Overview
Ro leads the three Masumi who guard Seiichi Samura at Senkutsuji. Over twenty-three. Looks like a child. Chihiro and Iori mistake him for one. He dislikes being treated as a kid and will still use the appearance to skip work. After Kunishige’s death the clan’s job is a blind Buddhist swordsman. After Samura frees them, the job is Iori, the daughter whose memories they themselves erased. Ro is what loyalty looks like when the master has sunglasses and a death wish.
He is not comic relief. A ninja clan’s leader doing inventory on a banquet sword is this book’s idea of logistics. He recovers Kumeyuri after Samura takes it off Hiruhiko at the Kyoto Bloodshed Hotel. Play wrecked the upper floors. Ro still files the steel. The Masumi do not get a volume jacket. They get the girl out of the myth long enough for her to choose a sword.
The persona
At Senkutsuji he takes on a Samura impression: sunglasses, candy cigarettes, “get fired up,” blunt manners. The Masumi suppress sound and scent so a blind man can fight by hearing. They are prepared to die so he can leave. He refuses the sacrifice, rescues them, and later releases them from service. After the temple falls Ro visits Chihiro in hospital and says the Masumi will look out for him, per Hakuri’s request. The child-face is a tool. The promise is not.
The inventory
Operation: Easy Does It. Owl up. Hishaku want Iori. Sumi’s motorcycle. Kuguri’s chase. Sengoku’s hotel. Iori’s seal. Play. Samura. Kumeyuri changes hands twice in a night. Ro is the one who ends with the banquet blade in clan custody. After Samura dies, Tobimune is Iori’s. The clan that erased him is still in the courtyard. That is not irony for its own sake. It is the job, finished as protection instead of erasure. Full clan: Masumi.
Notes
Ro. Leader. Child-look. Kumeyuri recovery. For the gravity, see Moku. For the map, see Sumi. Official chapters: VIZ / MANGA Plus.