Shirou Kamui;
Shirou Kamui;

    Kamui: 1. One who represents the majesty of God. 2. One who hunts the majesty of God.

    The protagonist of X/1999, Shirou Kamui has the weight of the world on his shoulders– quite literally. Saddled with the knowledge that he alone will decide the fate of the World and whether human beings will be allowed to live or will wither away, Kamui is also a sixteen year old boy as well as its possible savior, haunted by his own demons and those lives being sacrificed on the altar of his destiny. The son of a Magami clanswoman and an unknown father, Kamui returns to Tokyo after a six year absence at the behest of his dying mother. When he first returns, he enrolls whether knowingly or not, in the school of his two childhood friends, Monou Fuuma and Kotori. To Kotori and Fuuma, Kamui appears very changed from the happy, kind-hearted boy he had been, cold and seemingly uncaring, keeping the two of them at a distance. Neither of them realize (at least not immediately) this self-imposed remoteness is his means of trying to protect the people he considers the remaining parts of his family since Kamui did not return alone to Tokyo. Over the course of the early volumes of the manga, it’s revealed that Kamui’s mother died in a mysterious fire and that he’s being pursued by equally mysterious men who seem bent on either destroying or capturing him.

    Events begin unfolding at a fairly rapid pace as Kamui finds himself approached by representatives from the Dragons of Heaven and Earth after a battle with Saiki Daisuke, embroiled in an epic prophecy of an apocalyptic battle for the future of mankind, with the choice that will decide everything place upon him. According to the prophecy, two opposing forces will battle to the last and in the year 1999, help decide the fate of mankind. Kamui has the choice of being the leader of the Dragons of Earth or Heaven, to destroy mankind and save the earth or to save humanity and let the earth wither away. In the end what decides Kamui’s fate is not the promise of power or ideals but the simple desire to protect his friends and the world that they live in, to ensure that there’s a world left for them.

    It’s a decision that will have far reaching consequences as Fuuma is then revealed to be Kamui’s twin star, the shadow Kamui. Because the prophecy demands that if Kamui chose one side, his shadow self automatically will become his opposite. In choosing to be a Dragon of Heaven, Kamui loses the very people he sought to protect in the first place as the prophecy runs its course, Fuuma losing all sense of his former self to become “Kamui” or he who “hunts the majesty of God,” destroying Kotori and revealing himself to Kamui in a fairly traumatic, dramatic display that leaves Kamui comatose until Sumeragi Subaru intervenes to draw him back from the recesses of his mind.

    After the death of Kotori and the transformation of Fuuma into “Dark Kamui,” Kamui seems more uncertain than ever of his role and indeed, if he can even fulfill it though he desperately wants to save Fuuma and by proxy, the Earth (to say little of the other Dragons of Heaven). Some of his rougher edges seem blunted, shaken by the events of the past and those that are already in motion, events that he seems to have little control over. It as this point in the manga, that Kamui seems to become the most open and vulnerable, relying on the other Dragons of Earth, in particular Subaru and Sorata for support and guidance. With Subaru especially, he finds a kindred spirit, finding an echo of his own loss in the Sumeragi’s past and the two seem to have an understanding, Kamui more than concerned for Subaru, particularly where the Sakurazukamori is concerned. He is certainly more affectionate with Subaru than he is with anyone else in the mansion, seeming to feel a freedom to do so. As 1999 crawls on, Kamui feels keenly each loss and each death, the weight of what he must do becoming heavier but determined that he will do the very best he can, that he will restore Fuuma though there are hints that despite what Kamui may consciously wish, this is not his true wish.

[ back ]