Rabo (Noragami)

Rabo, a god of calamity.

Rabō is a male anime and manga character who features in Noragami.

Biography

Rabo's bloodsoaked past.

Rabo (Japanese: 蠃蚌, Hepburn: Rabō) was a male human being who was born long ago during the feudal era where he grew up to be an assassin. He served an unknown army where he operated as a herald that involved sneaking into enemy encampments and slaying his foes. Afterwards, he presented himself to his army's leader and slain to hide his actions with himself willingly offering his life in such a role. Despite his death, he became deified as a result and emerged into the real world as an actual deity. Due to his past, Rabō became a devastating god of calamity who offered his services to those that asked him of a wish and he conducted any act required be it the death of humans or those of the spirit world. The result of this saw him being noted as a dark god and a shrine was made in his honor. At an unknown point, he found himself working alongside Yato who was another god of calamity. The pair were responsible for defeating an entire army and left nothing but death, destruction along with corpses in their wake. From this encounter, Rabō came to admire Yato as a comrade and for his fighting skills. As the years went on, Rabō vanished and it was believed for a time that he had been killed. However, in reality, he went into a deep slumber and awaited a time to awaken from his sleep. Though feared in the past, this god of calamity was slowly forgotten and he feared that his own existence would disappear. As such, he desired to fight a worthy opponent to bring about his end in battle rather than disappear by being forgotten. As a result, in the modern day, he awakened following several centuries of disappearance and decided to seek out Yato to bring about his wish. Upon awakening, he encountered a stray Shinki Nora and branded her to be his weapon.

Rabo with Nora.

Nora assisted him in his plans as she had her own desires for Yato to succumb to his darker nature. Thus, she targeted his close friend Iki Hiyori and inflicted on her a forgetting spell causing her to forget all about Yato. Initially, Yato felt Hiyori would be safe without him in her life but later learnt that Nora's spell would eventually cause Hiyori to forget her entire life and lead to her eventual death. Thus, Yato decided to confront Rabo at his shrine and teleported himself to confront the rogue deity. With Nora at his side, Rabo wielded her as his Shinki and seemingly managed to overpower Yato. This led to Rabo feeling disappointed as he felt that he was denied fighting a worthy foe and questioned why the Yato-god he knew was not fighting as he had done so in the past. After looking at Hiyori, Rabo concluded that she was the cause as Yato's feelings had dulled his killer instinct. Thus, Rabo intended to eliminate her and make the pain of her loss force Yato to become the god of calamity again. This briefly saw Yato once more become more ruthless and cold where he began to win against Rabo until Hiyori snapped him from that killer instinct. Facing defeat, Rabo decided to make his final move and absorbed the negative energy from Phantoms in order to empower himself further. He continued the battle until Yato cleansed Rabo from the Phantoms in his body and fatally wounded him. It was then that Rabo confessed the true reason why he desired this battle with Yato namely to die rather than be forgotten. With his death, his shrine collapsed with Yato along with his friends returning back home whilst Nora was deprived of a master with her deciding to meet with her 'father' again.

Overview

Personality and attributes

Armed with his Shinki.

In appearance, Rabō was shown as being a tall male with long silver hair and his eyes were bright yellow color. At some point, he lost his left eye that was an empty hole and he covered this with his head visor that had an eye symbol of Nora's masks. Typically, he wore baggy clothing and carried a sword on his back.

He was willing to commit any act of murder asked of him whether it was human, phantom or other gods. Rabō was shown to be not discriminating in his slaughter and murdered humans that saw him. Furthermore, he was known to target helpless individuals in order to weaken his opponents such as when he intended to kill Hiyori in order to provoke Yato.

Rabō's ultimate goal was to die in battle against a worthy opponent such as Yato-god. He desired Yato to be the god of calamity that he used to be as he felt that only this was a foe that could fight him.

As a deity, he had a shrine in his name but by the modern day it was abandoned and neglected by worshippers.

Rabō shows disdain and confusion towards the growing worship of foreign gods such as Bishamonten, partially due to his own followers declining as a result. He is very self-aware of his own nature, remarking that Yato's heart is 'pure and true', unlike his own, which he says is 'shrouded in darkness'. He is resigned to his fate as a God of Calamity, but expresses regret towards it.

Powers and abilities

Absorbing the power of Phantoms into his left eye.

Originally, Rabo was once an ordinary human being until he was reborn as a god after evil wishes were made upon his death so that he may kill again. Following his rebirth, he came to be a God of Calamity, and it was known that he used to take up jobs of killing phantoms, humans, and even other gods. Like most gods, he is able to teleport from different places in order to complete his objectives quicker.

As with other deities, he wielded a Shinki that were the spirits of deceased humans that could transform into a weapon and served their master that branded them. Rabō took the Shinki Nora upon his awakening and called her Furu (零, meaning “zero”) with her human name being Furuhime (零姫) and her weapon name being Reiki (零器). Once transformed, she took the form of a Japanese katana through which Rabō could use her to manipulate water. With it, he was able to send blasts of water streams to attack his foes or trap them into balls of water.

The height of his power was the ability to absorb the negative energy of phantoms to empower himself further. This appeared as a black stream of energy that emerged from the skies and went into his empty left eye. After absorbing it all, he gained left eye that resembled the demonic eyes of a phantom. In this form, his powers was greatly enhanced making him much more stronger and he spoke in a demonic voice.

His shrine was linked to his power and his death would lead to its collapse.

Notes

• Rabō was voiced by Japanese actor Takahiro Sakurai and English actor Mike McFarland in the dubbed series.
• Though initially an anime-only character, he later appears in two chapters of Stray Stories Volume 3, which reveal his first meeting with Yato and the Stray.

Appearances

• Noragami:

External Links

• Noragami Wiki Entry

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