Brushogun

Brushogun
Background information
First episode	Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
Voice	Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
Character information
Real name	Brushogun
Other names	None
Species	Human
Affiliations	Teen Titans, Saico-Tek, Uehara Daizo (formerly)
Place of Origin	Cursed Painter
Residence	Tokyo, Japan
Relatives	Unknown
Allies	Teen Titans
Powers and abilities	Ability to animate his paintings through his dark magical abilities
Weapons	None

Brushogun is an antagonist in Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo. He was an involuntary enemy of the Teen Titans, featured solely in the movie.

History

Brushogun was an amazing artist during his youth, and soon fell in love with the image of a woman he had painted. Brushogun used a dark magic spell to bring his creation to life, but unfortunately, the spell came at a terrible price. It cursed his body, and transforms him into a paper-skinned, ink-filled being, Brushogun. He could create ink minions in a variety of colors when drawing with this magical ink. Using his powers, Brushogun terrorized Japan with an army of ink minions at his command, but was eventually caught by the authorities.

The Titans came into conflict with Brushogun when his creation Saico-Tek attacked Jump City and Titans Tower. Determined to solve the mystery behind the attack, Robin and the other Titans travel to Tokyo, where they meet more creations of Brushogun but are popularly assured - particularly by Commander Uehara Daizo of the Tokyo Troopers - that Brushogun is merely an urban myth. However, shortly, the Titans find themselves under attack from more of Brushogun's creations - among them another Saico-Tek, Nya-Nya, and Mecha-Boi and are framed as enemies of the state, making them hunted fugitives.

Finally, they manage to backtrack Brushogun to a closed manga publishing house, only to find out that Brushogun is a victim himself: He has long been imprisoned by Daizo and hooked up to a giant printing press to produce more villains for Daizo to fight, so he would be worshiped as a hero; the Tokyo Troopers are also Brushogun's creations. The first Saico-Tek and various helping hands lent to Robin were actually Brushogun's calls for help to prompt the Titans into finding and freeing him.

Revealing himself as the villain he really is, Daizo orders the living ink creations to attack the Titans, but these are soon overwhelmed by the Titans; as a result, Daizo chooses to merge with Brushogun, mutating into a giant ink monster. Robin defeats the monster by pulling Brushogun out of it, causing the ink creature to revert back to Daizo. Finally released, Brushogun peacefully dies in Robin's arms, fading into nothingness. After the well-fought battle, Robin and Starfire share their first true kiss.

Physical appearance

File:BroshogunYouthTransformed.jpg

Broshogun, during his youth (left) and after his transformation (right).

Brushogun's appearance resembles that of Venom when he first turned into Brushogun. When he was a regular human, he was dressed in a traditional Japanese kimono with a black sash and having dark eyes and black hair in a ponytail. In Modern day, he has become an old man with light gray skin, a couple strands of hair, dark eyes and a lot of wrinkles. The only clothing on him at the time is a pair of black briefs, most likely created when he exited out of Daizo's monstrous form.

Powers

File:BrushogunTransmutation.jpg

Brushogun performing Japanese dark magic.

Brushogun was an artist who was transformed by dark magic into a powerful, ink-filled, paper-skinned creature that can generate and control magical ink from his being at will that he can use to perform supernatural feats.

Brushogun mainly uses his ink to print and create false objects and living beings of any shape, size, and color from the substance (exploding shuriken, Tokyo troopers, many superpowered criminals, giant monsters, etc.) that do his bidding and have their own unique powers and/or equipment imagined for them, can shift their forms, disguise themselves, and regenerate from any damage like lost limbs. Since his creations are all made of ink, they have a fatal weakness to water, which dissolves them.

This ink can also be used to manipulate physical objects touched by it, like how Brushogun sent an enchanted card with his name written on it to fly to Robin in a police van, after which the written ink came to life and materialized into an exploding shuriken to help him escape.

His powers, when pushed to the limit, performs a spell to create an enormous monster made of ink with himself as the core. It has immense strength and resilience, possess any connected machines to control at will, can use its own ink substance to form constructs to attack or ensnare others, and create armies of minions in even greater numbers. Since Brushogun is the source of the magic, the spell will be broken if he is removed from the monster, undoing all of his magic and ink creations.

Known creations and their cultural influences

• Saico-Tek resembles a Power Ranger or a Kamen Rider.
• Deka-Mido, a giant green reptilian monster that resembles film monsters Godzilla (Japan) and Gorgo (Great Britain)
• Timoko, the yellow sushi-obsessed robot that Cyborg fights is an homage to Boss Borot from Mazinger
• Nya-Nya, a pink cat-girl (a nod to typical anime catgirls such as Ana Puma from Dominion Tank Police)
• Mecha-Boi, a blue robot that resembles Astro-Boy (Tetsuwan Atom in Japanese)
• Scarface, Raven's ghost-like opponent is based on No-Face from Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away
• The Tokyo Troopers, living ink creatures looking like human police troopers.

Trivia

• The name Brushogun obviously consists of the English word "brush" and the Japanese term "shogun", meaning "general".
• The way Brushogun was tied to chords in a black body with a machine is a reference to the Animatrix segment, Part 2 of The Second Renaissance, where it told how machines and robots imprisoned humankind in virtual reality and used them to power their vehicle, Zero One.
• His mutation in his youth greatly resembles the Spider-Man villains Venom and Carnage.
• It was implied that Brushogun was indeed a villain in his younger days but was only being used as an ink dispenser in the movie therefore making him innocent at the time.
• It is assumable that, while being used by the detective, Brushogun saw the error of his ways as a villain and shifted his alignment back to good (from before his transformation).