Ichirin may canonically be nothing more than Unzan's hitbox, but this sturdy youkai ascetic is capable of holding her own. Of course Unzan, being the old man that he is, tends to get tired after taking some punishment, which leaves Ichirin nearly defenseless. If Ichirin is going to call herself a "Stardust Crusader", she's going to need to know when to go solo and when to call Unzan into the fray.
Ichirin is technically a six-button character, but plays like a standard three-button character, using the buttons for the majority of her moveset and the buttons mostly as shortcut motions; Ⓐ can be used in combination with or to act as a shortcut for the character's respective and dash commands, Ⓑ is used as a shortcut for the character's grab on Ⓨ+Ⓩ, while Ⓒ can used as a shortcut for part of the character's level 3 Hypers, but primarily serves the purpose of summoning or de-summoning Unzan. At the beginning of the match, Ichirin must select from one of two mutually-exclusive Level 3 Hypers; "King Kraken Strike" has Unzan deliver a flurry of punches with projectile properties that expand across the screen, while "Thunderous Rage of an Angry Old Man" provides Ichirin with a command grab. All four of the character's Hypers will automatically cause Unzan to become active if Unzan is inactive at the time the moves are used, allowing Ichirin the opportunity to always successfully use one even if Unzan isn't currently active.
Borrowing from a similar mechanic from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future, Ichirin is able to summon and desummon her nyuudou partner Unzan with Ⓒ. While Unzan is active, many of Ichirin's attacks will change properties; many of her moves gain increased damage, while Ichirin gains an entirely new set of Normal attacks. For instance, Raging Running Fist while Unzan is inactive will cause Unzan to attack the opponent as a projectile, whilst performing the same moves while Unzan is active will cause Ichirin to attack with Unzan as a melee attack with drastically increased damage. It should also be noted that some of Ichirin's Specials can only be performed while Unzan is active.
Ichirin is not without her flaws, however. Like the stands in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Unzan has his own gauge that will deplete as Ichirin takes damage; once this gauge reaches 0, Unzan will become unavailable until the gauge fully recharges, leaving Ichirin without access to any of her Specials or Hypers. Ichirin can circumvent this somewhat by pressing Ⓒ again to desummon Unzan, causing his gauge to regenerate at a slightly faster rate, but this leaves Ichirin unable to use her more useful Unzan-only tools. While Ichirin is quite sturdy with her above average Life value, she also suffers from reduced mobility compared to most characters, and is unable to chain her Ⓨ Normals into her Ⓩ Normals. In addition to this, many of her Unzan-active moves greatly increase the size of her hurtbox, making her a larger target.
Despite Ichirin having what can be considered a form of custom A.I., it has practically nothing in the way of optimisation to account for the character's playstyle and moveset, therefore it provides only the slightest bit more of a challenge in comparison to M.U.G.E.N's mostly passive default A.I. The A.I. spends most of its time dashing around the stage at randomised and erratic intervals when it's not right up close to an opponent, only stopping occasionally to do a random variant of the Raging Running Fist Special; should its dashing escapades bring it within close proximity to an opponent, it will still maintain usage of Raging Running Fist, but will start throwing out random Normals or use the grab, in addition to rarely using Handful of Floating Cloud. Ichirin's A.I. will not make effective use of summoning or de-summoning Unzan, nor will it ever resort to activating Hanging Cloud's Iron Hammer, North Mountain Wind of Mercy, or any of the character's Hypers.
Stats[]
Life
1100
Power
3000
Attack
100
Defence
100
Movelist[]
Hovering the mouse cursor over the Command Input icons will display text that refers to the inputs set in M.U.G.E.N's Key Config.
Icons encased in square brackets [ ] require the respective button(s) to be held down. Hovering the mouse cursor over the icon displays the hold duration if applicable.
Specials[]
Guard Cancel Counter
Command Input
Properties
during blockstun
Activates Unzan if Unzan is inactive Cannot be used if Unzan is disabled Uses 1000 Power
Raging Running Fist
Command Input
Properties
If Unzan is inactive: * If Unzan is active: Cannot be used if Unzan is disabled
Ⓧ
Unzan inactive
Unzan active
Ⓨ
Unzan inactive
Unzan active
Ⓩ
Unzan inactive
Unzan active
Hanging Cloud's Iron Hammer
Command Input
Properties
Cannot be used if Unzan is active or disabled
Ⓧ
Ⓨ
Ⓩ
North Mountain Wind of Mercy
Command Input
Properties
Cannot be used if Unzan is inactive or disabled
Ⓧ
Ⓨ
Ⓩ
Handful of Floating Cloud
Command Input
Properties
Cannot be used if Unzan is inactive or disabled
Ⓧ
Ⓨ
Ⓩ
Hypers[]
Clenched Fist "Deadly Wind of Penitence"
Command Input
Properties
Activates Unzan if Unzan is inactive Cannot be used if Unzan is disabled Uses 1000 Power
Cumulonimbus "Foreseeing Nyuudou Cloud"
Command Input
Properties
Activates Unzan if Unzan is inactive Cannot be used if Unzan is disabled Uses 1000 Power
"King Kraken Strike"
Command Input
Properties
/ Ⓒ
Only usable if respective spellcard selected prior to match Activates Unzan if Unzan is inactive Cannot be used if Unzan is disabled Uses 3000 Power
"Thunderous Rage of an Angry Old Man"
Command Input
Properties
/ Ⓒ
Only usable if respective spellcard selected prior to match Activates Unzan if Unzan is inactive Cannot be used if Unzan is disabled Uses 3000 Power
Others[]
Unzan Summon/Desummon
Command Input
Properties
Ⓒ
Summons Unzan if Unzan is inactive Desummons Unzan if Unzan is already active Cannot be used if Unzan is disabled
Unzan inactive
Unzan active
Palette Gallery[]
1,1
1,2 (Ichirin Kumoi's Hopeless Masquerade Player 2 colors)
This character uses a Palette Selector that allows for more than 12 palettes to be chosen, and as such, only the first 12 are shown here. For a full list of palettes, see Alternative palettes.
Victory quotes[]
General[]
“
Repent!”
“
Huh? What's that, Unzan? You hate bullying the weak? You sure are lenient...”
“
...Poppopoppopopo.”
“
...Popoppopoppo. That folks, was my pigeon impression!”
“
...whats that? Unzan tells me you're not behind this.”
“
Unzan, what do you make of all this?”
Character-specific[]
“
Now, count the number of youkai you defeated! That's how deep you'll be going in hell!”
Unzan wouldn't lie to me about your involvement. Why do you keep persisting on innocence?”
— vs. Yukari Yakumo
“
This must be the work of an enemy nyuuudou!”
— vs. Ichirin Kumoi
“
...... Is this a transformed tanuki or fox?”
— vs. Ichirin Kumoi
Videos[]
ST64 MUGEN Ichirin Kumoi by Ricepigeon released
Smoke072's Mugen Ichirn and Unzan's Rage Party
Trivia[]
Due to the nature of Ichirin's relationship with Unzan, as well as the character's unique mechanic, Ichirin contains numerous references to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure;
Palettes 7, 8, and 9 all correspond to Jotaro Kujo's colors throughout JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Coincidentally, if these palettes are selected, Unzan's colors will change to a blueish purple that resembles Star Platinum's colors, the stand used by Jotaro. These are the only instances where Unzan's palette can be changed.
Several state controllers in Ichirin's -2 state that are related to Unzan's functionality will deliberately refer to him as Star Platinum.
The pose made by Ichirin during Raging Running Fist strongly resembles a similar pose used by both Jotaro and DIO whenever they use their similar attacks involving their stands Star Platinum and The World, respectively.
Ichirin's 1st victory quote against herself is yet another reference to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
The voice clips used by Unzan are pitch-shifted versions of Star Platinum's voice clips from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future.
If M.U.G.E.N's debug mode and hitbox viewers are turned on during "King Kraken Strike", Unzan's fists will display the internal name of "Is this a Jojo reference?".
Comments in the character's files contain other lines, such as "Its not a Jojo meme you dip!"