Ronin Warriors

thousands of years ago, the evil emperor talpa attempted to conquer the earth. defeated, he was banished to the nether realm and his armor was divided into 9 separate suits. now, he has returned to conquer earth, having reclaimed 4 of the suits. the other 5 are in the possesion of those who are the only hope of stopping him: the ronin warriors.
ronin warriors is a j-panese manga and anime series created by hajime yatate. the anime was produced and animated by sunrise, and aired across j-pan on nagoya television from april 30, 1988 to march 4, 1989 and has a total of 39 episodes. it first aired on american television during the summer of 1995 and subsequently appeared on the sci-fi channel, fox, and later, cartoon network’s toonami in 1999.
ronin warriors is a show about five young j-panese men who bear armor. they have to work together to fight the evil talpa, his warlords, and the rest his dynasty. we start with ryo, he bears the armor of wildfire, his weapon are two katanas that he can put together to make them double-sided. his element is fire, his virtue is virtue. ryo is the leader of the ronins; he tends to be c-cky and hot-headed, which gets him into trouble at first. but deep down, he cares for his friends. next, you have sage, he bears the armor of halo, his weapon is a nodachi (large j-panese war sword), his element is light, and his virtue is wisdom. sage is the calmest and most serious ronin, he can be slow at times, but he meditates to get to his problem. next, you have cye, he bears the armor of the torrent, his weapon is a trident, his element is water, and his virtue is trust. cye is the quietest and nicest ronin. he is a very skilled fighter on water, but is weak on land. next, you have kento, he bears the armor of the hardrock, his weapon is a naginata (j-panese halberd) which can also be a nunchaku, his element is earth, and his virtue is justice. kento relies very much on all his strength, so that makes him very strong, yet he lacks mindpower, so he can be deceived easily in battle. yet he cares very much for the people he knows. lastly, you have rowen, he bears the armor of strata, his weapon is a war bow, his element is air, and his virtue is life. rowen is the smartest ronin, yet he is also one of the weakest, but he rarely falls into mind traps.

now the dynasty. we start with talpa, talpa is an immortal demon from the netherworld, he was said to have been a purely evil human, and when he died, he was sent to the netherworld. talpa completely to over the netherworld, and in the 15th or 16th century of j-pan, he came into the human world. he was defeated by the ancient one. after talpa was defeated, he vowed to return, so he left his large armor behind. but, the ancient one casted a ritual on his armor, thus turning his large, enormous armor, into nine other armors. five of those armor belonged to the ronins, four of the others, talpa was able to get hold of. in modern j-pan, talpa came into the human world in his spirit and took over every human except for three humans, who were mia koji, a college student, mia’s grandfather, and yuli, a 12-year-old boy. mia and yuli helped the ronins throughout their missions. talpa possessed four of the armors and its bearers making him his four warlords. now, onto the warlords. first, we start with anubis; he is the leader of the warlords. he was a samurai during the warring states period who claimed many lands for his daimyo, when all of a sudden, talpa came in and manipulated him, which caused him to fight for evil, and talpa granted him the armor of cruelty or loyalty, his weapon was a kusari-gama (a sickle and chain), his virtue was loyalty. he was later freed from the spirit of the ancient one, who told anubis that talpa did not want his service, but only his armor, so anubis turned against talpa. next, you have cale, he bears the armor of corruption or obedience, his weapons are a dachi claw and a nodachi, his virtue is obedience. cale is not as harsh on the other ronins, with the exception of sage. he always finds a way to deceive sage, and he almost beats sage in a duel. but normally, sage comes out victorious. next, you have dais, he bears the armor of illusion or serenity, his weapon is a claw on chains, his virtue is serenity. against the ronins, particularly kento, his attacks are usually effective, his attacks cause mental and bodily pain for kento. lastly, you have sekhmet, he bears the armor of venom or piety, his weapons are six katanas, and his virtue is piety. sekhmet has the ability to poison any ronin with his katanas; he also has the ability to control his katanas telepathically.

(spoiler warning)when the ronins warriors attacked talpa’s castle, sekhmet, dais, and cale lure all the ronins outside in order for talpa to absorb the armors. cale, dais, and sekhmet, surrender themselves to talpa. then talpa got the armors of cye and rowen, then sage, then kento, then anubis, then ryo. but ryo found a way out of talpa. ryo went out of talpa and he got a new armor, the armor of inferno, and he sent talpa back to the netherworld. but each time ryo was using his swords of wildfire on the inferno armor, they were getting weaker and weaker, causing them to break when fighting against lord saber stryke for the swords of fervor. but, later, whiteblaze (ryo’s pet tiger) would be able to steal one sword of fervor, taking the tiger’s life in the process. when ryo found whiteblaze dead with a sword of fervor in his mouth, ryo would take that sword and bear the inferno armor. ryo used the inferno armor’s special attack with the sword of fervor to kill saber stryke and get the other sword of fervor. after saber stryke died, blackblaze (the tiger of the inferno armor) would merge with whiteblaze, bringing him back to life. late on, ryo got his swords of wildfire repaired at a volcano, but later on, talpa would return to life and open his doors for the ronins to his new castle. the warlords (now without anubis) and lady kayura, who was part of the ancient family was kidnapped and brainwashed by talpa in order for kayura to fight for talpa. kayura was much stronger than the warlords and the ronins, especially ryo with his inferno armor and sword of fervor. when talpa came back, he told his warlords to capture the ronin armors again; the warlords were able to get the armors’ of cye, sage, and kento. so ryo and rowen were left to rely on the two of them. ryo and rowen got around kayura, but they were able to evade. but in one battle, when ryo was weary, rowen fought kayura and kayura hit rowen and rowen was h-t in the air and he landed on a crowd of talpa’s foot soldiers, so talpa’s foot soldiers attacked him and he was unconcious after that. so he was taken to the place where the armors of cye, sage, and kento were. rowen threw his last arrow. causing a light to explode, and causing the ronins to be reunited once again. when ryo was fighting kayura, he knew he couldn’t defeat kayura, but he found out that kayura was on talpa’s control with an amulet, so ryo used his special attack to break the amulet causing kayura to become a good person. but later talpa used his sorcerer badamon to take back control of kayura, kayura defeated all the ronins. but anubis (he took the place of the ancient one) came and he beared his armor of loyatly, but later on, he found out he could not match kayura, so he transferred his armor to kayura, killing him in the process, thus, kayura became a good person for the rest of the series. cale, who came to realize that talpa was only using him for his armor and not his service, so he betrayed talpa by fighting him, later on, dais and sekhmet soon found out what talpa was doing to them, so they betrayed talpa as well. when the ronins came to fight talpa, talpa came face-to-face with ryo, talpa wanted his inferno armor. talpa then tried to absorb ryo, and ryo was powerless against the absorption. so the other ronins fought back by launching a full attack on talpa, then yuli’s jewel of life started to glow, releasing a blast that destroyed talpa forever. so in the end, kayura congratulated the ronins for killing talpa, and she, cale, dais, and sekhmet went to the netherworld to clear it of talpa’s memory. in the end, the jewel of life became a glowing ball, so the ronins, along with mia and yuli played a game of baseball, thus, concluding this story. (end spoiler)
ronin warriors aired in the mid-90s. ronin warriors later aired on toonami in late-1999. dvds of the show came out in 2003.