Heishiro Mitsurugi

Heishiro Mitsurugi is a character from the Soul Calibur games.

Heishiro seeks a way to defeat the Tanegashima rifle, and believes the legendary sword Soul Edge to be the blade that can do it. He eventually beats the rifle without the need of Soul Edge, but throughout  Soulcalibur ,  SCII, and  SCIII , he's still searching for it for the sole purpose of fighting Nightmare. In  IV  he realizes that there are no more worthy challengers for him, and seeks to fight otherworldly opponents instead. He found a Worthy Opponent in Algol in  IV, but due to Soul Edge and Soul Calibur vanishing into a vortex, their battle was cut short as Algol vanished with them. And so Mitsurugi went home to Japan, where over the years he hung up his sword as the era changed - not literally, though, as he loses his Shishi-Oh to Setsuka sometime between  IV  and  V. Now a farmer, when he heard that Soul Edge had returned, he sold all of his land for an opportunity to fight Algol again.

Appearance
Mitsurugi appears as a well-built Japanese man with slightly long black hair and black eyes. He wears a red breastplate with yellow accents and matching greaves, left brace and shoulder armor, which the left one has more of an dragon-like design with another layer of sode armor coming from the mouth. He wears a black and gold haori underneath the breastplate, with the left sleeve covering his armored and gloved arm while the other is bare with a beaded bracelet, matching baggy pants with a gold tiger design on the left leg tied by a purple rope belt and a green and gold cloth covering the other leg.

Personality
Mitsurugi has only one goal in mind: To seek out the strongest warrior and challenge them to a duel then become the strongest warrior in history. He is never satisfied at the opponents he defeated in battle. Aside from being cocky, Mitsurugi is the kind of a person who sticks to his words; he's not all show. Being a ronin, he fights with honor and kills his opponents in an honorable fashion, and several of his endings reveal that he has a moral side. As shown in one such ending, he is shown to believe that true strength lies within a person and not from the weapon. He is considered a neutral character.

Tenpu-Kosai-Ryu Kai
Mitsurugi calls his style Tenpu-Kosai-Ryu. Unlike most fighters of a new style, he has no desire to open a school and gather disciples to pass it on to. Rather, it is likely that he uses his skills simply as means to help his services as a mercenary.

Critical Edge

 * Thunderbolt Blade: Slashes his opponent which lifts them up into the air, then strikes them down with another slash which launches them higher into the air.

Trivia

 * Mitsurugi is based on real-life swordsman Miyamoto Musashi.
 * Mitsurugi is the only character to have an official playable appearance in every Soulcalibur game to date.
 * In both the Tekken and the Soul series, Yoshimitsu borrows some of Mitsurugi's moves as well as Mitsurugi borrowing one of Yoshimitsu's moves from Tekken. It can also be noted that although Yoshimitsu is supposedly a ninja, he portrays a military samurai, just like Mitsurugi portrays a ronin samurai. On another note, in Tekken 2, Yoshimitsu's tachi closely resembles the one that Mitsurugi uses in Soul Edge. Also, if Mitsurugi loses in Soul Edge, his losing animation is him sitting down Indian style and banging the hilt of his sword on his knee, Yoshimitsu does this same exact thing in Tekken 2 if he loses when time is up.
 * Mitsurugi's facial build greatly resembles that of Kazuya Mishima from the Tekken series.
 * Yuri Lowell of the Tales series has Mitsurugi's costume as an alternate outfit.
 * Mitsurugi, along with Taki, is a playable character in Namco x Capcom.
 * Samuel Rodrigues from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance shares some similarities and moves with Mitsurugi.
 * Mitsurugi's joke weapon is always a wooden katana (bokken). It is possibly another reference to the fact that Mitsurugi is based off of Miyamoto Musashi, as Miyamoto was famous for always using bokken in all of his duels.
 * Despite his appearance in every game, he has yet to encounter Soul Edge in the series canonical story. However, his story for Soulcalibur V confirms that he did encounter Soul Calibur in his fight with Algol.
 * His proud and reckless attitude made him similar to Paul Phoenix from the Tekken universe. Ironically, both of them are frustrated for not being able to reach their objectives.
 * His fighting style change from Tenpu-Kosai-Ryu-Kai (Kai for improved) in Soulcalibur IV to Shin-Tenpu-Kosai-Ryu in Soulcalibur V. This likely means he has mastered the "true" version of his style.
 * With the exception of Soulcalibur II and Soulcalibur IV (in which, his arena and theme are shared with other characters), Mitsurugi's theme musics had always shared some traits. These traits are heard in Soul Edgeat at 0:50, in Soulcalibur at 0:40, in Soulcalibur III at 1:47 and in Soulcalibur V, 0:41.
 * Misturugi's primary weapon have been changed throughout the Soul series. His first weapon was Korefuji in Soul Edge, then Shishi-Oh from Soulcalibur to Soulcalibur IV, and finally to Muichimonji in Soulcalibur V.
 * Mitsurugi is voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa (only in the arcade version of Soul Edge and return in Soulcaliburas the main seiyuu onwards), who also voiced Hwoarang from T3 to T4 (the latter is in gameplay only) and formerly Wataru Takagi (only in the PS1 version of Soul Edge), who did voice acting for Lei Wulong from T2 only and was also Hwang’s seiyuu (also in PS1 version of Soul Edge to Soulcalibur).