Taiju Shiba

Taiju Shiba is Seventh Division of the Tokyo Manji Gang. He was also the former leader of the 10th Generation Black Dragon. Taiju is the older brother of Yuzuha and Hakkai Shiba. He is the main antagonist in Black Dragon Arc. In an alternate timeline, he was the Sixth Division Captain of the Second Generation Tokyo Manji Gang.

Appearance
Taiju is a very tall and muscular man, easily towering over others. He is the second-tallest character shown thus far. His hair is blue and white and was kept long and tied up. He wears a custom Black Dragon uniform, where the uniform jacket is longer and red instead. He keeps his uniform jacket open, showing his chest. He has tribal tattoos styled in a series of swirls on the left side of his neck down to his chest and cursive tattoos below that. There is a giant cross tattoo on his back. He sports a crazed grin and exhibits all sorts of unusual expressions - one eye opening wider than the other and his forehead vein popping out - when fighting or when excited.

During his third year of middle school, Taiju's hair was slightly shorter. As a child, he had shorter, natural blue hair parted on both sides from the middle. In the present, he neatly combed his hair back.

Personality
Taiju is a deeply brutal, sadistic individual, regularly resorting to violence at the slightest provocation and with a cruel disposition towards nearly everyone, particularly his foes who end up in the receiving end of his brutality. Even then, he was known to be a devoted Christian, praying every year on Christmas.

A prideful individual, he has absolute and justified confidence in his fighting ability, being capable of besting several powerful fighters with relative ease and with the strength and fighting skill to back it. An effective leader since a young age, he has been able to capitalize on both his strength and height, greater than that of his peers to exercise power with impunity. Rather than use indiscriminate violence to achieve his goals, Taiju learned how to utilize it in more precise and strategic ways, delivering savage beatings to adversaries in ways that allowed him to garner support, granting him a special kind of charisma. His ability to weaponize brutality is best evidenced on the Black Dragons themselves, whom he was capable of reforging into an extremely dangerous and feared gang of street fighters, giving them a niche as bodyguards for hire for wealthy individuals.

Rivaling Taiju's embracing of violence, is his complicated relationship with his siblings. Taiju regularly engages in physical abuse towards both Yuzuha and Hakkai as a means of raising them and exerting discipline. Taiju hits them and mistreats either of them, over relatively minor offenses such as oversleeping, whenever he feels neither of his siblings lives up to his expectations, or simply because he's in a foul mood, amongst many other instances of abuse for many years. Typical of an abuser, he tends to mix false words of affection and deflection, while denying blame for his actions, and in fact claim that his siblings are responsible for forcing his hand.

In truth, Taiju does love his siblings at heart, but their complicated family circumstances, twists his actions and intentions into a warped sense of caring. Having lost their mother since a young age, and with a mostly absent parent, forced Taiju into the role of caring for his siblings. Feeling alone, fearful and lost about how to best raise Yuzuha and Hakkai caused him to pressure himself to harsh degrees, which coupled with his experience in embracing and utilizing violence as a tool to use in life, interwined in a dangerous mix which transformed Taiju in the sadistic abuser he is known in the present day.

Following his confrontation and defeat against the Tokyo Manji Gang, made Taiju realize the errors of his ways. Having seen Takemichi who through sheer force of will, courage in the face of adversity, and kindness for others despite his weakness at fighting, helped Taiju understand that violence isn't truly the omnipotent solution he believed it to be, as Takemichi was able to change Hakkai and make him stronger as a person, something Taiju failed at. He ultimately bid farewell to his siblings, declaring he was not going to reform, but accepting that he was not needed around either Yuzuha or Hakkai.

Authority
During the time he was the Black Dragon's leader, he had absolute control over the powerful gang, directing and ordering them as he pleased. Under Taiju, Black Dragon became incredibly formidable and united, with others observing how it was almost like an army. Taiju, along with his impressive strength, is also very charismatic. His followers do not merely obey him out of fear; they do so out of respect for him as well.

Fighting Prowess
Taiju is an incredibly powerful fighter. His blows are destructive and his endurance is extraordinary. Taiju easily defeated the elites of Toman, who were very competent fighters in their own right. He was the only person in the series to knock out Manjiro Sano with a single punch, even if Mikey took that blow on purpose. He shrugged off a knife stab wound and went on to face several opponents. In addition, he also woke up quickly after being hit at full force by Mikey's signature kick. Because he was unrivaled due to his overwhelming raw strength, however, Taiju evidently never took the time to hone fighting techniques, so he fights in a rough and violent way, having been able to use brute force to get his way all his life. Taiju's strength is one of the greatest in the series. His punch has knocked foes unconscious or several feet back. He has lifted a pew with one arm and thrown it with ease. In fact, Takemichi Hanagaki remarked that he has never been hit by a punch even close to as strong as Taiju's. This, along with his overconfidence in his strength, were the major reasons for his loss to Mikey.

Intelligence
Not only is Taiju intelligent enough to utilize his assets, such as having Hajime Kokonoi raise funding for his gang, but he himself is financially competent.

Violence
Taiju's most iconic trait both in personal and street life, is his utilization of violence. Being greater in height and stronger than his peers ever since his younger days, granted Taiju with the ability to use his strength with little opposition. Taiju learned from those days how to best capitalize on the usage of violence for the best results. He was known to deliver precise, brutal beatings to his adversaries in fashions that granted him a special sense of charisma that attracted people to him. It is his weaponiation of violence that allowed Taiju to not only become a powerful fighter, but also give him the means to reform the defunct Black Dragons into a brutal force of mercenaries for hire for wealthy and well connected individuals, which served as the main source of revenue for the Black Dragons.

Appearances
{{Appearances|Chapters|

Black Dragon Arc

 * Chapter 79 - Fuck off
 * Chapter 80 - Thicker than water
 * Chapter 81 - Stand alone (flashback)
 * Chapter 84 - Run errands
 * Chapter 85 - Family bonds (flashback)
 * Chapter 87 - Strange bedfellows
 * Chapter 92 - Whip up morale
 * Chapter 93 - Keep one's vow
 * Chapter 94 - Scaredy cat
 * Chapter 95 - The ordeal from God
 * Chapter 96 - Always here for you
 * Chapter 97 - Sibling rivalry
 * Chapter 98 - Strive together
 * Chapter 99 - A verbal shot
 * Chapter 100 - Hundreds of times
 * Chapter 101 - Keep mum
 * Chapter 102 - Salute someone
 * Chapter 103 - Mother figure
 * Chapter 104 - Christmas Night
 * Chapter 105 - No one can match
 * Chapter 106 - Dawning of a new era
 * Chapter 107 - Tight-knit
 * Chapter 110 - Best wishes (flashback)

Tenjiku Arc

 * Chapter 131 - Rest in peace
 * Chapter 132 - The big baddy
 * Chapter 133 - Sell out
 * Chapter 136 - My lot in life (flashback)
 * Chapter 141 - Lay out a plan (flashback)
 * Chapter 143 - Come back to life (flashback)
 * Chapter 144 - Big-hearted (mentioned)
 * Chapter 147 - The root of all evil (flashback)
 * Chapter 159 - I know in my head (flashback)

Kanto Manji Arc
}} {{Appearances|Episodes|
 * Chapter 245 - Grow up to (flashback)
 * Chapter 258 - Strange bedfellows
 * Chapter 259 - Like a something demoniac
 * Chapter 260 - Squaring off against
 * Chapter 261 - Opposite sides of the same coin
 * Chapter 262 - To rout and ravages
 * Chapter 274 - No holding back
 * Chapter 277 - At last
 * Chapter 278 - Revengers

Black Dragon Arc

 * Episode 26 - Gotta go
 * Episode 27 - Stand alone
 * Episode 28 - Family bonds
 * Episode 30 - Whip up morale
 * Episode 31 - Sibling rivalry
 * Episode 32 - Strive together
 * Episode 33 - Dawning of a new era
 * Episode 34 - The light of my life (flashback)}}

Etymology

 * The name Taiju means "big, great" (大) (tai) and "longevity, congratulations, one's natural life" (寿) (ju).
 * Taiju's surname Shiba means "brush, firewood" (柴).

Trivia

 * According to the official character book:
 * Taiju's image color is wine.
 * He likes aquariums.
 * He dislikes violent people.
 * His special skill is swimming.
 * The person he respects or admires is his father.
 * The person he dislikes or fears is no one.
 * His dream is to start a company when he’s 20.
 * His heroic/failure story: Every time his father scolded him about what the hell he spent so much money on, he blamed Hakkai.
 * Taiju ranked 11th in the Character Popularity Poll with a total number of 1446 votes.