Sheet:Taro Yamada

Taro Yamada's Sheet

Background

Nagisa Yumemori was born in 1946 to a widow who had moved in with her sister after the deaths of both their husbands. His mother was sickly and rarely left the house; his aunt worked hard to support her sister and the children they were all raising, and encouraged the children to do the same when they were old enough. Although he had middling grades in school, he tried to pick up errands from the neighbors when he could, and had big dreams of becoming a firefighter who could save people like his Ma if there was a big, horrible fire that would make you very sick after.

That all changed when he found the doll.

His cousin was turning twelve soon and she was a girl so she should have something nice. When he saw a doll with a beautiful smile discarded in an alley, he ran in to take it - he could get his Ma's help to sew it some new pretty clothing and it'd be a nice gift when they couldn't afford toys often.

He didn't expect the beautiful doll?s mouth to open to reveal huge, pointy teeth and bite him. It clambered out of his hands and bit him and clawed at him, even as he tried to throw it away. When a neighbor found him hours later, he was unconscious and bloody in a dozen places, the doll still clutched in his hands.

When he came home, the doll spoke to him. Told him he had been chosen. That he'd fed the doll so it now owed him, and if he just accepted the power it could give him, he'd be able to get whatever he wanted. Money. Power. All he had to do was accept the doll's help.

He didn?t accept the doll. He wanted to be a normal boy. He was going to be a good boy for his Ma. He tried to throw the doll away over and over, but it just came back. He threw it in a fire; it didn?t burn. He threw it in the ocean; it was tucked into his backpack the next morning.

He grudgingly carried it with him, taking it to the roof of the school to try and throw into traffic. One of the older boys cornered him up there - what are you doing up here, you?re already a loser, are you going to get rid of yourself up here? Get rid of your stupid handmade clothing stinking up our school.

I want to shut his mouth, Nagisa thought.

I?ll help, said the doll.

Nagisa hit the boy and was hit back, and from the cuts on his knuckles grew tiny blades of blood. The sun suddenly burned his eyes so he hit and hit and hit without looking, the blood blades sucking blood away with every attack.

When he hit the other boy, the blades pierced him, sucking his blood. He felt good, he felt strong, he wanted more more more -

He didn't realize what he had done until the other boy fell, deathly pale where he wasn't bleeding. He didn't realize what he had become until he looked into a puddle on the roof and saw a monster, blood blades from his forehead like an oni?s horns, blades on his hands like claws.

He managed to transform back to his normal self before the teachers came. He was expelled anyway.

His mother hugged him and said she still loved him. His aunt looked at him warily. His cousins stared. The doll was heavy in his pocket.

Nagisa ran away with all the money he'd saved up. He would start anew, and come back when he wasn't a danger.

There were plenty of places he could find that would hire a kid back in the 50s. He drifted between jobs washing dishes and doing construction and waiting tables and delivering packages. The country grew around him.

He worked. He lived. He drifted. He barely aged as others shot up around him, so he drifted further to prevent suspicion. He fed on stray pets he found and apologized after. No one looked at him. No one looked for him.

No one cared. People yelled at him. Stupid kid, why don't you go home, where's your house, why can't you work faster. They hate you, the doll told him. They look down on you, they'll never care, and you don't care about them, and aren't you hungry?

The doll was right. He changed in the night. He chased. He fed with his blood blades, sucking like a mosquito. The wounds closed up afterwards so they wouldn't have to go to a hospital, they could go right back to work. No one cared about him, so why should he care about them?

The newspapers called him the Back Street Slasher, second in terror only to the Slit Face Woman. "Well done," his doll told him. "In my day, they called me Jack."

He ripped open vending machines and stole all the food in them. He used the blood blades to pick locks and take what he wanted from stores if he saw a toy he liked or He found high schoolers doing weird things on cliffs and scared them, chasing them into their cars so they?d tell the newspapers the scary thing they saw. He got stronger the more people were scared of him, so he whispered his legend, letting it spread so that when they saw him, they?d scream and run. In the day, he was just another kid, but at night, he was terrifying! He was in control! He was the strongest in all Japan!

Lately, Jack told him, "You?re strong enough to have another doll. If you ever get hurt enough, you can take over the doll?s body and go find another vampire to train."

"Will the doll be alive before that?" Nagisa asked as he carved a new body from wood.

"Yeah, you'll need to feed it blood and darkness to make it grow."

"Where do I find darkness. Do I go stargazing??"

"Nah, kiddo. I know just the right place for you to go. Pack your bags, because we're going to Tokyo!"

(And as Nagisa rolled his eyes and went back to carving the doll with his blood blades, Jack laughed. The kid should hope he raises a tolerable doll, he thought, because soon he'll be the doll and I'll be the Back Street Slasher.)

Nagisa as a magical boy obtains the power of vampirism whenever he henshins, becoming a dark magical boy who gets stronger as people are fearful around him. At the peak of his power, he is a humanoid shadow covered in red blades who can shrug off most attacks thrown at him.

Of course, if no one around him is afraid, he appears as a shabby-looking vampire from a cheap 80s movie, with pale purple skin, two blood blades poking out of his forehead like horns, and a costume dug out of a discount Halloween shop's bargain bin.

Jack the Doll is the last shred of the soul of a European vampire who has been using his dolls to search for a compatible host to steal the body of. The more someone uses the Jack the doll henshin, the more darkness their body gains, until he can finally hijack the transformation and send the soul of the original human to the doll to be used as bait to bodyjack more people. He has been isolating Nagisa to influence him to henshin more, scare more people, until he's so thoroughly soaked in darkness that he can be a useful host body. Jack also has been feeding Nagisa his own knowledge to help him fend for himself, so although Nagisa's remained at a 6th grade education level, he can understand and speak English, do basic first aid, and has perfect spatial recall.

Nagisa's new cursed doll, Dory, is intended to become another host for Jack, but right now she's young enough that it's mostly Nagisa taking care of Dory and teaching her how to be a mascot. Her personality and powers can be influenced by other people being around her when Nagisa is working on empowering her.

Nagisa needs to have Jack and/or Dory with him in order to henshin; damage to them is reflected onto him, and destroying both of them will leave him unable to henshin.

The Back-Street Slasher has been active since the late 50s; the Veil cannot remove its history, but it can remove the magic from its reputation; the Slasher is now considered an urban legend like the Slit-Faced Woman, and Nagisa's more current vampire attacks have been labeled internet-influenced copycats.

Personality

Between Nagisa?s isolation, his need to hide his eternal childhood and vampire lifestyle, and him living on the poverty line, he?s become a grim pessimist with more prickles than a hedgehog. The easiest ways to crack open his shell are to get him in proximity with cute animals or to give him an excuse to show off and get praised - though even then, he?ll quickly try to hide that vulnerability if there?s an audience.

Years of isolation have left Nagisa self-sufficient to a fault - perhaps too much so, preferring to hole up somewhere no one can find him and lick his wounds than endure the humiliation of asking for help. As such, he?s also developed useful skills such as sewing, basic cooking, coupon clipping, and scrubbing so hard there?s no blood to be found anywhere. He is private to a fault and hates people poking in on HIS space, HIS things - questions about himself will be deflected. He?s fine. He?s fine. Don?t look at him. He?s fine.

Despite Nagisa's desire for privacy and need to keep his double life secret, he craves being paid attention to. The easiest way for him to fulfill this is to henshin and scare people silly. If someone manages to one up him while in henshin, he?ll try and get back at them to fix his wounded pride and to steal the spotlight back from his horrible defeat.

After years of hopping from job to job, waiter to construction worker to janitor to dishwasher to a dozen other things, Nagisa is very easy to pull into a ?yes, and.? Oh, you're here to help with the fair? Oh, you're the assistant sent to make sure the manga chapter is written on time? He's getting pulled in, and by the time he realizes what's happened, he's too engaged with doing whatever to pull himself out. Especially if he can get praise or free food out of it.

Nagisa is slow to make friends given his many hang ups, but once he's gotten a friend, he's like a cat. He'll come and go, but he WILL make sure his friends are taken care of and eating well - after trying to fuss over his sickly mother as a child, he will show up with the worried fussing and the delivering metaphorical birds on the front porch. But when he gets overwhelmed or is dealing with guilt, he tends to hide out...

Nagisa tries not to deal with enemies in civilian form, preferring to use lies, evasion and his natural quiet to stay out of trouble. It takes a lot, like threatening a cute animal, to bring him out of his natural defensiveness as a civilian. If he's going to be facing an enemy, he'd prefer to do it as the Back-Street Slasher, who can't die and is the strongest in Japan! Stealthing around, scaring the shit out of someone, drinking their blood through a wound that will magically heal afterwards, and running before anyone can catch him is a multi purpose tool.

Nagisa has done maintenance and care of Jack and Dory the dolls for over 50 years, and has become very skilled at various things required for making and caring for dolls. His relationship with Jack is tenuous, with Jack being a creep even at his most helpful and Nagisa relying on him more out of necessity than fondness; Dory's youth means Nagisa dotes on her as he did his younger cousins, and most of her time is spent on trying to protect Nagisa or get snackies.

Nagisa would say he's completely gotten over being cursed by a vampiric doll as a child. However, seeing a child, or one of his friends, or a cute animal in the kinds of danger that hurt him badly back then is enough to awaken the protective streak Jack has tried to bury; Nagisa will jump into action for a rescue without any thought, only working out how to keep his cover unblown afterwards. After all, he was just passing through! He's the scariest vampire in Japan! He?s not nice! It's just, you know, it's poor form for a monster to pick on someone like that! He's here to demonstrate what a real monster should act like!

Nagisa's memory of his family has faded over the years, but it's not gone. He holds on to what memories he can, and his grip on how old he is means he's not sure how many, if any, of his relatives he?s managed to outlive.r

(His aunt and mother died long ago, but some of his cousins still live in Fukuoka with their children and grandchildren.)

Over the years, Nagisa's become fond of horror movies - the more over the top and ridiculous the violence, the better. He's tried to imitate some of his favorite villains in his over the top monologues to frighten his victims. His favorite slasher is Jason Vorhees, and has internalized the words of Jason?s actor, Kane Hodder, that Jason would never kick a dog. Even a slasher has standards!

He likes robot anime and has attempted to keep up with the trends throughout his long life. He has kept a Gameboy alive for over a decade to replay Pokemon and Digimon on over and over again.

He has a secret soft spot for Sanrio. He has a battered Bad-Badzmaru plushie he?s kept with him for nearly 30 years.

Focus

Mechanically, the Cursed Dolls are part of the Accursed archetype, and are an original creation. I have gotten permission from Ikiko Hisakata to use the Accursed type!

Nagisa's dolls contain and carry the vampire curse that allows him to henshin; they also act as his mascots.r

Jack is friendly and talkative; Dory is silent and frightening. Jack knows all about fighting and the human body and English; Dory knows about cooking and chasing cats and juggling.Both dolls are able to converse with Nagisa telepathically, but only Jack can speak verbally to other people.

As long as one of the dolls exists, Nagisa's henshin form can regenerate from any and all damage taken. However, any damage to one of the dolls will be reflected onto him, and the more damage he takes, the more effort regeneration takes.

Jack the Doll is a wooden mannequin doll in a top hat and suit with a beautiful smiling face. He is the original bearer of the vampire curse, and created several cursed dolls to allow his soul to live on after his death. He hand-picked Nagisa as his newest victim in 1956. Most of his victims succumbed to the temptation of becoming an all powerful vampire all the time quickly, which allowed other Jacks to take over their bodies and go on short lived horror movie streaks - many of which were defeated by either plucky humans or nearby magical girls.

Nagisa, on the other hand, has tried to live as a human to ensure the police don't catch him for vampire crimes, which has slowed the corruption process down immensely while Nagisa accidentally takes advantage of the advantages of being a cursed vampire. Jack has been trying to speed it up, but it's only now that his plans are nearing completion - soon, Nagisa will have transformed enough for Jack to hijack his body at last, and begin his reign of terror in Tokyo.

Jack's doll lets Nagisa unleash the powers of his vampire form to his full extent. Nagisa is able to remember things Jack knows, like speaking and writing English, a 19th century knowledge of the human body, and map-making.

If for some reason the two of them were separated, Jack would attempt to get back to Nagisa, but not before finding some way to cause problems on purpose. With his charming face and cunning speech, he loves trying to sweet talk people into letting him ruin their lives.

Jack has no ultimate evil plan. He has no ambitions other than hurting as many people as he can for the fun of it. If he was able to take over someone's body, he'd be a mahou movie villain - a star burning brightly who would inevitably be destroyed within 2 hours of screentime - but the problem is the amount of collateral damage he'd try and cause until then.

If Jack were to be destroyed, Nagisa would no longer be able to access the full depths of his power, but he would no longer be in danger of possession.

Dory the Doll is a wooden mannequin doll with a terrifying oni face and a handmade white kimono who speaks with sign language or by typing on a cell phone. She was created as a back up focus for Nagisa if Jack had other business. As a doll created by Nagisa rather than Jack, she's having to learn how to be a cursed mascot from scratch.

Dory's youth and naivete mean that she's even more emotionally immature than Nagisa. She views henshin battles as a game and is trying to absorb as much as she can about the world and how to be a good helper as a cursed doll. Being around good influences might be good for her...

Nagisa's powers would not decrease if Dory was destroyed, but he would be incredibly upset.

Ideally, at some point, Jack will go off on his own as a boss fight. Nagisa will lose his most egregious villain powers at that point and become a good magical boy on the side of light using Dory as his sole focus.

Dory will have learned more about being a mascot by that point via the power of friendship, and fall into a more traditional mascot/henshin role.

Style

Nagisa tends to dress very casually, favoring overlarge hoodies and baggy pants he can hide himself away in. Although he's not affected by the sun as a civilian, he can get bad sunburns in his vampire henshin in the daylight and thus prefers to stay covered up. He repairs his own clothing as much as he can, and has kept several graphic tees in remarkable shape over the years because where is he going to find ?Thursday the 12th: Jason Goes Shopping? or a bootleg shirt of Pikachu and Agumon shaking hands ever again?

He has a mullet, more out of general neglect than a sense of style.

If given the chance to dress formally or in costume, Nagisa would prefer to wear a traditional kimono to a western outfit. He grew up during Japan's rapid industrialization post-ww2, and thus his fondest childhood memories have much of his family in more old-fashioned clothing.

The Back Street Slasher's basic form is that of an adult Nagisa with long, tattered hair, pale purple skin, and blood red eyes. His clothing and general aura grow less or more imposing depending on how fearful the people around him are.

At the apex of his power, the Back Street Slasher is a towering figure of mist and red blood blades under a cloak. His features shift around, and his limbs and mouth can stretch to inhuman lengths and bend in physically impossible ways. He is far stronger than a normal human and heals injuries in seconds. If his shirt rips, inside a hole in his abdomen is a cage where two haunted dolls dance.

As fear fades, the Back Street Slasher becomes an imposing man in a cloak and a terrifying costume. Two blood blades spring from his forehead like oni horns, and his too-wide mouth opens to reveal enormous, sharp teeth. He's still very strong, but injuries take minutes to heal rather than seconds, and he can only move in ways a human can.

If no one is afraid, the Back Street Slasher looks like Nagisa in a shabby Halloween costume and flaking face paint. He's stronger than a human, but it doesn't matter if he's falling over his own feet. He looks like a kid who's having a crisis more than any kind of creature. He won't die, but boy he might wish he could.

Powers

The Back Street Slasher's powers increase and decrease in line with how fearful the people around him are. If he's in an environment of fear and paranoia, he can shrug off almost any injury instantly, grow to twice his height, and appear as a demon more terrifying than the imagination can create. 

On the other hand, if he's in an environment where no one is afraid, he appears as a guy in a cheap halloween costume, is as likely to fall on his face as to land an attack, and any wacky hijinks going on nearby will inevitably affect him.

This is why when the Back Street Slasher is out, he tries to frighten his victims as much as possible - he can't risk getting hit with a pratfall when he?s trying to be a menace!

Note that people don?t have to be afraid of him specifically for this to activate! If there was an earthquake and everyone was scared, he could go full Slasher!

So long as Nagisa has Jack the Doll, he cannot die while in Henshin form. He'll regenerate any injuries he takes in a flash of red smoke, and he has remarkable stamina and endurance.

If Nagisa only has Dory the Doll, he can die while in Henshin form, but it'd take a lot to take him down. He's still ridiculously durable and heals back fast.

The Back Street Slasher's signature is his blood blades. He can sprout these knives made of blood from any part of his body and use them in myriad ways - growing them on his fingers to help him climb walls, or out of the soles of his feet to make sure he doesn't get knocked off a moving platform, or on his head to look spooky. 

When he uses them to drink blood, he'll use a thin blood blade to pierce someone's skin like a needle and suck their blood out like a mosquito. Drinking blood gives him a temporary power boost. Any injuries caused by the blood blades to a mortal body heal more rapidly than usual. In a pinch, he could use them to make an injury from something else to heal quickly.

On the other hand, they cut through magical monsters and do leave lasting damage there pretty efficiently!

Over the decades, Nagisa has gotten better at climbing, hunkering down, crawling, dodging, and scrambling for safety. He's proficient at climbing up and breaking into all kinds of places, and the enhancements of his henshin form combined with these skills means he can parkour into all kinds of ridiculous places that you would normally never expect a six foot vampire to show up.

Jack the doll didn't just give Nagisa a curse - he's also given him his knowledge from when he was a mortal human. Knowledge of the English language, medical knowledge accurate to the 1880s, the ability to memorize and understand the layout of an area in just one glance - 

He'll keep this knowledge even if Jack were to disappear. Unfortunately, Nagisa has only figured out how to use the layout powers in order to parkour more efficiently. The rest he'll need to learn on his own.

The two Dolls will help the Back Street Slasher while in combat. While he's in his most powerful form, they exist in a cage within his abdomen, growing in tandem with Nagisa as he reacts to threats. If he's badly injured, the two Dolls can escape to act independently - Dory is prone to attacking any threats to Nagisa, while Jack will flee if he thinks he?s in danger.

When he's in less powerful forms, the two Dolls can manifest as flying mascots to give help with aiming, keeping an eye on other people, and giving advice. However, since damage to the Dolls causes damage to the Slasher and, if destroyed, would remove his ability to Henshin, they usually stay very close and out of danger as much as they can.

Dory looks very frightening, but usually acts as a distraction, frightening victims in various directions or getting attention away from Nagisa long enough for him to escape or attack a new weak spot. When backed into a corner, she'll slash wildly with her doll claws, but she has very little idea of how to cause permanent damage.

Jack looks very sweet and usually lurks quietly, ambushing victims with his own blood blade. He does not play nice.

1/31/26 - Approved by Mochi and KLP.