Asura (Asura's Wrath)

Asura is the main protagonist from the Asura's Wrath game.

Once one of the Eight Guardian Generals of Shinkoku Trastrium, Asura was betrayed and killed by his seven comrades. They framed him for the murder of Emperor Strada, killed his wife, and took his daughter away from him. Full of rage and a desire for revenge, he comes back to life with his wrath as his only weapon.

But the object of his wrath is not only revenge, but also the suffering of their world, Gaea. When his anger escalates, his Mantra activates and transforms him into a godly six-armed warrior.

His mantra affinity is Wrath.

Appearance
Asura is humanoid in appearance, aside from the markings on his body as well as his eyes and arms. He normally has spiky hair that is white in color and his skin is of tanned complexion. His eyes glow white and although he has irises, he doesn't have pupils. During his time as one of the Eight Guardian Generals however, he had red eyes and pupils, which returned just prior to his death.

Asura wears a torn black hakama trousers with a red flame pattern and a torn golden waist sash hanging. He also wears golden ceremonial greaves with one leg of his trousers tucked into the greave of his right leg and the other leg covering his left leg.

As a member of the Eight Guardian Generals, Asura wore a red and white flame patterned hakama neatly tucked into his golden ceremonial greaves and epaulets on his shoulders. He also wore a white sash.

Personality
Asura is a hot-tempered, stubborn, and reckless demi-god by nature and is known for charging head on at the enemy without a second thought. A powerful combatant, Asura displays both a strong will and an absence of fear in less-than-positive situations and will fight his adversaries relentlessly until he is victorious. Due to his stubborn nature, Asura rarely accepts the aid of others and prefers to get out of messes on his own. Asura is also shown to be quite ruthless since he had no problem killing former demigod allies and slaughtering countless members of his own former forces in his crusade to rescue his daughter.

However, despite his negative faults, Asura is a good-hearted warrior with a strong moral code and gets angered when he sees an act that goes against his morals. Asura values the lives of the innocent (be they mortal or demi-god) and doesn't believe in sacrificing the innocent for ANY reason (good or evil) as he greatly disapproves of the Gohma's attacks on Gaea, Deus' plan for the world and the Seven Deities' method of collecting Mantra by slaughtering humans. Asura even stated that, " there is no need for gods that only take." Asura was often shown to hate those who value themselves over others, as he is against Augus' philosophy about fighting and pleasure being all that matters in life. Asura is capable of developing strong bonds and perceiving others as friends, despite his wrath. This is proven by his friendship with the mortal girl who accompanies him after his second return from Naraka and by his companionship with Yasha and Augus. Even when subjected to the mindless rage of his Wrath form, Asura possessed enough control over himself to avoid attacking mortals and civilian demigods, instead focusing his rage on the Gohma and the Shinkoku military.

Asura is also a caring family man whether it's outside or within the battlefield. In Chapter 7: A Father's Duty, Yasha states that perhaps Asura keeps in his rage active to protect his family from the ongoing Gohma attacks. Finally, Asura shares a close bond with his daughter Mithra. Such a bond is so great that upon learning that the Deities had made her suffer after they orchestrated his downfall (literally in Asura's case), Asura killed everyone standing in his way, including the very armies that once revered him. Asura is shown to be in great pain when he hears his daughter crying. His only real weakness is seeing his daughter cry and wants nothing more than to see her happy and smiling. However despite his parental love, Asura also showed great discomfort and anxiety around his family due to lacking more amicable social graces and parenting skills. He sadly recounted that the only thing he knows how to do is "punch anything that makes [Mithra] cry".

He also bears an uncannily strong sense of morality beyond simply helping the innocent and punishing the wicked. So much so that he was not one who flexed his divinity in order to garner worship and power for himself like his fellow deities, in point of fact, this facet of his godhood irritated him to no end. So much so that he was visibly repulsed at the mortals he saved from a Gohma attack for bowing down and worshiping him, showcasing a much more humble and down to earth persona than other gods who haughtily used their holy status as a means of getting their way and slaughtering mortals for more power. Asura simply viewed himself as an individual who was above any sense of self-debasing praise, seeing as his only real motivation was wanting his family to be happy, healthy and safe. Not becoming an all-powerful cosmological entity with a severe god complex like Deus, the other Seven Deities and Chakravartin, whom were all entitled to having everything go their way due to their sense of supremacy.

Individuals like these, beings who with absolute power yet bare extraordinary laziness and domineering character, constantly forcing others to do what they cannot do for themselves particularly peak his anger. It's for this reason he never prays to any higher power but at the same time, refuses to ever be worshiped nor prayed too by others. It's this ideology that makes him resent his status as a God or Demi-God, so much so he visibly expressed his ire when the dark fighter Akuma addressed him as such. Showcasing an intensely misotheistic side to his persona, specifically, around the time he fought the Seven Deities. Like with Wyzen who constantly boasted about how Asura should kneel before him if he wanted anything, growing madder and madder at his blustering. Again with Karlow when he non-nonchalantly slaughtered innocent villagers by getting them to sacrifice themselves for him, or Olga when she cruelly slaughtered countless innocent mortals calling her "a god who only takes" culminating in her pushing him over the edge of maddening fury. And finally with Deus, who's lust for power, scheming and domination proved every reason as to why Asura hated his former comrades and status as a deity. Although, hints were given that Asura is the God of Wrath.

Abilities
Asura is an elite demigod warrior and former Guardian General, also possessing previously trained by Augus, a former Guardian General who became one of the Seven Deities. Asura is one of the most powerful, if not, the most powerful, beings on the universe. Some of his most remarkable skills and powers are:
 * Combat Prowess: Due to his extensive training as a soldier and a member of the Eight Guardian Generals. Unlike refined and strategists fighters like Yasha or Augus, Asura has no finesse or technique at all, his fighting style resolves about pure aggression and brute force without the use of weapons. Coupled with centuries-worth of battle experience and his unlimited power and rage has made Asura a force to be reckoned with, even to such formidably skilled warriors as Yasha, Augus, Deus and even Chakravartin himself. The years of training also allowed Asura to read his opponent's moves, and thus, effectively counter-attack powerful attacks without sustaining damage.


 * Strength: Even by demigod standards, Asura possesses tremendous strength, speed, durability, and endurance. However, of all of these skills, strength is by far the most impressive: Asura's strength is of immense destructive scales, as he managed to stop Wyzen's finger while he had activated his Mantra Reactor, which had turned him as big as the Earth, and the finger had a volume of thousands of miles, and entirely destroy Gongen Wyzen afterwards by punching his finger with devastating force; he deflected Wailing Dark, a sword strong enough to rupture solid rock, with his bare hands; he also managed to shatter the sword, whose blade was resilient enough to pierce the Earth from side to side, with a single punch and being heavily injured; He reflected missiles as big as himself with ease and his blows were equal to some of the strongest Demigods in existence. This feats were achieved only in his Six-Armed Form: in posterior iterations of his power, Asura was able to kill Demigods with a single blow (Wrath Asura) and pierce through planets without much effort with his bare hands. His blows were able to harm Chakravartin, the creator of reality.
 * Durability & Endurance: Another one of Asura's most prominent features: Asura has undergone a incredible amount of mental and physical stress and has managed to keep going: He has been punched, kicked and crushed by beings of similar power; he has been crushed by a giant metal finger which weights hundred of thousands of metric tonnes; he has been impaled and has survived falls from orbit several times; he has lost his arms on several occasions, surviving enormous beams of mantra without an injury, enduring a direct hit of the Brahmastra and resisted blows from the omnipotent maker of reality. Asura has also shown to be able to take attacks with Planet Busting capabilities such as Vlitra's energy beams, Wyzen's finger and even The Brahmastra.
 * Speed, Agility & Reflexes: Although not as outstanding as his strength, Asura is still one of the fastest and agile beings on the universe. At regular speed, he was incredibly faster than a regular human, also his reflexes are extremely sharp, enabling him to react, block and counter attacks from insanely fast enemies in less than a second. However, his different forms also upgraded his velocity: on his Mantra form, Asura was fast enough to avoid and outrun hundreds of Vlitra's laser attacks launched simultaneously. He has also been seen able to easily keep up with Yasha despite his particularly extreme speed in battle. During his Destructor form, it is theorized that Asura left the solar system in a matter of seconds, thus making him vastly faster than the speed of light.
 * Mantra Control: His Mantra affinity is Wrath. This signifies that Asura's strength and power is proportionate to his level of rage and anger. This plays a major role in the series as it allows Asura to constantly build up and increase his Mantra output to what could be infinite levels the more rage he builds up. Yasha once questioned Deus as to how Asura's Mantra levels could match those of the Seven Deities, even after accumulating over seven trillion human souls worth of Mantra to enhance their powers. Even the Mantra God Chakravartin was appalled by the full ferocity of Asura's Mantra. Using his Mantra, Asura's capabilities includes producing fist-channelled blasts of varying size and intensity, enhanced physical strength, multiple energy based attacks, jumping ability of extraordinary distances, flight at high speeds, even the generation of colossal Mantra-based arms constructs. But as incredible his power may be, Asura's only flaw is that his Mantra is too fierce for his body to contain alone and due to this it can make him unconscious and at extreme cases death. This was later remedied when Yasha installed the Mantra Reactor into his body to regulate the flow. Asura is also one of the rare entities capable of numerous transformations, which trigger as his Mantra levels escalate. He could also accumulate massive amounts of mantra in his fist and then release it when punching his target, generating an enormous mantra beam which could easily weaken or defeat enemies with extreme amounts of resistance and durability such as Deus and Chakravartin. Asura has also shown to be able to revive after death because of his rage not letting his body and spirit die, which lead him come back to the world of the living angrier and stronger than before.

Transformations

 * Vajra Asura: Asura's most commonly seen form, it is a form where Asura's arms are coated in a golden metallic armor. Through the Mantra activation within his body he is able to metalize his arms through the power of his Wrath Mantra and increase their strength, durability and making them more suitable for combat. Asura's mastery of this form is most prominent in the fact that Asura is rarely seen outside of this form. Asura releases powerful energy blasts from his fists and on one occasion created a powerful dome of energy that knocked away his enemies. When he lost his arms to Augus, he managed to create a huge arm of mantra that utterly destroyed the gohma he was fighting which could break into a rain of fist constructs. Before fighting Deus, Asura created a smaller version of his mantra arm before stopping and thinking of Mithra.


 * Unlimited Mode (Trikaya): When Asura activates this mode, the markings on his body emanate a bright orange light, due to the mantra flowing through his body and also leaving a trail of orange mantra while he's moving. While in this state, Asura becomes completely invulnerable to any kind of attack or damage, gains unlimited stamina during the mode's duration as when he uses heavy attacks he doesn't overheat, however, it uses a bar of the mode, and also his strength and power increase. In game this lasts a short time but during the final fights with Yasha and Chakravartin, he is in this form almost indefinitely.


 * Six-Armed Vajra Asura: Asura achieved this form during his first encounter with Gohma Vlitra12,500 years ago, using Mithra's divine power. This feature is identical to Vajra Asura but with the addition of four (4) metallic arms sprouting from his body. This form requires more Mantra and can be activated when Asura is sufficiently angered. The power of this form is tremendous. Understandably capable of decimating lesser opponents with ease, Asura has defeated Wyzen in his Gongen form, his former master Augus, and even Deus (with assistance from Yasha) and the Vlitra single handedly. In this form he shoots more energy blasts and also energy beams.


 * Berserk Asura: When Asura's anger reaches its peaks, he undergoes a transformation into a being of pure and absolute rage with no sense of reason nor control. First witnessed in Episode 12: "Gods of Death" after the death of Ahria. This traumatic event triggered a transformation as his anger exceeded any controllable means. Described as a feral, golden-coated devilish beast armed with razor-sharp claws, Asura can generate four (4) additional phantom arms made of concentrated Mantra from the portals on his back. The arms, including Asura himself, are capable of releasing inconceivable volumes of Mantra; even Asura's screams produced gigantic booming shock waves. Berserker Asura was formidable enough to decimate an entire Shinkoku armada and challenge the Brahmastra directly. However powerful, Asura was eventually subdued, although it should be noted that he retained the ability to generate the Berserker's Mantra arms in his Vajra form. This monstrosity like form has such tremendous degrees of mantra and power, that it gives Asura the ability to project huge beams and massive spheres of mantra which can easily eradicate hundreds of thousands of ships and even rival The Brahmastra. It's unknown if he can access it any more as the Brahmastra's cannon turned him into Wrath Asura a burned and injured state of it.


 * Wrath Asura: The Wrath form is the sundered state of Asura's Berserker form after surviving the Brahmastra's Mantra cannon. The damage sustained rendered him incapable of regenerating the extra Mantra Arms and left his body scorched black. As Wrath Asura, his body becomes unstable and cannot contain the sheer volumes of Mantra his anger generated causing gradual decay and eventual death. Although not as powerful as its full powered state of Berserker Asura, it's still fearsome and powerful enough to annihilate large groups of Gohma, and induce a wave of fear and dread in a vast radius. While attacking in this state caused more harm to Asura than his enemies, he was still capable of killing Sergei and fighting Yasha before being forced back into his normal form. Interestingly enough, Asura retains some level of consciousness while in this form, as evident when he was capable of attacking those with a connection only to the Seven Deities or the Gohma (instead of innocent lives) and also able to hear and respond to Mithra during his first encounter with Chakravartin. Though this was more likely due to his emotional connection to Mithra.


 * Mantra Asura: During the final assault on Gohma Vlitra, Asura achieved his highest degree of power. After being bathed in the Mantra released from the Brahmastra by Mithra, Asura becomes Mantra Asura. In this state, Asura's rage is at its most focused, harnessing the excess Mantra into power and increasing the size and armor of his arms to hulking, armored proportions. Each of these arms possess the strength of a thousand arms and can vent jets of Mantra for increased maneuverability and striking power. In this state, Asura (along with Yasha) was able to defeat Gohma Vlitra and the Vlitra Core. Asura also transforms into this state to fight against Oni in the second Lost Episode.
 * Six Armed Mantra Asura: Upon entering Chakravartin's event horizon, Asura took on this form. It is essentially the bulkier version of Six Armed Vajra Asura but with much more power (fundamentally the Six Armed version of Mantra Asura). This form is more than enough to damage Chakravartin and unlike his other forms, the halo releases rainbow colored blasts of energy that explode after a few seconds. This is Asura the Destructor due to bearing the same halo but gold and the same arms but gold and stronger as it managed to destroy the illusion of Golden Chakravartin in one energized blow though this part is due to his anger increasing. This form is the last and most powerful transformation of himself.
 * Mantra Reactor Asura: After Yasha goes to the ruins of the Karma Fortress, he rips out the Mantra Reactor from the middle of the ruins and implants it into Asura's chest. After Yasha is killed, the Mantra Reactor absorbs his Mantra to gain its full power and potential. It allows Asura to channel as much power as he needs into it and absorb any amount of energy without the risk of death, and he will no longer turn into his Berserker or Wrath forms because his anger can no longer destroy his body. It allows him to use his power in even stronger ways than ever, increasing his abilities to levels never before seen, even in his most basic transformation. Asura's body constantly gives off a powerful glow when using this form and his attacks release a multi-coloration of Mantra Energy due to the Mantra Reactor containing all the Mantra Affinities.
 * Asura the Destructor: After Yasha fitted Asura with the Mantra Reactor, Asura's body became capable of safely harnessing any amount of Mantra he could generate. When Chakravartin attempted to destroy Gaea with a powerful blast of Mantra, Asura stood in front of it and took the brunt of the attack, assuming the form of The Destructor. In this form, he becomes larger than Gaea itself, his skin becomes grey-colored and he manifests six arms identical in appearance to those of his Mantra form. His power in this stage is unfathomable and godlike in status, as during his battle with the Mantra God, his blasts destroyed multiple stars and planets and was able to punch a planet at least a hundred times bigger than him to the point where it made a hole and allowed Asura to pass through it. This form granted Asura a colossal augmentation in all of his abilities and overall power.


 * Reincarnated Asura: 870 million years pass, Asura, Along with his family, is reincarnated in a Gaia more resembling modern day Earth. Looking more human, Asura's attire was a simply black muscle shirt and pants. While he was shown to still have his love of fighting (much to the chagrin of the reincarnated Durga), it wasn't truly shown if he still had his more impressive powers of his previous life.

Trivia

 * Asura was the third youngest out of the original Eight Guardian Generals.
 * Asura was the newest of the recent roster of Eight Guardian Generals
 * Asura bears a striking resemblance to the Street Fighter character Evil Ryu, due to them both having red irises, tanned skin, spiky hair and their consistent aggressive face, unlike Evil Ryu, Asura is very compassionate towards his family and humanity and is a Demi-God, while Evil Ryu is a cold-blooded Half-Demon.
 * Asura has used a move very similar to the Shoryuken when fighting a Gohma turtle.
 * In Hinduism, Asura is the lowest ranking deity, often associated with various negative emotions such as violence, rage and anger. The name "Asura" also means "powerful", "mighty", "divine" or "anti-god".
 * In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Asura are portrayed with various faces and arms, also being constantly angry and wantonly violent, seeking fights wherever they can. They are most notably portrayed as having three faces and six arms.
 * Asura's Mantra manifests in the form of his golden arms. After mastering his mantra, his arms were covered up to his shoulders in gold. Also, whenever he grows angrier or is empowered by mantra his arms react, such as during the final confrontation against the Vlitra when Mithra grants him all of the Mantra in the Karma Fortress, transforming him into 'Mantra Asura'. The only exception is during the final battle against Chakravartin as his hands were the only thing covered in gold.
 * While it is stated that the Eight Generals were of the select few demigods able to power up to their level, Asura has the most transformations of all the demigods on Gaea. Not counting his state during his training with Augus, Asura undergoes six different transformations/manifestations of his Mantra (Wrath) throughout the course of the story. Also to point out is that he also bears two halos (seen in episode 1 and 18) one for Vajra Asura and the other for Mantra Asura. To stop confusion between the Asura's Mantra and Destructor forms, Destructor is actually an upgraded Mantra form as shown bearing the same arms as Mantra Asura only six this time and the fact that they both share the same halo.
 * When Asura transforms into his berserk form, he bears a great similarity to Naruto's four-tailed form in both physical appearence and personality, in which both were transformed due to them being consumed by their own rage. This is due to CyberConnect2's development with the Ultimate Ninja Storm series.
 * It is also notable that he bears a noticeable resemblance to Haseo's B-st form from the.Hack// G.U Trilogymovie, another project by CyberConnect2. It is believed that the character concept was incorporated into Asura's character design.
 * Asura, upon the games release, has been named the new " God of Multiple Arm Attacks, Fighting The Heavens Above, and Rage That Can't Ever Be Stopped." on tvtropes, usurping Sweeny Todd in the category of rage and vengeance. The page humorously states "To this day, no one dares to speak about it, as it was not pretty. Even most of the other violent deities in the house hid in terror after it happened."
 * Asura will appear alongside other Capcom characters in the upcoming social game, Minna to Capcom All Stars.
 * The fact Asura's power increases in tandem with his rage makes his power mechanics the same as the Incredible Hulk from Marvel Comics.
 * Asura's Berserker and Wrath forms are his only transformations which he can't activate his unlimited mode
 * Necalli from the Street Fighter series is similar to Asura
 * Both of them have a savage way of fighting.
 * Necalli's V-Trigger in Street Fighter 5 has him glowing similar to how Asura glows when He's in unlimited mode.
 * Both of them have also grabbed their opponents' faces and has also dragged them while they're on the ground.
 * Both of them are somewhat gods; in Asura's case, he's the God Of Wrath while Necalli is the Emissary of the Gods.
 * Both of them are also known for getting stronger when angered.