Weed

Weed (ウィード)
Breed	Akita Inu/Kishu Inu Mix
Affiliation	Ōu army (3rd generation leader)
First appearance	GDW vol. 1 chpt. 1, GDW ep. 1
Last appearance	GDW ep. 26
Status	Alive
Family or owners	GB (GodFather), Shiro, Yamabuki (great-grandparents), Riki (grandfather), Fuji (grandmother), Gin (father), Sakura (mother), Yukimura, Joe (brothers), Kōshirō, Kōshirō's siblings (nephews), Sirius, Orion, Rigel and Bellatrix (children), Aka, Gin's siblings (uncles), Yuki, Kinumaru (first cousins), Zion, Jiromaru, Saburomaru, Koyuki, Taromaru (third cousins)
Mate	Koyuki
Voiced by	Sachi Kokuryu
Age	0.5 - 1.5 years old (GDW), 1.5 - 2 years old (GDW:O), 2.5 years old (G:TLW)
Place of Birth	Northern Alps

Weed is the protagonist of Ginga Densetsu Weed and the father of Sirius, Orion, and Rigel, the protagonists of Ginga Densetsu WEED Orion. He is the youngest son of legendary leader Gin. By Ginga Densetsu WEED Orion, he is the only living son of Gin and Sakura. He is the current leader of Ōu.

Appearance

Weed is a brindle (tora-ge) Akita Inu/Kishu Inu mix with blue eyes. 

He has silvery fur, portrayed bluish in color. In the anime, his stripes aren't seen while they are in the manga.

Personality

Weed is a very brave, compassionate and kind dog with an unusually strong sense of justice. He also has charisma like Gin. He is friendly and always ready to help other dogs, rarely doubting their intentions unlike GB.

When first met in the series, he is a polite and calm little puppy, raised well by his mother. He mourns the death of his mother and often thinks about her and wishes her spirit to give him the strength to carry on. He isn't afraid to die but hates the idea of others sacrificing themselves for him. 

Weed, being raised with the rightful stories about his father, has a strong but slightly naive sense of moral. Even when he hadn't met his father, he strongly believed in him and respected him, seeing him as the true symbol of justice.

Although evildoers make him angry, he wishes to give them a second chance as all living beings have only one life. He is shocked when Jerome disobeys him and kills the Foxhound Spies (Thunder and Lecter in the anime). However, after he calms down, he admits that Jerome's doing sounded quite sensible as it saved him and his comrades.

He is very persistent, never giving up and telling others to hang on. Though he is small and not very strong yet, he has natural skill and great speed. He can be impulsive and reckless due to his youth and sometimes the swings of sadness and anger take control of him.

Ginga Densetsu Weed anime

Early adventures

Weed is the son of Gin and Sakura. One day, Weed, while hunting birds for his ill mother, meets a hunting dog, GB, an English Setter. Weed attempts to steal GB's catch, but fails to do so despite much effort. Caught, Weed explains to GB that he needed the bird for his very ill mother. Pitiful, GB allows Weed to take the bird.

Weed with a dove for his mother.

Later on, GB goes hunting ducks near a pond, this time with his packmate Sasuke. Not long after, Sasuke is caught by a guard dog. To save GB and Sasuke, Weed does the Zetsu Tenrō Battōga, a technique only his father and grandfather Riki could perform, for the first time, severing the guard dog's ear.

But another dog arrives to the scene - Smith, one of Gin's most loyal comrades. Afraid of Smith's powerful aura, the guard dog quickly releases Weed and Sasuke and retreats into his dog house. After having a short conversation with Weed, Smith finally realizes that he is the son of Gin.

The three dogs then head to the old house where Sakura lies so Smith can talk to her about Gin. There, Sakura asks Smith to bring Weed to his father in Futago Pass. Shortly after Smith promises her, Sakura dies from her illness. Heartbroken, Weed and the others bury her body, and the three head for Futago Pass and the adventure begins.

The encounter with Kaibutsu

Afterwards, the three dogs meet a chained dog named Hook. From him, they learn that this is the territory of Blue, the boss dog. Hook reveals that he and his brother Kuro used to serve Blue, before Blue killed Kuro when he refused to follow orders for him.

Weed fights Kaibutsu

Weed rushes off to save a young pup named Mel, who was stealing dog food for Blue. Then they learn that Ohu has been destroyed by a monster named Kaibutsu, but Blue tells them that the Ohu soldiers have gone crazy and attacked humans.

When Blue tries to flee across the road, he is hit by a truck. As Weed tries to help him, another truck drives by which was about to run over both of them but Blue saves him and gets hit again.

Weed becomes confused and asks him why he saved him, to which Blue says it was because he showed him kindness and now he wishes he could've met someone like Weed eariler before he dies. The next day, Weed and the others allow Mel to come with them and together they set off to go to Futago Pass.

There, Weed goes off on his own and meets the dogs, Ken and Kagetora, who tells him that the paradise has been attacked by a monster and killed most of the soldiers. Weed continues to look for his father and meets a dog that looks just like him and is convinced that its his father, the dog tells him to run away but he doesn't and the monster, Kaibutsu, appears.

Weed gets so scared of him that he freezes and the dog pushes him out of the way, saving his life. Kaibutsu grabs the dog and bites him to death.

Soon, Kaibutsu is chased away by humans. The group later meets with Smith, who says the dog was not Gin but his substitute Tokimune. Weed is still upset over his death because he saved his life. The dogs bury Tokimune, but before they can do anything, Jerome and his pack appears to the group.

Jerome tells them that he was sent by the humans to kill P4. He also explains that Kaibutsu was a test subject and escaped the lab. Weed struggles to fight P4, when Smith jumped in and attacked the monster. The impact causes rocks to fall on them and Weed escapes. In the process, Smith's life ended and was dug out after. At first, they thought P4 was dead.

But P4 turned out to be alive and shows up to them after they mourn the death of Smith. This starts a fight between Weed and his group against P4. As Weed, Jerome, and P4 fell from the cliff, Weed takes hold of P4's tail and flips him over.

After when they landed, Weed's friends find P4 impaled by a branch, but couldn't find Weed and Jerome. They finally found them in a river, and when they were hauled up on land, Jerome joins Weed and they went off in search of Weed's father, Gin.

Gajou Arc

Weed hears from Akame that his father has been captured by Hougen, so he an his friends go off with a small pack to go to gather more dogs and rescue Gin from Hougen. Along the way to the Southern Alps, Weed is taught how to fight by Jerome and he meets Rocket, a spy of Hougen.

Weed fights against Hougen

Rocket, at first, tries to kill him, but later joins him after seeing how kind of a dog he is. Then, after John's death, Weed realizes how strong and powerful Hougen is and decides to continue looking for more dogs.

Weed makes lots of friends like Hiro, Kyoushiro and the Ninja dog, Tesshin, who teaches him his father's famous attack. After Tesshin teaches Weed the Battouga, Tesshin joins Weed.

Now that Weed has over one hundred dogs in his pack, he and Tesshin go inside an abandoned cabin to look for his father, Gin, only to be attacked by Thunder and Lector, the two assassins of Hougen that had tried to kill Kyoushiro. Shortly after this, Weed and Tesshin defeat them.

The two brothers told Weed that he was too late since Hougen had already taken Gin along with him. Weed then tells them to promise not to work for Hougen anymore and sets them free. However, Thunder and Lector begin to plot an attack on Weed to kill him, and upon hearing this, Jerome appears to the two assassins and kills them one-by-one.

Weed and his pack soon find Jerome with Lector, laying dead. He is angered and drives Jerome out of his pack, telling him that he has one life, and if he can't understand how important that is, he doesn't need him.

After this, Kyoushiro then sees Weed's softness and argues with him. Then, he leaves Weed, with the rest of the dogs following Kyoushiro. Then, when Jerome was fighting Hougen, Jerome was thrown into a river. Weed rushes to save him, and dives into the river. But instead, Jerome sacrifices himself for Weed and drowns, awaiting to meet his comrades again. Soon after being saved by his friends, Weed has a one-on-one fight with Hougen. 

Weed uses Battouga on Hougen. But Hougen, still alive, immensely wounds him. Weed almost gives up until the spirits of the deceased Ohu soldiers come to his aid, giving him strength. Weed then uses Battouga on Hougen once more. He almost misses, but with the help of the wind, he was able to hit Hougen successfully, finally cracking his skull and squeezing his eye.

Unfortunately, Hougen survives, but is heavily wounded. When he was given a chance to, Weed refuses to kill Hougen, so Gin takes down Hougen and almost kills him. Weed pushes him away and lets Hougen live. Gin, seeing this, declares Weed as the new leader of Ohu. Hougen isn't touched by this at all and gets struck by lightning to death, showing that Weed was accepted as a true leader.

After this, spring begins and Weed is seen in a field of flowers. He then thinks he sees Jerome watching him for a moment but to only vanish by peddles of a cherry blossom tree. Then he hears Mer and the other dogs calling to him, and Weed turns and runs off to join his friends.

Ginga Densetsu Weed manga

The fight with Hougen

Weed was born in the Northern Alps and is a younger brother of Yukimura and Joe. At a young age, the older brothers, Yukimura and Joe, are given away to a traveling dog named Saheiji, as their mother Sakura was too weak to take care for all three of them. 

Weed pup

Sometime later, she dies of illness, and in a last wish, she asks the stray English Setter, GB to take her one son to Ohu, where his father is. GB was the one that gave Weed his name, so he'll never be alone. And so they started a journey towards the Ohu mountains to find his father Gin, the great Leader of Ohu.

When Weed arrives to Ohu, he first has to challenge and defeat the beast Kaibutsu who is terrorizing his father's land. The fight tests Weed's skills and awakens the bear-hound blood he has inherited from his father. He meets the German shepherd, Jerome, an assassin dog trained to kill Kaibutsu, and they become great friends.

After the death of Kaibutsu, he meets the old Kishu, Akame, who tells him of his father who has been captured by Hougen. Weed now starts his journey to find more dogs who can help him defeat Hougen and his soldiers. On the way, he meets many new friends, but also many new and old enemies.

In the final battle against Hougen, Weed finally meets his father Gin. Weed fights Hougen but gets wounded badly and just as he is about to give up, he gets help from the spirits of the dead soldiers of Ohu. Weed then makes his final attack, the Zetsu Tenrou Battouga towards Hougen. He doesn't kill Hougen but lets him live (which Hougen later gets shot by the retired policeman, Shouji Sudou.)

The Monkeys

Weed sees a dream which implies he may have siblings. He travels to the Northern Alps with GB, Kyoushiro and Sasuke, but stops in Gunma as they get involved with the fight between Shōgun's macaques and Yukimura's dogs. Weed decides to help Gozaru and the other good macaques to defeat the evil Shōgun. He and Yukimura gather their forces together and attack Shōgun. They win the fight but at a bitter victory, Yukimura dies and Saheiji reveals to Weed that he was his brother.

The Russian Army

Weed returns to Ōu where he meets a female named Koyuki. He quickly falls in love with her and together they enjoy the springtime in Ōu. However, Koyuki's owner wishes to use her as a breeding dog and Koyuki is sent away. Weed follows and frees her from her human. He takes Koyuki back to the Northern Alps where he was born and they visit his mother, Sakura’s grave.

Shortly after, Rocket arrives and tells Weed about a German shepherd named Victor, who has killed Hakuro, the old friend of Gin, and is holding Weed's friend, Jerome, captive. However, Weed doesn’t want to leave Koyuki and doesn’t take action until Kotetsu and GB appear. Weed then leaves Koyuki in care of Kotetsu, while he and GB travel to Hokkaido to aid Jerome and help his father.

Hybrid Bear arc

Victor is defeated. Weed and his pack travel south along with Koyuki and Kotetsu. There, Weed meets a dog that looks remarkably like him. The dog happens to be Weed's brother, Joe. Joe has a son and fights with Weed often because he is very angry with Gin for leaving Sakura unattended in the Alps, unknown to the fact that Gin was unaware why Sakura left. 

Joe also gets attacked by a large bear and gets three scars, similar to Gin's, on his forehead. When Weed asks why Joe hates the bears so much, Joe says that the bears, called hybrids (a hybrid between a grizzly and supposedly a polar bear) killed his mate, Hitomi. Every dog tries their best to kill the numerous hybrids. 

GB works up his courage and manages to wound and cut off the finger of one of the bears, but the bear claws GB in the back two times and GB dies saving Weed, who is about to get crushed by the bear's claws, saying, " I'm scared. I'm going to die, but at least this way I died saving you." Weed's pupils get remarkably small as GB breathes his last breath, and screams he will avenge him.

The final fight against the hybrid bear was long and hard; when Weed used a battouga on the hybird bear, both the bear and Weed fell into the river which leads to the huge dam. Jerome and the other dogs went in search for Weed at the river until they found that the hybrid bear was already dead as it had drowned from having its body stuck at the floodgate while Weed himself was missing. However, it turned out that Weed was still alive when he was hiding at the rocks and a young boy was taking care of him by feeding him.

When Weed had recovered from his injuries, Weed headed back to Ohu by himself and he saw that not only his friends were waiting for him, but that his mate, Koyuki, was also pregnant. Two months later, Koyuki gave birth to four puppies (three sons and one daughter) thus making Weed a proud father for the newer legends.

Ginga Densetsu Weed: Orion

Being a father

In this new story, Weed and his pack face their new danger - violent earthquakes and erupting volcanoes had threatened Ohu. Weed helped Kyoushiro save Mel from a tree that had collapsed on top of him but vansihed afterwards. He is now staying with a human in a village with Koyuki. His front left leg is in plaster but he is able to see Mel and Kyoushiro as they are in the same village. 

Weed is visited by his family after they escape the shed, but is unable to leave due to his bad leg. Orion and Sirius visit them a few times but when they don't return for a while, Weed and Koyuki grow worried. Weed manages to get the bandage off, revealing his leg is still bruised but otherwise healed and he leaves Koyuki in the care of her owners while he makes his way back to the mountains to find his family.

When he arrives he finds Akakamakiri being attacked and rescues him. Akakamakiri thinks Weed is Sirius and begins to cry but soon realizes who he is. Weed leaves him to continue looking when he runs into Masamune and his army. Weed is ambushed by his group but evades them before being attacked by Masamune. Masamune knocks Weed out briefly but Weed wakes up and shoves the dog aside, escaping battle as his family is his top priority.

Later, he finds his children fighting Masamune and watches as Orion unleashes a Battōga on the dog. Weed scolds Orion for disobeying his orders, meaning to leave Masamune alive as he believes killing him is not right. Orion begins to leave in anger but is stopped by the arrival of Andy and Kurokamakiri. Masamune then commits suicide rather than die by the wound given to him by Orion. With the threat over, Weed reunites with his family.

Ginga: The Last Wars

A half a year has passed since the death of Masamune, and Weed has sent his children away to train at the Akame Mountains. Weed travels with some of his pack and comes across two dead dogs, killed by Monsoon.

Monsoon's Kin attacking Weed

Just as Weed is inspecting one of the bodies, he is attacked from behind by the bear. Weed is slashed across the shoulder, head and neck by the bear, critically injuring him. He falls unconscious and is carried to safety by Ken.

Meanwhile, Gin and the others hear Tesshin howling for help and send Rocket. Weed is safely taken to Gin and stays with him as the rest of the dogs gather, including those who were injured by the other bears.

When the rest of the dogs gather, Daisuke Fujiwara lands in a helicopter nearby and takes Weed and George away for medical treatment along with Hidetoshi Sekiguchi. At the vet, Weed is being stitched up by a nurse whilst Hidetoshi checks on George, who is put under sedation after he growls at him.

Weed isn't recovering well

Even under constant care from Daisuke and Hidetoshi, Weed does not recover very well at all and his heartbeat is very fast. Daisuke checks on Gin and George, who still barks until Gin tells him to be quiet. Although Weed is struggling to recover, he mentally promises his family he won't die. Weed remains in the care of Daisuke, and is still on an oxygen mask.

Quotes

"If you kill just because you can't forgive, wars will never end!"
- Weed to the Ohu army. ^{Ginga Densetsu Weed, episode 26}

"Life is precious... every life. I don't need fighters who despise life."
- Weed to Jerome, after he kills the Foxhound Spies. ^{Ginga Densetsu Weed, volume 18}

"I do not fear death! It's just I can't stand it when somebody sacrifices themselves for me!"
- One of Weed's thoughts. ^{Ginga Densetsu Weed, volume 18}

"Everyone has a pure heart at birth. The conditions can make us grow in the wrong direction."
- Weed to Kotetsu. ^{Ginga Densetsu Weed, volume 36}

"My friends are in danger because of my selfishness..."
- Weed to GB during the invasion of the Russian Army Dogs. ^{Ginga Densetsu Weed, volume 42}

"Father, Koyuki... Orion, Sirius, Rigel, Bella... I won't die here."
- Weed's thoughts as he lays on the operating table ^{Ginga: The Last Wars volume 5}

Trivia

Weed received his name by GB who took inspiration from the surrounding plants. He claimed Weed would never be alone and would always have friends by his side, just like the plants growing around him.

See more pictures in Weed (Photo Gallery).