Sōban (総番) is the boss of a gang from Butsumetsu High School.
Biography[]
Sōban makes his debut after having developed his crush on Shinobu Miyake and nurtured it from afar. His three underlings attempt to dissuade Sōban from his crush by staging a fake date between Shinobu and Ryūnosuke Fujinami, but as they are preparing to complete the date, Sōban suddenly interrupts. His underlings attempt to distract him by offering him a bra they were originally using to bribe Ryūnosuke to go along with their scheme, claiming it is Shinobu's. It ends up being torn in half in a fight between Ryūnosuke and Sōban, with the latter reveling in the portion that he did maintain.
After this, he largely makes brief, sporadic appearances, charging from nowhere and screaming proclamations of love to Shinobu, who promptly launches him skyward with a disgusted punch or twin palm thrust. The one exception is when Lum interrupts him and his gang trying to bully money from a Tomobiki High School junior class girl named Anna Katsuragi. Lum drives them off, but Anna arranges for Lum to duel with Sōban, promising that Lum will not use her alien powers in the fight. Although Lum puts up a fierce fight, she ultimately requires the aid of several of her classmates to defeat Sōban.[1]
Appearance[]
Sōban is a large and monstrous-looking young man who even the usually polite Shinobu judges as looking like something not even human. He resembles what can only be described as an overweight and humanoid giant toad with a disturbingly large mouth with even larger grotesque lips that appear to be eternally swollen, along with an unnervingly thick and slimy tongue. His most unusual trait though is that (at least in some manga panels and in the 2022 anime) the inside of his mouth can change to reveal what can only be described as some sort of surreal glowing vortex that has small creatures floating around in it. The reason for this unusual phenomenon is unknown.
For attire, he is only ever seen wearing his school's uniform which he keeps unbuttoned, exposing his pink shirt underneath. His most defining article are his big round sunglasses that conceal his eyes.
Personality[]
Sōban is considered a dangerous school gang leader and possibly the strongest student in Butsumetsu High, but despite his destructive behavior and status he is actually a bit of a simpleton who is very emotional, being sensitive about his looks and feelings and being passionately fond of Shinobu, obsessively pursuing her any chance he gets hoping that she will go out with him some day.
His obsessive crush on Shinobu caused him enough grief that his gang was willing to beg and even pay Shinobu for the chance to just consider giving him a chance, as his gang is shown to genuinely care about their boss as a friend and were even willing to help Shinobu lie to their boss by pretending she already had a boyfriend in the hopes that it would help their lovestruck boss move on.
Sōban is also unsurprisingly a perverted lad like most young men in Tomobiki, passionately coveting what he thought was Shinobu's bra to console him after being rejected by her the first time and even licking Shinobu's face like a dog on another occasion when she thought she eluded him, showing that, along with his less than stellar intellect Sōban also has no concept of personal space or personal hygiene for that matter, being borderline animalistic at times, even acting out King Kong when he captured Shinobu after his duel with Lum and took her to the top of Tomobiki High's clock tower as he screeched like some dang dirty ape.
Abilities[]
Sōban possesses incredible strength and durability, even beyond that suggested by his hulking frame. His own underlings describe him as being too gross to touch, but even if somebody can muster the willpower to actually strike him, Sōban has one unusual advantage up his sleeve: Sōban is so stupid that he is capable of literally forgetting trauma that happened to him within seconds of its occurrence, largely negating any pain he is feeling through the power of thick-headedness. This allows him to keep on fighting far longer than he should physically be capable of. If he gets particularly excited, even Shinobu Miyake, who can normally fell him with a single blow, struggles to put him down.
Trivia[]
- His seiyu also voiced Dracula and the Bluebird.
- As with Onsen-Mark, it's unclear if "Sōban" is his name or a nickname; amongst Japanese delinquents, a banchō, or gang leader, of such strength, reach, ambition or intelligence that he is able to control an unusually large gang that requires one or more subordinate banchō to operate is known as a sōban. Sōbans often have such influence that they exert control over multiple schools, acting as a kind of "boss of bosses".
- In the 2019 Viz Media English translation of the manga, he is simply referred to as "Boss".
- In English, "Sōban" translates variously as "Very Soon", "Sooner or Later", or "Eventually".
Media Appearances[]
Manga
- Chapters 184-185
- Chapter 209
- Chapters 235-236 (234-235 in wideban)
- Chapter 300 (304 in wideban)
- Chapter 328 (330 in wideban)
- Chapters 329-333 (331-335 in wideban)
- Chapter 329 (331 in wideban)
- Chapter 331 (333 in wideban)
Anime
- 1981
- Episode 96
- Episode 106
- Episode 122
- Episode 137
- Episode 172
- Episode 174
- Episode 191
- Episode 194
- Inaba the Dream Maker (OVA)
- Urusei Yatsura: The Final Chapter
- Terror of the Girly-eyes Measles (OVA)
- 2022
References[]
- ↑ Chapters 235 and 236, Episode 137