(no subject)

[unspeakablyevil]

CHARACTER INFO

Appearance

As a master shape-shifter, Aku’s appearance may vary but he definitely favors a certain look. He almost always presents himself as a towering black figure with a crown of six horns, long sharp fingers and (on occasion) tentacles. He has eyebrows made of actual flames and a fiery red beard. His height ranges from 10 ft to 10 stories. Rest assured, he will always force others to look up at him.

Voice

Aku has the deep, raspy and gravelly voice of an angry old man. He likes to pop his 'Ps' and gnash on his words as he spits them out. When speaking in English, he has a noticeable Japanese accent. Despite this, he is an excellent orator in any language and delivers his speech with a loud and ominous echo effect, even when speaking softly. His voice actor was Mako Iwamatsu.

Personality

Traits: arrogant, petty, dramatic, powerful, dominant, impatient, clever, playful, deceptive, wrathful, scheming, moody, a large ham, a grumpy old man

Personality-wise, Aku runs the gamut from silly to terrifying depending on his mood. When he’s feeling dominant and in control, he might flay you alive with his dry sarcasm. If he’s had enough of your shit, he’ll ruin your life with a maniacal grin on his face while his army of corpses descends upon you. Other times he might sit on his throne brooding and grumping over petty annoyances, or having himself a giggle-fit over his latest scheme. At his core though, Aku is a ham right down to the booming voice and villainous laugh.

On the alignment chart, Aku falls somewhere between Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil with a leaning toward the latter. He likes to sow discord and despair for his own enjoyment but he also seems to realize that too much discord is not in his favor. He needs laws and order to keep his mortal subjects in line and to keep them fearful and obedient for generations to come.

Aku is, by nature, a conqueror. His kingdom of darkness encompasses the entire Earth as well as surrounding parts of the galaxy. His reach seems to extend far beyond Earth in order to destroy other worlds, harvest their resources and force their residents to seek refuge on Earth where they will then become his subjects. Earth, however, is his main ‘headquarters’ and he considers the planet his. His to own, his to control, his to destroy. And to some extent, his to protect.

While he’s ruined large parts of the planet, there are still pristine sections full of life and beauty. Aku himself can even appreciate natural beauty and nice things, though he enjoys destroying them equally as often. He’s apathetic toward most life since most life is fleeting in his eyes. Getting attached to such things would be useless to him since his existence is seemingly infinite.

However, he’s quite attached to the Earth and especially his Reign of Evil. He likes to collect mortals of all kinds and force from them fear, respect and total obedience. Those who oppose him are punished in the Pit of Hate or straight up killed. One could argue that he’s punishing all of humankind for the actions of one man who, so many years ago, gave Aku sentience and then betrayed him. While he’s done a lot of killing in his time, Aku prefers to make public examples of a few in order to frighten the masses into submission. He avoids wiping out entire populations because then who would be left to worship him?

On rare occasions he’s shown restraint or a sense of tolerance to voices of dissent. When a roomful of children calls him out on his bad storytelling, Aku gets visibly enraged but chooses not to punish them. He’s very much capable of controlling his impulses when he wants to make a good impression or to achieve something he desires. And one thing Aku desires but has been unable to achieve is genuine love, respect and adoration. He’s extremely envious of the adoration Jack receives for opposing him but Aku doesn’t seem to understand how to obtain it for himself. At the very least, he doesn’t seem to have the desire or motivation to change.

I tend to think of Aku as the Yin to Jack’s Yang. And like the symbol, there’s a bit of each within the other. In multiple episodes, we’ve seen the bit of darkness within Jack and it’s hinted that Ashi is the “light” within Aku. But while Aku seems to embody many “evil” traits, negativity and darkness, he is not the personification of Evil nor is he ‘made’ of Evil. He has a strong will to seek his own freedom and survival above all else and at the cost of anything that stands in his way.

History

Aku began his existence billions of years ago as a formless space entity or eldritch abomination comprised of magical energy. He had not yet developed sentience or a mind of his own. He simply existed to devour whatever crossed his path (stars, solar systems, galaxies) to increase his mass and power. That is until the gods caught up with him and nearly destroyed him.

A small shard of Aku, however, escaped destruction and eventually fell to Earth some 66 million years ago whereupon it wiped out the dinosaurs. At the impact site, Aku lay dormant in the Earth as a creeping tar pit forest that crept toward living energy and dragged into its depths whatever life it came upon.

Finally, in the age of humankind, an Emperor approached the tar pit to put an end to its reign of destruction on the land. However, in his attempts to destroy it, his arcane magic gave rise to Aku’s sentience and current form. From that point onward, Aku conquered the planet and appointed himself Ruler of Earth. But there was one thorn in his side that he hasn’t managed to shake and that’s Samurai Jack.

The future to which he flung the Samurai is actually our modern day. But because Aku is a huge proponent of technology and because he opened the Earth’s ports to a diversity of alien beings, that future is very technological advanced, especially in the mega-metropolis, Aku City.

Abilities

Immortality. A significant aspect in the series is that Aku is ageless and immortal. He requires no sustenance, and cannot be harmed by mortal means. Only the power of divine weapons like Jack’s sword, or divine entities are capable of doing him harm. He also can bestow agelessness to others, as he demonstrated when he cursed a Nordic Warrior with eternal life to keep him from joining his friends and family in Valhalla.

Shape-Shifting. Aku can change into virtually any form he desires, from a flying dragon to a small rodent, or even a beautiful woman. He is able to seamlessly change his size, liquefy himself, or stretch and expand his body. He can even replicate into clones of himself to be in numerous places at once, with his mind inhabiting numerous bodies. He typically changes into animal forms during battle, adapting to the situation (he can swim and fly.) He is capable of transforming into inanimate objects, as he demonstrated by turning into a giant ball to crush an opposing army. He can also form his own weapons and use them to fight.

Supernatural Physicality. Aku can alter his physical capabilities to virtually any level he needs or wants due to his magical shape-shifting abilities. He has manifested superhuman strength, speed, endurance, and senses.

Regeneration. While Aku is completely resistant to most forms of attack, he is not invulnerable; items such as Jack’s sword or magics such as divine energy can damage the substance from which he is made. However, Aku is able to regenerate to a large degree even against attacks such as these. These sorts of assaults tend to create large, burning holes or gashes in him where he is struck, which Aku can close back up with effort. However, his ability to regenerate in these situations is limited. In many of his confrontations with Jack, damage caused by the sword whittles away at his overall mass and ability to regenerate in the short term, until it tends to leave him as a very small animal of some sort at which point further attacks would presumably either seal him away as Jack’s father did, or kill him as Jack intends to do. Given time however, he always restores himself without being any worse for wear.

Eye Beams. One of Aku’s most commonly utilized attacks, this ability tends to manifest as beams of white or red light that typically incinerate the objects it makes contact with. It can be used either as continuous beams of light, or as staccato bolts of energy. He has used this ability in numerous battles with Jack, and he also used it to destroy the majority of his past kingdom. Aku can also harmlessly teleport beings to places of his choosing through this power. The beams can also slice through objects like a plasma torch, or cause them to explode.

Remote Viewing. Using mystical forces in his lair, Aku can create images on the walls to view whatever he wishes. He tends to use this ability most often to simply watch Jack travel while stewing in his unhappiness at being unable to kill the samurai.

Teleportation. Aku uses this often for quick appearances or escapes, and to appear before those he has business with.

Elemental Control. He can magically project and control the elements of the physical world. These abilities include breathing and projecting blasts and streams of fire from his body, manipulating the earth itself, conjuring thunderstorms at will, or emitting waves of sonic force.

Telekinesis. He has shown the ability to move, control and manipulate objects through will alone, even across huge distances.

Necromancy. Aku has been shown to be capable of animating countless dead bodies and bending them to his will.

Precognitive Dreams. On rare occasions, Aku is capable of receiving premonitions of his own future through his dreams.

Possession & Infection. Aku can use small portions of himself to infect others with his evil. The only time this has been seen was when he incidentally spat up a tiny portion of himself at Jack, which, over the course of a day or so, proceeded to possess Jack, giving him the appearance and personality of Aku. On a related note, he can also use portions of himself to power machinery.

Interstellar Travel. By morphing himself into a comet or meteor, Aku is capable of interstellar travel at at least the speed of light.

Time Portal Creation. This was the very ability that Aku used to send Jack into the future. It was only used once and was a one way portal forward in time.

Object Materialization. The ability to create objects and materials out of nothing. He once replaced and fixed Scaramouche’s missing body.

Corruption. Using dark magic, Aku can mutate normally harmless beings into monstrous versions of themselves. During his last known encounter with Jack, he used this ability to transform three small rams into monsters to fight Jack. It is also shown that if the corrupted creature dies, the spell will be broken and the creature will transform back to its original form. Aku also uses this power to curse the Well of King Ozric as well as corrupt Jack through his supposed illness. He was also able to infuse this power into techno music to corrupt children in Jack and the Rave.

Combat Skills. Aku is a skilled practitioner of hand-to-hand combat. Though not any sort of match for Jack, he was at least capable of defending himself reasonably well against Jack during their duel, while limiting himself to human physicality. He is also shown to be a fairly skilled swordsman, as on one occasion where he stole Jack’s sword, he was able to force Jack (who was armed with a sword and shield) into a defensive posture during a bout of swordplay.

Weaknesses

Divine Power. Specifically, power that is positive, pure and light in nature. Aku is also susceptible to objects that are inundated with divine power (such as Jack’s sword.) Sprinkling holy water on him may merely cause him some annoyance but a face-off with a character like Korra or Aang in the Avatar State would likely wreck his ass and send him running.

Temporary Illnesses (?) Aku has shown some susceptibility to minor illnesses for reasons we just don’t know. My headcanon is that being weakened and maybe catching a particularly positive vibe from somewhere can put him under the weather.

Underestimating the will of others. While he might think he knows all there is to know about how people think, there are still some things he doesn’t anticipate. He’s under the impression that all people are selfish at their core and will respond to promises of wealth and material possessions. When people don’t operate the way he expects, it really throws him for a loop.