Genkai

Genkai (幻海, Literally meaning: Sea of Apparitions) was the master of the spirit detective Yusuke Urameshi and Kazuma Kuwabara.

Background

Fifty years before the start of the series, Toguro, along with his older brother, and Genkai, his "wildcat" of a lover, built a dojo together and had several people attending. However all of this was ruined when a demon named Kairen (translates to "crushing forge") who was the favored contestant in the Dark Tournament fifty years prior, massacred and swallowed all of Younger Toguro's pupils and colleagues, forcing Younger Toguro into the Dark Tournament as a "guest". For three months Younger Toguro disappeared, but he returned the day before the tournament with a formed team; in which included his brother and Genkai. Younger Toguro and Kairen worked their way to the Final Rounds, and each fought the other, with Younger Toguro killing Kairen and coming out as the victor, which would greatly resemble his future fight against Yusuke Urameshi. Younger Toguro's mind, however, had been incredibly warped. When given a chosen prize, both he and his brother chose to be demons, while Genkai, out of anger, wished to never be involved in the tournament ever again.

Personality

Genkai was an old-fashioned woman with great strength and determination. She put her mind and body through extensive training to allow her to create and control the spirit wave orb, which contributed greatly to her rather cold and hard demeanor. She viewed Yusuke as a slacker at first, often putting him through grueling and life-threatening training regimens, but soon came to love him like the grandson she never had. Quite noticeably, she appears to be a pragmatist first and foremost, as when she told Kuroda the hitman that she didn't care what kind of profession the winner of the tournament was, seemingly unfazed by any moral shortcomings the candidates had. From this, it can be inferred that she was the type of person who will do almost anything she deems necessary to accomplish her goals. This mentality is what compelled her to push herself and others beyond their apparent limits.

This isn't to say that she is without decency or remorse, however. During Kuwabara's match with Shōrin, she called the match in the latter's favor when he began sadistically torturing the former, preventing his death. (She also completely healed the injuries Kuwabara sustained during that match of her own free will and without prompting.) During Yusuke's match against Randō, she refused to call it in the latter's favor, revealing that though she would keep her word and teach her techniques to the victor, she truly did not want to teach Randō unless she had no other choice. Later, during the Dark Tournament, Genkai used her spiritual powers to release a group of mentally-enslaved humans from their master's mind-control. She did so in order to both spare their lives, and to spare Yusuke the torment of having to kill them in order to set them free.

Genkai's love for Yusuke was also frequently proven, as in addition the deed above, she would often place her own welfare at considerable risk to protect him. When he was later reborn as demonkin, she tried to help him through the difficulties he faced and was clearly pained by what little she could do for him. When he eventually settled on returning to the Demon World, she stood by stoically as she watched him depart, resolved in knowing that letting him go was probably the only way he could ever come to terms with what he had become.

In contrast to her "aged master" persona, Genkai has a love of video games. She owns her own private arcade in her mountain compound and has modified some of the games to be used to evaluate spiritual abilities. She also claims to have won Game Battler twice, and during the battle with Game Master, she beat the AI enemy without losing a single life. On top of this, she owns a standard game console and controllers.

Appearance

Usually, Genkai has the appearance of a small-built aged woman, wearing martial arts clothing and occasionally a purple cap with the maji '霊' (れい Spirit, Soul). She has light, wavy pink hair that stops at her shoulders and brown eyes. However, as a young woman she has a more vibrant shade of pink in her hair, in which she wore in a braid.

Her disguise during the Dark Tournament was very similar to her normal outfit. The main difference is she wore white bandages all across her head, to hide all of her face except for her right eye. However, this was to cover her much younger appearance from the Reihado-ken's effect. During the battle against Dr. Ichigaki Team, her hair is tied in a low ponytail. However, her hair remained loose when she fought against Shishiwakamaru, Suzuki, and Younger Toguro.

Her clothing has remained the same throughout the series; a long, red sleeveless tunic with green trim, a thick purple lining on the right area of the chest that is folded under a green sash. Underneath her tunic is a long-sleeved white shirt, matching white martial-arts pants, and purple shoes.

During the flash back of her in the Spiritual World in her younger appearance, she is wearing an outfit similar to her normal one, however her tunic now resembles a qipao. The color of her sleeveless tunic is light green with a red finish, and her belt is now purple to match her shoes.

In the Chapter Black saga, while in the territory of Minoru Kamiya, Genkai wears a martial arts outfit in different shades of yellow, with a brown collar and shoes.

Knownable Relatives

• Unnamed Mother
• Unnamed Father

Trivia

• In the Korean dub version, she was named "Chi-Toong", but retains her name in the subs and manga translation. Her voice actress was Jung Yu-Mi, who also voiced Koenma and Yukina.
• Genkai's true age is likely 70+ (she was 20+ when she received the Reiko Hadoken).
• In a 2007 poll by Oricon, Genkai was tied with two other characters as the fifth best anime "master" with a 6% vote.
• Genkai was shown as a smoker during the Genkai Tournament saga in the anime. This was actually intended to play a role in Yusuke's match against Kibano due to the fact that Yusuke's smoking habits were omitted from the anime and the cigarette was vital to the plot.
• Genkai's hair was braided when she was younger, in which may be the reason it is wavy as she got older.
• Genkai's English voice actress, Linda Young, is also most notably known for voicing Frieza, one of the major villains of the Dragon Ball anime series.
• In the Filipino dub version of the anime series, she was named Master Jeremaiah.
• In the Filipino dub, her old version was voiced by a male voice actor instead of a female voice actress throughout the series since Filipino translators initially thought that she was male. Not until the Dark Tournament arc where her younger version was revealed that she (her younger version) was voiced by a female voice actress. Her old version was still voiced by a male voice actor even when Filipino translators learned that she was female for the series to be consistent.
• After her revival at the end of the Dark Tournament arc, she appears moderately younger (although still old) than her previous appearances. It is unexplained as to whether this is part of her revival or merely a result of improved animation quality as the series progressed.
• Genkai's appearance as The Masked Fighter slightly resembles Master Roshi's appearance as Jackie Chun in Dragon Ball, except Genkai helps Yusuke, whereas Master Roshi was trying to defeat his student.
• In the English Dub, Yusuke tends to call her "grandma" if he's in a good mood or "old bat" when she angers him.

Biscuit Krueger, a character from Hunter X Hunter, bears some similarities with Genkai:

• Both had their students undergo very harsh training.
• Both are capable of transforming into a younger version of themselves.
• The pose how Genkai fires her Spirit Gun technique is comparable to the posture Biscuit taught to Gon and Killua to emit their aura.

Voice Actresses

• Japanese : Hisako Kyouda (old), Megumi Hayashibara (young)
• English : Linda Young (old & young), Dorothy Fahn (Live Action Series)

Played by in (Live Action) : Meiko Kaji