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, known as Yahiko Myojin in the Media Blasters English-language dub and Yoshi Myojin in the English Sony ''Samurai X'' dub,〔"(Samurai X )." Animax Asia. Retrieved on July 23, 2009.〕 is a fictional character from the ''Rurouni Kenshin'' manga and anime series authored by Nobuhiro Watsuki. The character of Yahiko is based on the author's childhood experiences practicing kendo; since Watsuki's experienced frustration during kendo classes, the author wrote Yahiko as experiencing frustration with his kendo skills. Watsuki liked Yahiko, and while writing the manga, he began to develop the character so that readers would enjoy him. The fictional setting takes place during the pre-Meiji period of Japan. Yahiko is an orphan from a samurai family who was forced to work as a thief to repay the debt he had presumably owed, as his parents died before they could repay it. When he is rescued by the main character of the story Himura Kenshin, he decides that he will grow up to be just like Kenshin. But because of his strong beliefs, Kenshin is no longer teaching the sword style he had learned. Therefore, Kenshin arranges for Yahiko to be trained by Kamiya Kaoru, the teacher of the . As the series progresses, Yahiko becomes skilled at swordsmanship and faces many opponents. Yahiko appears in the featured movie of the series, as well as other media relating to the franchise, including a wide range of electronic games and an original video animations (OVAs) series. His character has been very popular with readers from ''Rurouni Kenshin'', ranking near the top of the series' popularity polls. His character is featured in various types of merchandising developed for the series, such as figurines and key-chains. Several publications have commented on his character. While he was initially criticized for his lack of action in the plot, his further development in the series has been praised. ==Creation and conception== Nobuhiro Watsuki, creator of ''Rurouni Kenshin'', says that he used no particular logic when drawing Yahiko except for the "defiant" eyes and "mussed" hair. (Watsuki describes these traits as "a must" in a ''shōnen'' comic.) Watsuki enjoyed practicing kendo "almost as much as drawing manga".〔 To create Yahiko, Watsuki drew on his emotions from junior high school. He has described himself then as "weak" and "an embarrassment to my 183 centimeters of height" (183 centimeters is equivalent to 6 feet). He says he was a member of the kendo starting squad only because the school suspended another student originally intended to be a starter. However, he failed to win in a league tournament, experienced frustration and felt he was "awful" despite his desire to succeed; he yearned to improve his kendo skills.〔 As an "outlet" for Watsuki's kendo emotions, Yahiko "knows a pain that hero-types like Himura Kenshin and Sagara Sanosuke can never know". As Watsuki further developed the story, Yahiko becomes a comedic character. Watsuki wanted to draw Yahiko in a way that readers could envision him as being a "great" swordsman five to ten years later. During the last story arc from the manga, the story takes a darker tone than those from other ''shōnen'' series published by Shueisha. As the series was aimed at teenagers, Watsuki made Yahiko the main character during the time when Kenshin thought that Kamiya Kaoru was dead; his role was to serve as the identifying character for readers. However, the author found this hard to do, as the more time Kenshin was unwilling to continue to live, the worse Yahiko felt, leaving Watsuki a more negative feeling concerning the story. By the end of the series as Yahiko becomes a teenager, Watsuki had redesigned his appearance. He wanted Yahiko to impress manga readers so that he could be a protagonist for a possible series sequel. He said this goal influenced his design of Yahiko, with Kenshin's physical appearance as well as Sanosuke's personality. He added Sanosuke's kanji of to the back of his clothes, and was pleased that various readers recognized it. Although he suggested he was not going to make a sequel, he said the main characters would be Yahiko, Sanjō Tsubame and Tsukayama Yutarō. Watsuki thought about writing a story in which Yahiko and Tsubame would have a son, Myōjin Shinya, who would become a skilled swordsman. In the 20th volume from the ''Rurouni Kenshin'' ''kanzenban'' edition, Watsuki again redesigned Yahiko's appearance to show how he would appear at that time. His hair was not as spiky as it was originally, and he had new clothes. He wore a dark jacket, a white short-sleeved T-shirt and short trousers. He did not have socks under his sandals and he had bandages on his hands in order hold a swords. He had two swords—a shinai and a katana—with the latter tied on his back. In the anime adaptation of ''Rurouni Kenshin'', Watsuki's designs were combined with the voice talents of Miina Tominaga, a voice actress. In producing the English dub version of the series, Media Blasters chose Wendee Lee to voice Yahiko, but she was credited as Elyse Floyd. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Myōjin Yahiko」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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