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Demon Boxer Jin Matoba First appears in Episode 26. A master of Kempo and all manner of martial arts, Jin Matoba was a gentleman assassin. He was so good he could name his price, choose his targets, and by this time so monetarily secure, he didn't really care about the money. His favorite targets were martial arts masters, as his own master cut off his right arm. He caught off his arm because one day when they were sparring on a cliffside above the ocean, his foot slipped and he fell. His teacher barely caught his left hand, but there was not enough leverage to pull him up, so the teacher shouted at him to let go. But he couldn't because he found the drop into the ocean was terrifying. So his teacher pulled out a very large knife and cut off his arm. Jin got a prosthesis, perfected his arts, was on a crusade to slaughter other masters who considered themselves fit to destroy promising students and fully intended, when he was ready, to return and kill his first teacher. But the man foiled that plan by dying before Jin got around to it. |
| Aki, the teacher's daughter who Jin loved when she was a high school senior was now a nurse, met him at her father's gravestone to beg him to stop his crusade. She stirred up emotions he had forgotten but also brought sharp and clear the memory of how he had lost his hand. He warned her off him, but she loved him too much to let it go. Jin's trademark was the speed of his attacks, which he timed by using a coin with a human skull on top of a triangle of bones. He flipped it spinning high into the air, struck his enemy a killing blow and caught the coin well before it reached the ground. Ryou happened upon him when he was about to assassinate a master, and interfered. Jin was delighted to meet the youngster, inquiring with bright curiosity what his name was and amused by Ryou's righteous indignation at how he was using his skills. But Jin's target escaped, so our assassin threw his coin and scratched Ryou's face, and took off after the other man. Though Master Kaku warned Ryou to stay away from Jin, who had no access to Ki-power, because he believed Ryou would be defeated if he challenged such a master. Even with this warning, Ryou became fixated on Jin. | |
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In another dual, Ryou called out his Ki power in frustration of defeat and blasted Jin. This enraged Jin, and he beat Ryou into the ground, leaving him bleeding in the grass. And so after forcing himself to a speed and strength he never before had, Ryou faced Jin a third time. Jin warned Ryou that he would kill him this time, even though he felt pity and considerable respect for him. Jin used his deadly punch, but his metal fist encountered an unexpected resistance. Ryou was wearing springs, and now he broke them off. And with the springs gone, he was blindingly fast. |
| Faster than the startled Jin. Aki's cry distracted Jin but not Ryou, whose punch sent the assassin flying into the surf. With the battle won, Ryou took off to fight the Gohma monster and save his friends. Jin felt the bitter taste of defeat, he crawled only to meet Zaidosu, who had witnessed the battle. Zaidosu assured him that it was not that he had failed, but that Ryou had become stronger. But he could give Jin the power to defeat Ryou. All the human had to do first was destroy his weakness. Aki found her beloved, and for in his shock he killed her as his weakness. And Zaidosu imbued him with evil death-power becoming the Demon Boxer. His power had many facets, and one of them was the deadly "Dance of the Spider" poisoning technique. His punch injected a special kind of curse-poison. And as it travelled from point of impact to the neck of the recipient, it developed a traveling spider-mark. It created horror and terror, and the greater the victim's terror, the faster the spider moved. Jin rejected Zaidosu as master and left to learn his new powers on his own, the only way he had ever done things since the day his teacher had cut off his arm. And when he finally succeeded in controlling the forces he had been imbued with, he came back hunting for Ryou. He nearly killed Ryou but Ryou defeated his fears, and the two men confronted each other again. | |
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| Zaidosu who was watching the fight, told the Cannon-Gorma to kill the winner of the battle. And though the battle was not quite over, it looked like that would be Ryou and the Cannon fired. But Jin heard the shot coming and leaped between to protect his enemy. The shot took him down, and Ryou was stunned. Jin had only saved Ryou because he wanted to defeat him in fair combat. Jin wanted to be the only one to do in him. Zaidosu took the seemingly dead man over his shoulder to wait for him to resurrect. Zaidosu kept Jin chained in a cell beneath the Gohma spheres. Eventually Jin killed one of his guards and escaped. Weak from hunger and dehydration, he nevertheless made his way into the human world, searching for Ryou. But it was Ryou who found Jin unconscious. And he took him home to take care of him. Jin awoke in shock and challenged Ryo, only to fall on his face without being able to strike even once. For the next several days he was in Ryou's attentive care. Ryou had begun to realize what Jin should have been, and thought something must have happened to warp him into what he had become. And he was determined to unwarp Jin. | |
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At night while Jin slept, he tranformed into a blood-drinking monster which went out and killed people. One morning, Jin awoke to find some strange growth on his right arm. Ryou took Jin out into the daylight in a wheelchair. Jin asked Ryou why he was helping him and he admitted he couldn't bear to see him die in such a manner. Jin asked Ryou, if he became a monster, to please be the one who defeated him. Ryou was frightened and confused, but Jin told him where to strike, and made him promise. For shortly after that Jin did become Garouki (Hungry Wolf Demon), under Zaidosu's control. It broke Ryo's heart to fight him, knowing Jin was not responsible for what was happening and would never have chosen it. Ryou reluctantly struck at that weak point, and broke Jin free from Zaidosu's control, if only for a little while. |
| They fought side by side. Jin fought Zaidosu but he gave Jin a deadly blow. The Dairanger used their bazooka against the now lone monster. The Gorma retreated. And Jin, though bleeding and weakened by the battle, challenged Ryou. While the others watched, the two men squared off a final time who perhaps weren't fighting wholeheartedly. Still, it was Ryou who broke through Jin's guard to punch him, but stopped a short distance from Jins face. Jin knew then that there was no way the pair of them could ever test each other fully. Because Ryou particularly would never be able to strike the final blow. Jin sighed, brushed the boy's arm aside and scolded him gently. Ryou would rather he had stayed, but Jin could not and left. Zaidosu caught up with Jin crossing the desert and released the Cotpotros on him. Jin sent his coin spinning into the sky and fought. And he was cut down by gunfire because his coin, that he would flip in the air during battle, hit the sand alone. Jin's spirit later appeared to Ryou to beat sense into him to defeat the Gorma. | |
