Postby Mave » Wed Nov 17, 2004 8:17 am
It's pretty interesting considering that Watsuki-sama, based many of RK characters off real life people.
1) Quoting off "DarkLuther" from Gamehub Forums,
"Red is a sign of someone who's crazy in japan, someone without feeling or a mindless killer. Higen Obata was once a samurai of the Iga province, who hired himself out as an assasin. As is common with people who build up a reputation in infamy, rumors beagn that he's hair turned red after being soaked in blood so many times. In this case rumor turned to truth as he began to die his hair with red powder. He would kill his targets in broad daylight and as he would then show his hair to prove it was him. My info on him then gets kind of sketchy but it ends at somewhat of an anti-climax as he was eventualy just caught."
2) I've also heard ppl discussing the possibility that Kenshin could have been a half Japanese, half Dutch.
This is what I've heard so far, regarding the reason Kenshin's hair is red. Thought I'll post them here just for fun even if they're quite bizarre. hehe
But like what others have said earlier, I think the red hair and purple eyes are just used to make the main character stand out among the rest, considering that all the other characters had black hair. Wow, I've just realized that almost everyone else has black hair in RK.
A little OT: Kenshin might be also based off a real-life hitokiri that existed.
"Kawakami Gensai, one of the four great Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu, could be mistaken for a girl at first glance, but his nature was the complete opposite of his appearance; he was a cold, calculating man said to be the most terrible of the four."