Xavier III or Francisco Xavier is the antagonist of the nineteenth episode Unholy Union in Samurai Champloo.
Personality[]
Xavier III is a cruel and selfish man who only cares about fame and fortune. He is ready to use all means necessary, as far as deceiving an entire community of Christian or ordering an innocent family's demise for his own interests.
Appearance[]
Xavier III is an ugly man with crooked teeth, a goatee, and his crown is shaved in the fashion of a Western monk, and he is highly amblyopic (his eyes don't really work). When his beard and nose come loose, he looks like a normal Japanese man.
Plot[]
Xavier III introduces himself as the grandson of Saint Francis Xavier, the missionary responsible for introducing Christianity to Japan.
Xavier III hires his henchmen to find Yuri so he can marry her. His henchmen successfully capture her (unaware that Fuu is following them) and holds a meeting with his followers. He proclaims to the audience that the key to achieving salvation is… to earn it by helping to manufacture tanegashima, a Japanese form of matchlock gun.
Xavier III holding a tanegashima twisted as a rocket launcher
It is revealed by Yuri that he is just exploiting the faith of the local Christian population for massive profit, using the profits from gun sales to purchase valuable artworks, historical artifacts, and even the love of others as he attempts to force Yuri to marry him. When Yuri refuses, Xaver III has her thrown in jail. As the ceremony is about to get underway, Fuu begs Yuri to not go through with it, giving her the courage she needs to stand up to the priest. This conflict is interrupted by the arrival of Mugen and Jin, who managed to uncover the full scale of Xavier’s exploitative scheme. He starts firing at the two samurai but fails to successfully strike them, accidentally causing the cross behind him to collapse, and revealing his true identity.
His fate is sealed when he attempts to kill Yuri with a large cannon-like tanegashima, however, the cannon malfunctions and explodes, killing him.
Voice Actors[]
- Juurouta Kosugi (Japanese)
- Lex Lang (English)