Keiji Maeda

Keiji Maeda (前田 慶次, Maeda Keiji) is a character introduced in Samurai Warriors. He premiered as the Samurai Warriors equivalent to Lu Bu but this position was taken by Tadakatsu Honda in the following game. Akin to his historical counterpart, he is always seen riding his horse and companion, Matsukaze. He wields a two-pronged spear, similar to a sasumata. In the first game, he's 25 years old. His symbolic items are the kanji for "chivalrous" (豪) and tigers.

Samurai Warriors
In Samurai Warriors, Keiji is a wild man who loosely served under Oda Nobunaga. He became a wanderer after the Battle of Nagashino, where he felt outdated by Nobunaga's mass use of rifles against the Takeda Cavelry. He continues to wander the land and participates in brawls wherever he goes. Hearing of the great god of war, Kenshin, Keiji decides to storm his castle to look for him. In his shorter story ending, he enters the Uesugi forces only to have a peaceful yet boring country to defend. He wonders if this is his real path in life.

In his true ending, he continues to chase after Kenshin and gains an unlikely band of comrades from his former scuffles. His rag-tag team includes Okuni, Goemon Ishikawa, Magoichi Saika, and Yukimura Sanada. Learning that his comrades are more important than strength, Keiji seems pleased with the result.

In Samurai Warriors 2, he rescues Yukimura Sanada from Oda riflemen at Nagashino and fights his way through Oda lines. He wandered for a time until Kanetsugu Naoe noticed his exploits and hired him for the Uesugi cause. After they suffer a staggering defeat from the Date forces, Kenshin makes a stand at Hasedo and insures the safety of the fleeing Uesgui troops. After they learn about Mitsunari's execution, Keiji stops Kanetsugu from following his lord into the afterlife and inspires him to lead a surprise assault on Edo castle. When they succeed, Keiji says that he might wander again while he scatters the remaining Tokugawa resistance.

In his dream stage, he has a showdown with the most feared man of the east, Tadakatsu Honda. Yukimura and Kantesugu reinforce his charge through the Tokugawa and Date troops. Once he defeats Ieyasu, he is given the privilege to fight Honda and is donned the greatest warrior in the land when he wins.

Warriors Orochi
In Warriors Orochi, Keiji surprisingly allies himself with Orochi due to his admiration for the snake's strength. In the Wu storyline, he eventually grows bored of fighting for Orochi, and offers to join Su Ce's resistance, but only if Sun Ce and all his allies fight and defeat him first. His dream mode for Warriors Orochi 2 implies that he wants to "save" Orochi by giving him the death he desires.

Kessen
Keiji appears as a wild unit for the Toyotomi side in the first Kessen. Although he has a small amount of men, he has an amazing amount of stamina and will charge through larger armies with relative ease. As with Ina, he is also be recruited into Nobunaga's army in Kessen III if the memory card has a Samurai Warriors save file.

Development
Keiji was designed to look like the strongest character and visually beats the original cast in height. His charismatic hairstyle and tiger fur were made to emphasize his strength and "wild nature". His first design took some inspiration from Tetsuo Hara's interpretation of Keiji from the Hana no Keiji series. These key concepts were kept for his redesign but the designers jokingly lament that he isn't supposed to be the mightiest character.

Personality
Although Keiji was historically a patron of the arts, he quickly gets bored with Okuni's dance in her ending in the original Samurai Warriors.

Appearance
His Samurai Warriors alternate outfit has him shaved bald and dressed in monk-like clothing. His upper vest is decorated with a golden octopus design. His second color scheme in Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends changes his hair black and tints his clothing red. This could be an allusion to Capcom's version of Keiji in the Sengoku Basara series.

Voice Actors

 * Steven Blum - Samurai Warriors (English)
 * Steve Szczepowski - Samurai Warriors 2 (English)
 * Michael Benyear - Kessen (English)
 * Yuji Ueda - Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi series (Japanese)
 * Kazunari Tanaka - Kessen (Japanese)

Quotes

 * "Ha! There goes another one!"
 * "Let's go crazy!"
 * "Yeah, I hear ya. To tell you the truth, I don't actually think I'm crazy. I think I'm perfectly normal, and it's the rest of the world that's wrong in the head."
 * Keiji's thoughts about the world; Samurai Warriors 2: Empires

Trivia
In Samurai Warriors 2, Keiji's English voice sounds quite similar to Michelangelo from the TMNT 2003 series