Kotarō Fūma

Kotarō Fūma is one of the new playable characters in Samurai Warriors 2. Although he doesn't appear in the US release, Kotaro also appears as a bonus ninja character in Kessen III if the Enjoy disk is inserted. He is a ninja who is employed by the Hojo clan. A popular fable says that he assassinated Hanzō Hattori before his time.

He's symbolized by the characters for "disease" (疾) and "darkness" (闇).

Samurai Warriors
Kotaro is the wild card in the game as he strives to perpetuate endless chaos. He possesses various powers not seen by the other game's ninja, such as telling the future and becoming invisible at will. When his lord hears word of Ieyasu's retreat at Mikatagahara, he is ordered to assist Shingen with the pursuit. Although he does capture Ieyasu, Kotaro also kills Shingen to counteract the results. In a bid to spare their lives, Ieyasu and his men are forced to serve Kotaro. This displeases Hanzō and the ninja tries several times to liberate Ieyasu. Intrigued, Kotaro challenges his rival to a contest to see who can kill the land's most influential unifier, Hideyoshi. If Hanzō wins, Ieyasu would be freed.

After Hanzō's failure and Hideyoshi's death, the Hojo become leaders of the land. Bored with the idea of peace, Kotaro betrays his benefactors to pollute Japan with confusion. Left with nothing else to do, Kotaro decides to unify the land and heads with his army to Kyushu. Seeing a large force of Hideyoshi's former retainers there, Kotaro relishes the land's last great battle. In his ending, he rewards Ieyasu's loyalty by giving him ownership of the land and disappears.

His dream stage has him protecting the Hojo clan at Odawara Castle. Faced with the massive Toyotomi army, he also needs to fend off the Tokugawa forces. Whilst doing so, he has to stop Nene's interruptions.

Warriors Orochi
During Orochi's scenario, Kotaro is present with his original masters at Odawara Castle. He faces the Orochi's army and is one of the guards at the castle's front gate. However, he soon becomes impressed with the Serpent King's doctrine and works to destroy the Hojo and Hideyoshi.

He continues to serve the Orochi's army in both games, causing all manner of obstructions for his foes. In Warriors Orochi, he appears in Wu's second gaiden stage to disrupt Sun Ce's army. Attempting to intrude on the rebel's supply line, he is impressed if Sun Ce resists him completely with the entire army fed.

Kotaro shares his dream stage with two other masters of ambushes, Gan Ning and Zhang Liao. To turn the tide of the battle against Meng Huo's large army, the trio circle around the main army to take Ueda Castle. Kotaro's personal contribution for their success is creating doubles of himself on the field to aid Sun Quan's troops. Hanzō eventually appears and dispels his trickery. He also shares another dream stage with Hanzō and Nene at Edo Castle; they are leaders of an-all ninja team gathered to defend Ieyasu against warriors from the Three Kingdoms.

Development
While the staff was in a meeting to decide what character could create a big impact for the Sengoku era, the idea to add an irregular trickster character came up. Kotaro was designed to fill that position and his ninja actions reflect his surreal nature. He is considered to be the series' "original" ninja character. His very tall stature of 6'11" (210 cm) -which is actually the same height as Keiji and Honda- accentuates the improbability of his ninja abilities. His wild dreadlocks, fire patterned pants, and unnaturally pale skin were also added to create the same effect. The director adds that since there are no historical records of Kotaro fighting in person, gauntlets were assigned as his weapon. Though efforts were made to follow history, he states that Kotaro's scenario allowed him the most artistic liberties, challenging him to appeal to Warriors and history fans.

The game's character designer implies that Kotaro's look was one of the most criticized designs amongst the staff.

Voice Actors

 * David Rizk - Samurai Warriors 2 (English)
 * Keith Silverstein - Warriors Orochi series (English)
 * Nobuyuki Hiyama - Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi series (Japanese)

Quotes

 * "Chaos is never satiated."
 * "The enemy crumbles before me."
 * "The Hojo are so dull, but it might be fun to watch them die."
 * "Let's play a game. It's called "evisceration". Would you like to know the rules?"
 * "This battlefield will be a glorious wasteland."
 * "Now pain and suffering will overtake the land of the dying sun."
 * "Unification sounds so boring. I much prefer Japan in pieces."
 * "May the rest of you be swept away with the chaos."
 * "And so the world moves towards order. How I loathe it... An order in which money and power and number rule... But you and I... You, a natural free born spirit, and I, the winds of chaos... How are you and I supposed to live in a world without conflict...?"
 * "We'll have each other right? If you ever need someone to punch in the face, that's what I'm here for."
 * Kotaro and Keiji; Samurai Warriors 2 Empires

Historical Information
Fūma Kotarō was the fifth head of the Fuma School and the most famous of its leaders. It's unknown when he was born but he is noted for having a legendary figure. He was 7'1" (216 cm), loaded with muscles, had a huge mouth, and up-tilted eyes. His yell was said to be heard from about three miles away. Rumors of his figure frightened outsiders as many envisioned him to be a wild beast. He served the present Hōjō leaders at the time, Hōjō Ujimasa and Ujinao.

Kotarō's famous battle was his army's night attack in 1580. With about 200 Fuma warriors, Kotarō lead a raid on Takeda Katsuyori's camp. They placed the army in utter confusion as they fell into Kotarō's various traps. One of which included strapping straw figurines onto horses and setting them loose in the Takeda camp. The soldiers couldn't identify their attacker and began to blindly attack one another.

When the Hōjō clan fell and the wars ended, Kotarō and the remnants of the Fūma resorted to being thieves in Edo. The Tokugawa shogunate fortified a special defense force and enlisted informants for the Fūma whereabouts. They were eventually caught by Takeda shinobi, Kosaka Jinnai. Some accounts state that they were caught because Kotarō fell ill with the yellow fever. In 1603, he was executed and the Fūma fell into ruin.

The Fūma school was located at Mt. Hakone and they were spies for the Hōjō clan. The ninja were good at fighting on horseback, which lead to some speculation that they were descendants of nomadic tribes from China. It's speculated that the Fūma school served the Hōjō family for about a hundred years. Some records suggests that their original family name was "Kazama" (風間) but was adapted into Fūma due to their infamous exploits.