Ganmen ga Shuchusen no Ossan

He shares the intense warrior mentality common among Hoshina's retainers. Initially prepared to die in battle for pride, he treats a glorious death as a legitimate objective rather than something a warrior should avoid.

The absurd transformation of his face provides much of his individual characterization. He apparently does not realize how dramatically his appearance changes when his fighting spirit rises, leaving Kojiro struggling to identify him consistently.

Tokiyuki's argument that surviving can require greater courage than dying affects Hoshina's group collectively. Once the warriors accept retreat, their aggressive energy is redirected toward protecting people while escaping rather than throwing their lives away.

He is an experienced samurai and one of the adult fighters serving Hoshina. His willingness to enter close combat and his ability to participate in an organized retreat show that the comic treatment of his appearance does not make him an incompetent soldier.

Like the other Hoshina retainers, he becomes particularly formidable once the group commits itself fully to survival. Their coordination allows the warriors to protect civilians while fighting a numerically superior provincial army.

The series does not initially give him a named martial technique or supernatural power.

He appears when Tokiyuki travels to northern Shinano to stop Hoshina's rebellion against Kiyohara Shinanokami. Kojiro's inability to remember the individual retainers' names results in several descriptive labels, including the one used for this character.

After Hoshina agrees to retreat, the warrior participates in the withdrawal while Kiyohara's army pursues the rebels and civilians. The battle turns Tokiyuki's philosophy of escaping into a strategy for preserving an entire community.

Much later, when Hoshina's retainers return to assist Tokiyuki, the warrior's actual name is revealed as Takemae Shinzaemon. The delayed naming turns one of the series' long-running descriptive jokes into a proper identification.

Yasaburo Hoshina is the lord served by Ganmen ga Shuchusen no Ossan.

Kojiro gives him his descriptive nickname after failing to learn the names of Hoshina's individual retainers.

Tokiyuki Houjou persuades Hoshina's warriors to reconsider their determination to die and instead commit themselves to surviving.

Kiyohara Shinanokami commands the provincial authority against which Hoshina's warriors rebel.