A word about bad guys.

Bad guys follow the same rules as looking for badasses. You need weird costumes, special abilities, and evil quirks. It can be anything from homosexuality to habitual nosepicking. And these eight devils (meaning, YES! We'll have about eight action sequences, too!) have enough quirks to almost assemble a complete personality, if you made them all stand very close together.

For instance, this fellow is... well, his name eludes me. But it doesn't really matter, so I'll call him Wire Guy. Because he knows the value of piano wire as well, in that he can hang you with it, zap you with it, and as we see here, place a long distance phone call with it. Apparently he never heard of the 'two tin cans' method, but hey, whatever works.

And here we have a nice girl with facial scars and a very absurd costume. Isn't this cute? She's all huggy and feely and confessing her love. It's so sweet. I almost mistook this for a soujo anime, until I realized these were all bad guys and therefore not picture-perfect snapshots of normal relationships. In fact, Wire Guy is in bed with Gemma, the head badass (and as we'll see, the only effective one in the whole stinking lot of them). Awww, poor her. Sniffle.

I almost continued to have sympathy, until I got a good look at her outfit and went off screaming into a drug induced flashback to Las Vegas. (More on this when I mangle 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'). That's outlandish even by villian standards. But I suppose it'd have a certain advantage if, say, Jubei had a serious case of hayfever. I can see it now :

"Today, Jubei, I, the feathered gunpowder toting butch haircutted femme bad guy will spell your doom!"

"I'd really rather not bother. I mean, it's no business of mi.. ah.. ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO--"

"An opening!"

(slash)

And that'd be it for our fearless wind ninja. But no, she's not nearly that useful, it'll turn out. Not nearly as useful as Cliffy back there, who is turning out to be useful even after being killed!

Yes, folks, our friend is quite dead, but he LEFT BEHIND an impression of Jubei's face in the sand just by reforming the rock in the palm of his HAND. All in a split second before dying. Wow. Of course, this information won't be acted on to any success, but it's nice to know he was forward thinking enough to do this. That takes mad skeelz, I tell you.

And how exactly will those unpleasant devils make use of this?

...proceed to Jubei vs. That Snakecharmer Chick From Bladerunner