Sword Master
Voiced by: Terrence C. Carson
Voiced by: Terrence C. Carson
A one-eyed samurai who housed orphans and trained them to become warriors. When a young Afro first approaches him about the headbands, he receives a beating and is told by Sword Master that wearing the headbands leads to a life of murder, saying "We are born men in order to live, not to kill". Afro asks about the headbands again at dojo graduation, after hearing a rumor about Sword Master holding the Number Two Headband. The two meet alone underneath the Bodhi Tree outside the dojo, where Sword Master tells Afro he meant to take the secret to his grave. He then tells Afro to make a decision: forget avenging his father's death and live a normal life, or walk the path of the Number Two. When a large group of thugs in search of the Number Two headband attacks the dojo, Sword Master fights them to show Afro just what it means to be Number Two. After the battle is over, with all the thugs and most of the students dead, he faces Afro telling him that he's chosen his path. After Afro charges at Sword Master in order to kill him to claim the Number Two Headband, Sword Master closes his eyes and is killed by Afro who takes the Number Two Headband.
The official site reveals that Sword Master was in fact a friend to Afro's father Rokutaro, which helps explain the basis for his advice and world view.
Sasuke
Voiced by: Jason Marsden
A teenage student of Sword Master, and a friend to both Afro and Jinno. He wears a pair of glasses which are held to the face by string, similar to those worn in feudal Japan and late dynastic China. Though he graduated from swordsman school at the same time as Afro and Jinno, his skills are apparently inferior to theirs (though he is seen killing two people in his final battle). He appears to be very eccentric as shown by his playful manner with his friends as well as telling his friends that he hopes to eat chicken cutlet for his final meal, much to their disbelief. During a flashback in the fourth episode, he is killed in the Midnight Battle Under The Bodhi Tree after being impaled from behind by one of the assassins targeting Sword Master.