Seiji Kazemaru is a 16th century Japanese samurai who becomes the protagonist of the Saints Row games due to time travel shenanigans. He was transplanted from the Soulcalibur series, where he was originally a fan character.
From Saints Row 2 onwards, he is voiced by Kenn Michael.
Description
Seiji is a Japanese man of average build and slightly tanned skin. His long black hair is usually tied in a ponytail.
In the Saints Row series, Seiji is often seen wearing modern street clothes with a typically black and purple color scheme. He keeps his signature samurai ponytail.
Saints Row 1 portrayed him as a quiet man who only spoke when he needed to, due to the culture shock of being in the year 2006. Being a samurai from the 16th century, he was largely unfamiliar with the modern world.
From Saints Row 2 onwards, he would become a snarking psychopath. His own speech patterns would largely, if not entirely, be influenced by the gang members of Stilwater. However, he would become less villainous and more anti-heroic by Saints Row 4.
Biography
Post-Soulcalibur IV
Shortly after the events of Soulcalibur IV, Seiji would find himself captured by a time-traveling, dimension-hopping Emperor Zinyak of the Zin Empire, along with other great heroes of the Soulcalibur universe. However, Zinyak would also use his mastery over time travel to fix the timeline, only because he knew that he was in a time period before classical music and Jane Austen, and he felt that it would be too cruel, even for a Zin, to risk the loss of those cultural icons. This process essentially created copies of the great heroes for his own purposes. Through sheer willpower, the alternate copied Seiji and a group of other warriors would escape from their pods.
Saints Row 1
Due to the captives' unfamiliarity with Zin technology, they would end up unintentionally altering time, causing Seiji to end up in Stilwater circa 2006. During this time, Seiji would essentially be a wanderer. Due to his lack of familiarity with the modern world and only minimal knowledge of the language, he mostly stayed silent. However, he would learn of modern American culture quickly, gaining a love for Jane Austen, Burt Reynolds, Paula Abdul, and Biz Markie, among others.
During a three-way battle between the Vice Kings, Westside Rollerz, and Los Carnales, Seiji would be injured in the crossfire, only to be recruited by Julius Little after a speedy recovery. During his canonization, he swiftly defeated all of his attackers, though Johnny Gat claims to have done the same in only half the time.
He would take down the Rollerz first, then Los Carnales, and finally the Vice Kings. It was said that he only spoke to his fellow Saints once during each of these campaigns.
After a promotion to Lieutenant, Julius began to believe that he created a monster, and thus plotted Seiji's murder.
Saints Row 2
Years later, Seiji would wake up in a Stilwater prison hospital, with some amount of plastic surgery due to his burns. With the help of Carlos, the brother of a former Saint, the two escaped, and Seiji rebuilt the Saints with the help of Johnny Gat, and new lieutenants Shaundi and Pierce Washington. He would defeat the Sons of Samedi to send a message to the people of Stilwater, seeing them as nothing but pushovers.
After making a name for the reformed Saints, Seiji then attacked the Ronin, the American branch of the Akuji yakuza clan. During his swordfight with Ronin lieutenant Jyunichi, Seiji felt that he had rediscovered his old samurai spirit, something that he felt that he had lost. However, he would quickly lose it again after defeating Kazuo Akuji and taking on the Brotherhood.
Saints Row: The Third
Under Seiji's leadership and partnership with Ultor, the Saints became worldwide celebrities, even making commercials in his home country of Japan, which he would frequently visit.
Due to a betrayal by the Stilwater police at the hands of the Morningstar Syndicate, Seiji would attack them directly in Steelport, making Philippe Loren's penthouse the Saints' new home.
Some time between Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV, a crazy fanboy of the Third Street Saints would clone Seiji. However the DNA sample's Y chromosome was damaged, forcing him to make the clone female.
The female clone, who would take the name Seiko, had all of Seiji's memories up to the end of Saints Row: The Third. Though she understood that she was a clone, she still felt that the Saints were rightfully hers, and that there could only be one Boss. She sets out to kill Seiji. The two fight inside the former Morningstar building, and Seiko knocks Seiji into a reactor, apparently killing him. Since she was still essentially the same person, Seiko took over the Saints, and was able to still carry the identity of the Boss, even with the change in gender. The events of Saints Row IV and Gat Out Of Hell would continue as normal, but with Seiko as the protagonist.
Post-Saints Row series
The reactor did not kill Seiji. Instead, he is found in another universe, completely unrelated to his previous Soulcalibur universe or the Saints Row universe.
Trivia
- Seiji was originally a fan character in the Soulcalibur series.
- In the Soulcalibur games, Seiji's hair is portrayed with dark green highlights, purely as artistic license. His hair is actually black. As a result, the Saints Row games portray him with dark green hair.
- The reason why Zinyak restored Seiji's universe's timeline is merely an excuse to keep the canon of that fan story going normally while this alternate version of Seiji can exist away from it. However, the author feels that it is in-character for Zinyak.
- There exist multiple alternate versions of this character.
- The original, who lives out his normal life as depicted in that article.
- Another one created by a timeline split in the Warriors Orochi universe, who ends up in an alternate Dynasty Warriors universe.
- The being depicted in this article. An alternate version who leads a gang and later a financial empire in an alternate universe, as a result of a temporal anomaly caused by an alien warlord.
- A clone who was created 400 years after the death of the original.
External Links
Seiji Kazemaru on the Soulcalibur wiki - The original fan character.
Kento Hirata on the Tekken Fanon wiki - A perfect biological clone with all of the memories of the original.