Personality: Aoshi is the leader of the Oniwaban-shu. He is very serious, in fact he never smiles and often acts like he has no emotions at all. He allied himself with a greedy businessman named Kanryuu Takeda and helped him hold Megumi Takani captive, forcing her to make opium until she was rescued by the Kenshin-gumi. After being defeated by Kenshin and witnessing the deaths of his loyal men, Hanya, Beshimi, Hyotoko and Shikijo at the hands of Kanryuu, Aoshi goes on a quest for strength in order to someday defeat Kenshin. Aoshi wants to become the greatest fighter in history as a testament to his late men who were killed by Kanryuu and to prove that the Oniwaban-shu are the most powerful ninja group ever. He is also more than willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to achieve his goal. This is why he is so intent on defeating Kenshin. He even leaves the Oniwaban-shu for a period of time and allies himself with Makoto Shishio in order to have a chance to fight him again. All in all, Aoshi is a very misguided individual, but he is not actually evil and he proves himself to be a useful fighter in the end. Despite himself, he has a soft spot for Misao Makimachi, who he helped raise along the rest of the Oniwaban-shu.
Techniques: Aoshi is a grand master and Okashira of the Oniwanbanshou shinobi. Aoshi’s weapon of choice is a kodachi, a sword that is described in the series to act like a shield because its light weight makes it easy to block with. He originally used only one of these short swords for defense outside of Kaiten Kenbu and relied mainly on kenpo for his offense, but later used a two-sworded style, employing a pair of the swords. When in their saya, they appear to be part of a single sheathed sword, one blade appearing to be the hilt, while the second blade is stationed opposite the first and blends in with the saya itself, giving it the impression of being a nodachi. A dangerous opponent, he uses his speed together with a mix of sword and hand-to-hand combat moves. His physical strength is extremely high, having once knocked Sanosuke out with one blow to the back of the neck (in the anime).