Information about Gojyou Shiouji

Doctor Gojyou Shiouji (四王子 五条, Shiōji Gojō) is a fictional character in the animated series, Excel Saga, and the manga upon which it is based. He is voiced by Kazuhiko Inoue in the original Japanese and Spike Spencer in the English dub.

Role in the story

Dr. Shiouji is a brilliant man; a genius in the field of robotics and weapons design. He's also a distinctly pretty man, and although his degree of honesty is admirable, it often reaches the point of being brusque. He is often known for his punctuality. Shiouji's most obvious character flaw is, however, the fact that he is an immediately-apparent pedophile.

In the anime

The anime saw Kabapu hire Shiouji to construct the Ropponmatsu android to add physical power and technical expertise to his team of Daitenzin-to-be, but when she was blown up on her first bomb-disposal mission, Shiouji's personal "preferences" lead him to construct a second model crafted in the likeness of a pre-pubescent catgirl.

Shiouji's pedophilic tendencies fall to the wayside of his character at first - his meetings with Kabapu occur at a bench beside a children's playground, and he has at least one child working in his laboratory , but his robotics expertise is the larger part of his role in the series. That is, until the final episode, which sees his sexual preferences in full swing when he and eight-year-old assassin Cosette abscond to a love hotel. Shiouji quickly abandoned the scene, however, upon discovering that Cosette was a fully developed young woman, announcing that big boobs and pubic hair really turn him off.

In the manga

In contrast to the small, comedic role he plays in the anime, Shiouji and his family are intricately developed in the manga, to the point that they become key figures in the direction of the story's plot. The manga reveals that Gojyou's father was Temangu Shiouji, a robotics genius of a level Gojyou himself has not even begun to approach, who was approached by Kabapu thirty years ago to build the android, Ropponmatsu. After ten years of working on the robot, Temangu one day vanished without a trace, at which point Gojyou was six. His mysterious departure had a profound effect on his wife, Gojyou's mother, Miwa - previously withdrawn and timid, she suddenly became an outgoing, overtly sexual person, professing that she had to be "strong" now that Temangu was gone on what she called a "soul-searching journey." Showering her son with excesses of affection and attention, Miwa imprinted on Gojyou a distorted perception of women.

On his fourteenth birthday, Shiouji had a chance meeting with his young cousin, Umi. Struck by the simple, beautiful purity of the girl, compared to his outrageous mother, Shiouji dedicated his life to preseving this newly-discovered icon of perfection. Unfortunately for him, time and puberty soon overtook Umi, and she blossomed into a woman herself, robbing Gojyou of a meaning in his life. Thus it is that his sitting on a park bench, watching little girls, is not merely some lusty sexual perversion - in these girls, he hopes to find motivation and purpose once again.

Ropponmatsu

Ropponmatsu (六本松, ropponmatsu) is a gynoid, whose creation was begun by Shiouji's father and completed by Shiouji himself at the request of Kabapu. In the anime, Ropponmatsu's destruction sees her replaced with a younger version, Ropponmatsu II, but the original is soon restored to operational status, and both Ropponmatsus serve on the Daitenzin in purple and pink outfits as Daitenzin Twin Cinemas One and Two. When Il Palazzo conquers the City of F, the secret weapon Kabapu unleashes against him is a veritable army of Ropponmatsu Ones.

The manga's introduction of the character is precisely the same, as is her intitial destruction. However, the two Ropponmatsus do not co-exist in the manga, with only one being operational at a time (and Ropponmatsu I's body briefly being used to house the disembodied brain of Norikun Iwata). The reason for this later became apparent with the revelation that Kapabu hailed from the ancient land of Solaria.

Solaria, Kabapu claimed, destroyed itself through technological hubris, and he had dedicated himself to wiping out any remaining traces of the civilisation's Overtechnology. Planning ahead for the day when he would locate the final ruins of Solaria, the gate to which only a member of Solaria's royalty could open, Kabapu sealed the life-essence of Solaria's princess within an object known as "the core," and, seeking a host vessel for it, recruited Temangu Shiouji to construct Ropponmatsu for that purpose. With Temugin's disappearance, Kabapu eventually turned to Shiouji when he came of age; that is why only one Ropponmatsu is ever active at any one time, as the non-duplicatable core is transferred from body to body.

Excel Saga
Major Characters: Excel | Hyatt | Ilpalazzo | Kabapu | Nabeshin | Shiouji | That Man
Information: Characters | Media
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