistcoat, a plain white shirt and a shirt, only showing the collar of underneath.

Season 1
He first appears when Endou was training with the Inazuma KFC. After seeing a punk spit on the ball and then kicking it to the direction of Kisaragi Mako, he intervenes, shooting the ball back which hit the punk's face. But then he was struck by Endou's "never give up" attitude telling him that his sister would have wanted him to play soccer the most, he then regains his passion for the game. He changes his promise to become the champion of the Football Frontier. He is firstly not accepted by Someoka, but later, when he sees Gouenji working hard to complete Inazuma Otoshi, his respect for him as a teammate and the ace striker of Raimon grows, and Someoka does not accept anybody other than Gouenji as Raimon's ace striker, as it is seen when he does not accept Fubuki as Raimon's new ace striker after Gouenji left the team in Season 2. In this season he was known as the legendary striker. Gouenji was happy when his little sister woke up from being in a coma.

Season 2
He was kicked out of the team after he got distracted in a match against Aliea Gakuen by Coach Hitomiko. Later, Raimon heard rumors of the "Flame Striker" somewhere in Okinawa and traveled there to find him, hoping that he is Gouenji. He is seen hiding in the shadows watching Raimon practice, and even saw the confrontation with Burn and Gran. Later on, in the match against Epsilon Kai, Gouenji views the match in a disguise (an orange and black hood) and it is shown that he and Hijikata Raiden know each other. Later on in the match, three mysterious men try to take Gouenji away but he tricks them with the help of Onigawara. He runs back to the match and rejoins the team at the last minute. The Raimon Eleven are delighted that he returned to them. Together once again, they finally beat Epsilon Kai with Gouenji's new hissatsu; Bakunetsu Storm and Fire Tornado.

Season 3
He was a candidate to join Japan's national team, Inazuma Japan, and was placed in B-team, Kidou Yuuto's team. During the selection match, he made his team first goal with Bakunetsu Storm. Later, he and some of his teammates were chosen by Coach Kudou, to represent Japan. Later, he was almost out of the team again before the finals, because his father wanted him to study in Germany and become a doctor. However, he was able to show his father how much he loves soccer and wants to stay with the rest of the team, as he and Toramaru brings out Tiger Storm. He makes a new hissatsu with Hiroto and Toramaru between the match with The Empire, even though they lose with the score of 2-1. Later he followed the Kidou's team into the depths of hell to the Demon's Gate, in an effort to save Haruna from Makai Gundan Z.

In the match of Inazuma Japan vs Unicorn, Gouenji used Bakunetsu Screw to try and score, but it failed against Billy Rapid's Flash Upper because Domon Asuka used Volcano Cut V2 to weaken the shot. However, in the second-half, he used it again to score the final and winning goal for Inazuma Japan using Bakunetsu Screw.

Then afterwards when Inazuma Japan was fighting against The Kingdom, he scored the second point for Inazuma Japan, along with Someoka and Hiroto in a chain shoot consisting of their individual hissatsu. He scored a goal with Toramaru using Tiger Storm against Team Garshield. He, along with Toramaru and Endou scored the winning goal for Inazuma Japan against Little Gigant in the finals using Jet Stream which broke through Rococo's Tamashii The Hand G2.

In episode 126, he graduated from Raimon, and when it was Endou's turn to receive the diploma, Gouenji along with the rest of Raimon were seen crying because they were about to go their separate ways.

Then in episode 127, they had one last graduation match with each other, which ended in both groups not scoring a goal, since they where all equally matched. All of them listened to Endou's last speech, and promised that they'll keep on playing soccer from Endou's word that he said "Let's play soccer!" to which everyone happily agreed on.

Inazuma Eleven Go (Anime)
In Inazuma Eleven GO, he appeared in Matsukaze Tenma's flashback, when he saved his life by kicking a soccer ball to the piles of wood that were falling on top of him. He had done this during the time he was under hiding from Aliea Gakuen. And when Tenma picked up the ball, it's seen to have the Raimon emblem on it, proving how much he missed his team. He actually became Tenma's hero and made him passionate for soccer like he is now, 10 years later. It was shown in episode 11 that Tsurugi and his brother also wanted to play soccer like him.

He is first seen in episode 1 (though not revealed as Gouenji yet) in the shadows being commanded by someone else. He wishes to "control soccer" in the first episode and was looking determined. His whole appearance is not revealed, since he was hooded while doing this.

Shortly after Kuro no Kishidan forfeited the game after Shindou Takuto releases his Keshin for the first time in episode 3, he's seen again, where he is looking at the statistics of each Raimon team member, especially Takuto's stats. He commented that Shindou had "recently awakened".

He's also seen again overlooking Holy Road's opening ceremony.

When Raimon advanced to the semi-finals, they were originally supposed to play against Aoba, another participant in the Holy Road tournament. However, Ishido switched Aoba's place with Teikoku, fore sighting that Teikoku would crush Raimon. Despite this, Raimon won the match and advanced to the finals.

He was seen watching Raimon and Kaiou Gakuen's match at the end of episode 20.

In episode 22, he was seen in the Holy Road opening ceremony making a speech.

In episode 24, he was confronted by Endou Mamoru at Fifth Sector's base, where it is confirmed that Gouenji is actually Ishido Shuuji. Gouenji, however, denies his old identity as well as Endou's offer to help him.

In episode 27, he's shown to be watching the match of Raimon and Hakuren when Seki was switched into the field and started to play rough.

In episode 29, he's shown to be talking to Aphrodi but it's unknown what were they talking about, but then he's shown smiling after his talk with Aphrodi. He watches the match of Raimon and Kidokawa Seishuu. In a flashback of Aphrodi, it's seen that they were talking about Water World Stadium.

In episode 31, after Raimon won the match, Aphrodi raised his head so he can look at him but it's shown that he had left his seat already.

In the episode 33, he is seen watching Raimon's members. He came to the hospital and had a talk with Taiyou about the revolution and the Holy Road.

In the episode 34, he was seen watching Raimon match against Genei Gakuen, then he smiled. In the episode 36, he was seen talking to Tenma and saved him again. After this, Tenma has finally realised that Gouenji was the one who saved him 10 years ago. In the episode 37, he was seen talking with Taiyou about Arakumo Gakuen's next game, where Gouenji says that Amemiya can play.

In the episode 38 and episode 39, he is seen watching the 1/2 final opposing Raimon and Arakumo Gakuen with Senguuji, Toramaru and Yamato. He is seen smiling when he saw Matei Gryphon. At the end of the match, he smiled at Taiyou. In episode 40, he was seen training Tsurugi.

In episode 41, he is seen talking to Saginuma, he is the one who is coaching over Seidouzan since he is their original coach. In episode 42, it was said by Tsurugi that Seidouzan's formation in order to seal the opponent passes could only be coordinated by a striker like Gouenji.

As shown in episode 44, he is seen talking to Senguuji about when he first met him he also had a flashback, he is seen to be happy when he saw Hibiki giving a speech about "true soccer" coming back. At the end of the episode it is seen that Endou as usual told him let's play soccer again, to which Gouenji actually agreed and then he along with Endo are seen shaking hands together.

Inazuma Eleven Go Chrono Stone (Anime)
In episode 1, it was commented by Tenma that, after Holy Road, Gouenji created a soccer education program to teach kids from all Japan how to play soccer and that this is the motive why he was traveling around the country. Later, when Alpha travels back in time where Gouenji saves Tenma, and Tenma sees how Gouenji kicked the ball but Alpha stops the shoot which made Gouenji unable to save Tenma from injuries.

Gouenji appeared in GO form in episode 7. He met with the remaining Raimon members. He knew about El Dorado and what happened to Endou. He then revealed that he owns a time bracelet (similar to the one Tsurugi Yuuichi was wearing in episode 3), given to him by someone only known as "Helper X". He suggested that the Raimon players could practice at God Eden, in order to master the Keshin Armed and to fight against Protocol Omega 2.0 and release Endou.

In episode 18, it was said by Nishiki that Gouenji is delaying the demolition of Raimon's soccer club. Later in the same episode he appeared at the Raimon soccer club, bringing the artifact needed to travel to Jeanne's era and to tell to the club that El Dorado's doesn't want to banish soccer only, but eliminate it by the most ruthless way. He also says that the ones who still likes soccer are being attacked one after another by people's that are being controlled by Protocol Omega 3.0.

He appeared again in episode 22, where he brought the artifact to travel to the Three Kingdoms era, Koumei's scripture, to Daisuke. It's also said by Taiyou that Gouenji told him about Raimon's mission to bring back real soccer and that is his motive for joining Raimon.

In episode 39, he became the coach of El Dorado Team 03, and chose Tenma as a captain.

In episode 44, he was shocked when he saw Supporter X standing at SARU's side, as he supposedly gave his Time Bracelet in order to protect the soccer. Gouenji then asked himself if Supporter X was acting as a member from El Dorado all this time in order to collect informations to evolve Second Stage Children even more. Gouenji was later shocked, much like the other members, when he discovered that Fei was actually the captain from Feida's third team, Garu. After he scored a goal with Bouncer Rabbit Gouenji explained to Aoi that that should be Fei's true power.

Inazuma Eleven Go Galaxy (Anime)
Before the events of Inazuma Eleven Galaxy, Bitway Ozrock came down to Earth from space and told him about the Grand Celesta Galaxy tournament. Bitway said to Gouenji that Earth needed to find a team that could participate in the tournament, otherwise he would seal Earth away; in which he proved he could do, as he sealed the moon with just a soccer ball.

Gouenji, who had to accept this 'offer' otherwise Earth would be sealed away, must have told Kuroiwa Ryuusei of this. Kuroiwa then created the Football Frontier International Vision 2 to gather the best players that could defeat the aliens, and that team turned out to be Inazuma Japan.

He appeared in episode 1, watching the match of Inazuma Japan vs. Teikoku Gakuen. After the match, he walked to Kidou Yuuto, in which he stated that Kuroiwa Ryuusei resembled a lot to a person he had known before; Kageyama Reiji.

He appeared in episode 4, talking to Shindou Takuto and the coach for Inazuma Japan. Shindou was telling Gouenji that his coach Kuroiwa Ryuusei, was doing a bad job as their coach, for example they only have eleven players, in which he thinks they should have sixteen, 5 as subs in-case someone was to get injured. But Gouenji just said that he trusts Kuroiwa. Then the vice-coach came in, in an angry mood, saying why did Gouenji along with other (unknown) people select Kuroiwa as coach for Inazuma Japan and that if Kuroiwa carry's on, he is going to try and take over the soccer world again. But Gouenji said that he had no intentions in changing the coach because Kuroiwa knows in every detail, "both darkness and light".

Inazuma Eleven movie
In the movie, he learned Maximum Fire and used Prime Legend with Kidou.

Inazuma Eleven Go movie
Ishido first appeared in the GO movie in the Holy Road's stadium, making a speech about the Fifth Sector. He later reappeared in a helicopter, wearing sunglasses, going to the God Eden, an island where the Fifth Sector trains the SEEDs. He tallked with Kibayama Douzan about Endou Mamoru, as he want to known if is true the Raimon's coach is in the island, which Kibayama replies as being true. He later watched the match between Zero and Raimon. At the end of the movie was shown a cliffhanger where Senguuji Daigo and him talked with each other about children whose power reached a high stage so high, beyond human limits; the Second Stage Children. Senguuji said some of these children already existed in this era, and that the true goal of Fifth Sector was to find children having such a power, as Helper X ordered them to do. Then, he made Ishido the Holy Emperor, giving him the task to find such children.

Inazuma Eleven GO vs Danball Senki W
He appeared with his team Inazuma Legend Japan to play against Shinsei Inazuma Japan. At the start of the match, Hakuryuu got past him with his immense speed. Later, after the LBX army's attack, he use Inazuma Break with Endou and Kidou. Afterward, he was seen assisting Endou in using Great The Hand to stop the purple energy from advancing but disappear later with his teammates, due to Fran's power.

Quotes

 * Leave me alone
 * Fire Tornado

Knownable Relatives

 * Unnamed Mother (dead)
 * Gouenji Katsuya (Father)
 * Gouenji Yuuya (Little sister)

Trivia

 * His birthday is May 30.
 * His english version name is Axel Blaze.
 * His bloodtype is ???.
 * He was the only player on Inazuma Japan to play every minute of the FFI tournament.
 * He has his two character songs: Honoo no Riyuu and Ashita no Hero (with Shindou Takuto).
 * He is one of the few people in the series to be left footed.
 * As stated by the commentator of the match between Raimon (GO) and Dragonlink, Gouenji had used Fire Tornado DD when he was playing for a pro-league team. The person he used it with however, is unknown.
 * A scene from the Drama CD revealed that he makes delicious Takoyaki but doesn't do this in front of Rika because he said he didn't want to end up like Ichinose.
 * It's known that after the third series of Inazuma Eleven, he along with Kazemaru, Someoka and Kabeyama played for a pro-league team.
 * Because his hair had fallen in the GO series instead of it being spiky, in the Crossover movie it was seen before the match that he uses gel to do his hair exactly like it was in the original series, as a teenager. However, in the manga, he keeps his hair as it is currently instead of spiking it.
 * In the Galaxy game, he is the only character that can be recruited in six different forms (including his Mixi Max form with Fubuki).
 * Of the characters included in the Inazuma Eleven Strikers series, Gouenji has the largest number of combination shoot hissatsu.
 * In the American release of the first game, he is voiced by Bryce Papenbrook.
 * He is based on Sing, a character from Shaolin Soccer, a Hong Kong martial arts comedy.
 * He wears the number 10 in all the teams he played in. Except in Inazuma Eleven Ares no Tenbin, as he wears the number 17 in Kidokawa Seishuu.
 * Gouenji goes to the barber on the 13th of each month, as revealed by Takita Atsushi, the owner of the beauty parlor "The Edge", in the sixth episode of Inazuma Eleven: Outer Code.

Voice Actors

 * Japanese : Hirofumi Nojima
 * English : Bryce Papenbrook
 * all information on Gouenji Shuuya came from http://inazuma-eleven.wikia.com/wiki/Gouenji_Shuuya