| Bodhidharma Kanis |
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| Bodhidharma Kanis |
| His is the first life I have ever saved... I will not allow it to be taken away so easily. |
Bodhidharma Kanis is a blind assassin with a large pet dog called Helmut. The ringing of the custom-made bells attached to his knife and Helmut are said to be the last things his victims hear. He was eventually caught and imprisoned at some point before March 2019.
Kanis the savior[]
Helmut saving the boys.
While walking with Helmut on a particularly cold day on Dec. 24, 2000, Kanis came across two boys trapped inside a frozen car, freezing to death. He saved them and took them to the Happy Family Home orphanage. Both boys lost their memories due to the trauma of their near-death experience, and no families seemed to be looking for them, so they remained in the orphanage. The irony of an assassin saving lives was not lost on Kanis, but this would only be the beginning of his interactions with the boys.
A presidential assassination[]
Di-Jun Wang's final moments.
Six years later, Kanis was hired to assassinate Di-Jun Wang, the president of Zheng Fa, by one of his body doubles. The body double brought Chief Prosecutor Excelsius Winner to his cause, who in turn bribed Fifi Laguarde, the owner of the Happy Family Home orphanage, into cooperating. Kanis waited at the entrance of the orphanage for the president to arrive, then introduced himself and his intentions to his target. To the assassin's surprise, Wang begged not for his life but for the opportunity to fulfill a planned meeting with his secret son, Shaun Fenn. Kanis denied this request and attacked the president. The first strike knocked off a horn from a Taurusaurus doll with a built-in recording device, while the next strike dealt the fatal blow to Wang.
Kanis then waited inside the orphanage so that his employers could clean up the crime scene. However, Simeon Saint, one of the boys he had rescued from the car years prior, warned him that the three co-conspirators were planning to kill him. The boy set a fire to distract the assassin's former employers so that Kanis could escape. Kanis began to grow fond of the boy, and the two kept in touch through correspondence chess. The president's murder was made to look like a kidnapping (with the body double assuming the real Wang's identity), and it was known within police files as the SS-5 Incident.
In prison[]
Intimidating Laguarde.
Kanis was eventually caught and convicted for his crimes, with Miles Edgeworth being the prosecutor in his trial.[1]
Knowing that Laguarde had become the warden of the prison in which he would reside, he threatened her and her family, claiming that he still had many henchmen outside working for him. He also told her that he knew about Shaun Fenn; knowledge that could be used to expose the body double as a fake. This made Laguarde so deathly afraid of the assassin that she would capitulate to whatever he demanded. Among other things, Kanis used this advantage over Laguarde to procure various items for other prisoners, giving him the nickname of "the fixer." Laguarde would use Helmut to deliver the goods from a well in the prison courtyard to Kanis's cell. During his stay in prison, Kanis took up chiseling and continued to play chess with Saint through mail correspondence.
Laguarde's interrogations of Kanis proved fruitless.
On March 25, 2019, Bronco Knight was arrested and brought to the prison. Two days later, Helmut brought Knight's dead body to Kanis. Near the neck of the corpse, the assassin heard the sound of the bell that had been attached to his knife. However, he found that the apparent murder weapon was not his knife but a small chisel similar to the ones that he had acquired. Realizing that he was being set up to be implicated in the crime, he had Helmut drop the body off in Workshop A, pull out the weapon there, and bring it back to him. Kanis followed the ensuing investigation and ended up meeting Miles Edgeworth again.
Although the prison was searched, Kanis was able to hide the murder weapon by having Helmut keep it inside his mouth whenever he had visitors. Nonetheless, he found himself being suspected of the crime by Edgeworth, who eventually found the chisel. Kanis was also surprised to find that Edgeworth believed that Knight was his chess opponent. Fortunately for him, fingerprint testing on the chisel revealed only Knight's prints. Edgeworth eventually exposed Laguarde as the real killer the following day and found the murder weapon, Kanis's knife, hidden inside her pet alligator.
Escape[]
Five days after Laguarde's arrest, Kanis escaped from the prison to find Saint. Three days later, the body double was murdered, and the assassin found Miles Edgeworth at the crime scene conversing with Shi-Long Lang about the SS-5 Incident. It soon became apparent that they had figured out the truth behind the "kidnapping," prompting Kanis to reveal himself and offer information about his acolyte. Kanis learned that Saint had merely pretended to play chess with him and that he had really acted as a middle-man, pretending to play against both Kanis and Knight and having them unwittingly play against each other. After learning where Saint was, the assassin made his exit.
De Killer vs. Kanis.
Edgeworth confronted Saint and successfully showed that he was the mastermind who had killed the body double and instigated Laguarde into killing Knight by making it look like he was one of Kanis's henchmen (hence why he had gone to lengths to made it seem as if Kanis and Knight were knowingly playing chess with one another). The assassin Shelly de Killer suddenly appeared in order to kill Saint, as the latter had betrayed his personal code of client-assassin trust. However, Kanis crossed blades with the fellow professional killer and asked him to spare Saint's life. De Killer scoffed at the idea that Kanis would beg for someone else's life but agreed to spare Saint and left.
Shaun Fenn, who had been present during Edgeworth's confrontation of Saint, then called out Kanis. Identifying the anger in the young boy, Kanis offered Fenn a knife and gave him the opportunity to exact his revenge. However, Fenn put aside his feelings and refused to kill the assassin, leaving Kanis to eventually return to prison with his acolyte.
Personality[]
Mugshot.
Kanis is a patient, cryptic, unflappable man with a dark sense of humor. He mostly makes up for his blindness with his hearing and his long memory. He remembers everyone he has killed, as well as tiny details like the mention of horn props on Shaun Fenn's head. He is also very perceptive of the personalities of others, recognizing why Di-Jun Wang's body double could never really live up to the legacy of the real deal.
Kanis's life changed after his encounters with Simeon Saint. By becoming something akin to a father figure, he ceased to be merely a ruthless assassin and was willing to go to great lengths to protect Saint. He eventually grew tired of killing and took up chess and wood carving in prison. He then grew weary even of those activities and seemed to have no issue with allowing Fenn to avenge his father's death. This opportunity to die was denied, but Kanis gained Saint as a new prison companion.
Kanis and fellow assassin Shelly de Killer appear to have encountered each other at some point in the past, as Kanis commented that "It has been far too long" during their standoff.
Name[]
- Japanese - Ryōken Hōinbō (鳳院坊 了賢 ):
- His Japanese surname "Hōinbō" (鳳院坊) is a play on "court (of law)" (法院 hō) and "scheme" (陰謀 inbō), along with the last character meaning, "monk". It also may be derived from Hon'inbō, one of the four major schools of Go in Japan.
- His Japanese given name, "Ryōken," (了賢) is a homophone for the Japanese word for "hunting dog" (猟犬).
- English - Bodhidharma Kanis:
- "Bodhidharma" is the name of a Chinese Buddhist monk with the "bodhi" part of his name meaning "know perfectly". It's also similar to the Sanskrit word "bodhisattva", which is a person on the road to bodhi (awakening) or Buddhahood.
- It could also be read as a play on "body harmer", though this is probably a coincidence and requires pronouncing the name incorrectly.
- "Kanis" is a play on "Canis", the scientific genus that includes species like dogs and wolves.
- "Bodhidharma" is the name of a Chinese Buddhist monk with the "bodhi" part of his name meaning "know perfectly". It's also similar to the Sanskrit word "bodhisattva", which is a person on the road to bodhi (awakening) or Buddhahood.
- Chinese - Běnyīnmóu Lièquán (本因謀 烈全):
- His Chinese full name is a play on "Hon'inbo Retsugen" (本因坊烈元), a famous Go player in the Edo period. His Chinese surname contains the word "yīnmóu" (因謀), which is a play on the word "scheme" (陰謀 yīnmóu).
- His Chinese given name, "Lièquán" (烈全) is a play on the Chinese word for "hunting dog" (獵犬, lièquǎn).
Unofficial[]
- English - Sirhan Dogen:
- "Sirhan" is an Arabic name that means "wolf" (as well as being the name of the assassin who killed United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
- "Dogen" is a play on both "dog" and the name of a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher.
- French - Hermann Daub:
- A play on "Daub Hermann", meaning "dobermann".
Development[]
- His prison number is "B-055," which is similar in appearance to the English word "boss". This is likely a reference to his status as the "Supplier" for the prison's inmates.
- Like a few other characters in Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit, Kanis has design and personality parallels with a chess piece. With his prayer beads, Buddhist-like leitmotif, "fallen priest" nickname, and even the shape of his head, Kanis represents the bishop.
- In the original Japanese version of the game, Kanis uses "sessou" (拙僧) in his style of speech, which is a very humble first-person personal pronoun that gives him the feel of a Buddhist monk.
References[]
- ↑ Edgeworth: You remember me?
Kanis: Kheh heh heh. it would be impossible to forget. I could hardly forget now, could I? After all... ...you are the one who put me away.
Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit. Capcom. Episode: The Captive Turnabout (from Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Prosecutor's Path English fan patch). 2014.