The Dissociative Identity Disorder In Japanese Animation

The dissociative identity disorder also called as multiple personalities disorder. It is a condition which a person has more than one personality or identity state. People with this kind of disorder may feel like there are one or more than two voices trying to take possession of their head and their actions. According to the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2019) It seem that people no matter their racial, ethnic, age and socioeconomic backgrounds could suffer a dissociative disorder.

In the Japanese animation, YuYu Hakusho (1994-1995), Sensui who is one of the antagonists, suffers from dissociative identity disorder. In the animation series, Sensui used to be a spirit detective in his youth, having been recruited by Koenma for his great talents and his sense of right and wrong. The original Sensui personality, before his madness took hold, held an extreme black and white view on the nature of the world. He was as noble as humanly possible to those whom he considered honorable, but was totally heartless with regard to all those who he believed to be evil. This point of view allowed him to kill demons for years, usually quite brutally without feeling even the small signal of regret or guilt. However, this perspective changes drastically when he had to witness a ritual celebration where humans were torturing demons to death for their own pleasure. This behavior of his was finalized when he watched the Chapter Black, which was a visual representation of the human race’s most evil deeds on a video loop known to corrupt those who watch it. This video broke his mind and his sense of justice, watching how corrupt humans can be. As look forward towards then future, Sensui eventually developed dissociative identity disorder which is displayed by the seven different personality who displays throughout the show.

The seven personalities of Sensui are different altogether as they each refer to each as different names when speaking to one another within Sensui’s mind. The personalities are Minoru who is an excellent orator and manipulator. Kazuya represents a violent assassin, Naru is a female with non-violent emotions like compassion, and George is a master all types of weapons with tendencies similar to Kazuya, but wants to be more cynical than insane. Makoto is who do the daily activities related with a home, for example: shopping, cleaning, cooking, driving, etc. and the last one, Hitoshi who cares about animals and plants.