While walking through Hanamizaka, it is hard not to notice a young man of the oni race named Arataki Itto.
Never mind his horns or piercing voice sticking out like sore thumbs — the sight of him enthusiastically joining in to play childrens' games is enough to set him apart from the crowd.
In any case, his obvious lack of things to do stands in stark contrast to Hanamizaka itself, where craftspeople gather in droves and busy themselves all day long.
Itto claims to be the "first and greatest head of the Arataki Gang," the responsibilities and duties of which he tried to explain to some Tenryou Commission officials when they came to him to investigate a rather harmless street brawl. Unfortunately, they interrupted him not two minutes into the explanation before marking him down as "unemployed."
That designation is not exactly accurate, of course: other than the Gang's activities, which the Shogunate does not acknowledge, Itto does also do some odd jobs to stay solvent, usually working one day before taking three days off.
As such, a more accurate designation should have been "three-quarters unemployed."

Objectively speaking, Itto's reputation leaves much to be desired within Inazuma City.
Even though he is not considered a villain, he is certainly no law-abiding citizen either. If one really had to assign some sort of hazard level to him, then perhaps the level of being used by parents to keep naughty children in line ("If you don't behave, Arataki Itto will come and snatch your snacks away!" for example) might suffice.
That said, unlike threats of "the Great Mujina Youkai grabbing you and taking you deep into the mountains," or "being inlaid upon the Shogun's statue," the scenario threatened here can actually occur.
Still, "snatching" is, again, not accurate, for the fate of these snacks is decided fair and square by ritual combat!
In the eyes of many, winning snacks off kids in competitions is exceedingly shameless, but Itto believes that every battle must be taken seriously, whether one's foe is a 5-year old child or the Almighty Shogun herself.
It is also due to this conviction that Itto can lose to a child without any reservations at all.
And while the adults have much to say about his behavior, the children find Itto the big oni to be a rather good playmate.
He is knowledgeable about all manner of street games and plays them all with great gusto. He also stands up for any who are being bullied.
Lately, the children have been very into Onikabuto battles against Itto.
The rules of this game are simple and the fighting is both fierce and very watchable. Most importantly of all, they actually have a pretty decent chance of winning this one, unlike with other games.

For the longest time, the Tenryou Commission has regarded the Arataki Gang as a group of only occasional troublemakers who do not require that much attention.
This group only has less than 10 regular members and there are many internal disagreements concerning the date of its founding.
Akira believes that it all began when Itto saved him from a few two-bit ruffians. That day, Itto persisted even after having been knocked to the ground 7 times, ultimately causing the punks to back off in annoyance. Helping Akira up from the ground, Itto declared: "Well, guess you're with the Arataki Gang now!"
Genta and Mamoru believe that the Gang was truly founded at the end of a certain year when they all squatted on the outskirts of Inazuma City and roasted Lavender Melons.
That day, not one of them had a single Mora to their name, and they were all very hungry indeed. While gorging himself on a melon, Itto said with a sigh, "We should roast Lavender Melons like this every year!"
That said, neither Genta nor Mamoru thinks that these experiences need much memorializing.
For Kuki Shinobu, the Gang was officially formed the first time she had to drag Itto's sorry behind out of Shogunate gaol, for this was the first time any official records had ever made mention of the Arataki Gang.
As for Itto, he believes that the Arataki Gang existed from the first moment those words entered his mind.
Unfortunately, he no longer remembers when that was.
And as for Granny Oni, who has taken care of Itto since he was young, she believes that the Gang was never formed.
To her, these children are just "Itto and his friends."

The land of Inazuma has been home to the oni race since antiquity.
They existed here alongside the lordly Hakushin kitsune bloodline and the tengu.
Such youkai often have supernatural abilities that humans could only look upon in envy, but the oni lack many special traits in that regard.
Other than the horns on their heads, they are mostly remembered for their explosive tempers and penchant for making trouble.
As for their legendary fear of beans, it has a scientific basis.
As it turns out, oni are allergic to beans. However, because the oni bloodline has thinned out greatly over time, most people display only very minor allergic reactions.
Unfortunately for Itto, his allergies are pretty still pretty severe. Forget eating beans, so long as he makes skin contact with them, Itto will get itchy all over and even find it hard to breathe.
This thus makes beans the only thing that the usually carefree Itto is particularly wary of in his daily life.
For their part, the Arataki Gang members do not order any dishes made with beans, not even in private, as a mark of respect for him.
Of all products made with beans, Itto fears Fried Tofu the most — indeed, even he says that the very sight of it leaves him feeling queasy for three days straight.

And when one mentions Fried Tofu, a certain pyrrhic victory immediately comes to mind.
The battle that caused that incident began as a rather pedestrian conflict: a fox-eared lady had happened to sit in the chair that Itto would customarily sit on while eating at his favorite food stand... and on his payday, no less.
The two began a contest of words over whom the chair belonged to, culminating in a straight-up (unnecessary) battle.
Itto, hungry from a hard day's work, chose an eating contest, while the fox-eared lady chose a theme of "kitsune ramen."
Itto was momentarily at a loss when he realized that said ramen contained Fried Tofu, but with the oni race's pride on the line, he soldiered on gamely en route to victory nonetheless.
And as for that innocent chair, it was ultimately given to Itto as a trophy by the rather mortified owner of the food stand.
Regarding the various contests he has been in, there are two that still weigh on Itto's mind quite heavily.
One of them is the rematch that he demanded of Kujou Sara, who defeated him and took his Vision as part of her duties in the Tenryou Commission.
To this day, the Kujou has not agreed to the street corner sumo match, something that frustrates Itto to no end.
The other incident happened many years ago when Itto was young. Then, he had gotten into an argument with a young tengu, the result of which was a sumo match in the Byakko Plain. Unexpectedly, the ensuing furor sent them both rolling down a mountain.
In the end, it was the tengu who carried Itto, who could not walk after spraining his ankle, all the way home. Of course, the match went unsettled.
Just his luck, Itto often thinks, that both such incidents had to do with tengu!
Also, how on earth were these tengu all so strong despite looking so skinny?

Every oni child has probably heard the story of the Crimson Oni and the Blue Oni:
The gentle, helpful Crimson Oni defeated the wicked Blue Oni, thus winning the respect of the humans.
This was Itto's favorite story when he was young, and he was proud of his red oni horns and his Crimson Oni lineage.
However, this simple pride was shaken by a certain incident.
When incidents of robbery occurred in the village in which Itto lived, the Arataki family fell under suspicion on account of their oni heritage.
Itto no longer remembers the details of that incident, but he remembers the wary, disgusted stares the villagers gave him and his parents as they left, and the parting words they said, which Itto has heard countless times since:
"Once an oni, always an oni."
No matter the time period, all oni are the same as far as humans are concerned. In that case, would it not be better to become the Blue Oni, whom people feared? Surely that was preferable to being like his parents, who were driven out despite having done nothing wrong.
After his parents died of illness, the young Itto was turned out onto the streets, where he would lay into anyone who spoke ill of the oni race.
Well, Itto was mostly the one getting laid into. But he proved quite the pain in the neck, never giving up no matter how many times they knocked him down.
Still, he was only a child and eventually collapsed on the street due to exhaustion and hunger after a terrible round of beatings at the hands of some ruffians who had banded together against him.
At this moment of crisis, Itto was saved by an old human woman.
"Why did you save me? Can't you see that I'm an oni?" "You must be hungry. Come, I've made some porridge."
"I told you, I'm an oni! Can't you see them horns?" "Oh, I can see them. Do you want some of that porridge, by the way?"
"Agh, you know what, you're not listening to me at all. Oh, alright... One bowl of porridge, please." "Coming right up."

As the year was drawing to a close, the Arataki Gang met to discuss how they might celebrate the turnover of the year.
As opposed to more reputable organizations, the Arataki Gang did not have any fixed venues to hold their activities, which posed some... logistical issues.
The Lavender Melon suggestion was quickly eliminated. While roasting melons itself was certainly not an issue, eating only that to celebrate the new year certainly was.
An Onikabuto festival was considered, but the year's end was not mating season, and so the contestants would not be half as motivated as they usually were.
Ultimately, lots were drawn, and the "Great Singalong" was selected.
This activity was suggested by Itto himself, and it entailed everyone standing on a cliff and singing against the ocean wind to express their innermost feelings and well-wishes for the future.
The various gang members actually rejected this in their hearts when they found out about it. After all, screaming into the wind was nowhere near as fun as eating melons. Kuki Shinobu even indicated that she would like to take leave to return home on that day.
However, the event went through nonetheless. The yelling and hollering were indeed quite soothing for the soul — and as things unexpectedly turned out, Itto was quite the good singer as well.

Itto's Vision was something he found under his hip after waking up one morning. By that point, he had already been in Hanamizaka for many a year, and his livelihood was at least somewhat stable.
"Well I never! Dad, Mom, Gramps, Granny, and Granny Oni, this... Now isn't this something?"
These were Itto's real thoughts as he first looked upon his Vision.
That day, he would excitedly show his Vision to every person he met, even showing people where it had made an indentation on his back until everyone was thoroughly sick of hearing the story.
A few days later, however, the story would change a little:
"Now as you know, I wasn't surprised at all when I first saw that Vision. I mean, you'd expect as much out of the first and greatest head of the Arataki Gang, after all!"
"More importantly, a person's worth isn't something that can be determined by a mere Vision, oh no, sir!"
The keen-eyed, however, would notice that Itto had bought a very soft spectacle cloth.
Also, a certain question showed up in the advice column of the "That's Life" magazine that went like this:
"Ms. Hina, how should I best take care of my Vision and make it shinier? And when I say 'shinier,' I mean shinier than everyone else's, of course!"
When gang members read this and excitedly showed the magazine to Itto, they were surprised to see the long-time fan of Ms. Hina just look at the mag casually before laying it aside.