Katsuo was the leader of a young gang of orphans. Even though, at first, they didn't always listen to him, his determination and charisma inspired them onwards, getting them into - and out of - plenty of trouble. It was his idea to escape their dull lives by becoming a combat team. In the back-alley battles they took part in, his pretty-boy looks either made him a joke, which he stoically withstood, or had him mistaken for a girl, which could inspire a rare loss of control. His skills in combat made up a lot for that embarrassment, though, and after a few wins, people stopped laughing at him.

Growing up, watching TV on the old black-and-white POS that Hallstein had fixed up from out of the garbage, he always loved the Saturday Samurai and Kung Fu movies. He idealized the cool, calm tenacity of the eastern warriors, and identified especially with the homeless, wandering monks.

Katsuo is confident, relaxed, and always in control. He's had to grow up trying to keep a rein on Brittany, after all, so there's very little that can really upset him ... other than Brittany, of course. Now that they're at the academy, in safe environs, he's rarely around his friends anymore, preferring to get out and meet new people and new friends, and to make new connections.

Katsuo's fighting style is to use the hilt of a sword to make a blade of flame. He uses this flame blade for his cutting attacks, as well as for the focus for his fire blast attack. He tends to move at incredibly fast speeds, whether wearing his opponent down from range, or moving in close for a half a second's decisive strike.

Like the rest of his rat-pack mixed-species 'family', he was let into the PCA on scholarship, when they were found bloodied and unwilling to give up even when horribly outclassed in a back-alley fight. Katsuo fully intends to pay back every cent of the scholarship funded to them.