Enishi Yukishiro is a character that I’ve always found to be extremely fascinating, and easily one of my favorite aspects of the story due to his parallels with Kenshin, his mental/emotional state, and his contribution to the stories themes.
Trauma:
The trauma Enishi suffered at such a young age at witnessing Tomoe’s death is one no child, especially not one so young should have to suffer, especially at witnessing the most precious person to him getting killed brutally. This created a deep pain within Enishi, a pain so strong that it changed his hair color to white, and left him with a burning hatred, a hatred that he kept inside of him for 10 years, boiling. This pain that he suffered, caused him to be massively traumatized, and that mixed with his anger made him develop a dangerous mindset that started showing signs of sociopathic and psychotic nature. His anger, made him quickly upset, especially in regards to other people's happiness or at the mention of someone else talking about Tomoe. Meanwhile his due to the trauma he suffered he created hallucinations of Tomoe, and these hallucinations are so real to him that he listens and talks to them in an almost childlike nature, emphasizing that he hasn’t changed at all, in his mind he’s still a child.
The childlike way Enishi reacts to his hallucinations are resembling to that of a child with their parent figure. When he does something and he sees Tomoe smile in his head, he acts like a child who was congratulated by their parent by acting smug and proud, but when he sees Tomoe with a sad expression, he acts angry and confused like a child when his parental figure is upset at him.
Alongside his hallucinations, he was also traumatized to the point where it caused him to become unable to so much as harm a woman who looks even closely to Tomoe, such as when he tried to harm Kaoru. He couldn’t hurt her, the thought of doing it drives him into an incredible amount of pain, and this alongside his childlike mindset and hallucinations are being caused by the trauma he suffered at a young age, which has left him unable to move on from the past.
Anger:
Enishi’s anger is subtly showed throughout the series, and that mixed with his psychotic tendencies makes Enishi very unpredictable and dangerous. He could snap at any moment due to having kept his anger inside of him for so many years, simply boiling and getting more dangerous with only small outbursts before he finally snaps at the final fight against Kenshin. The first sign of this repressed anger is in his first conversation with Kenshin, where Enishi tries to keep a cold and calculated persona as he tries to get inside of Kenshin’s head, before getting in their fight to have an advantage, but then Kenshin says Tomoe’s name, and then the calculated and calm Enishi snaps for a second, and screams off the top of his head, telling Kenshin to not say her name ever again, and in doing this causing his mouth to bleed, before returning to his calm nature.
We get another instance of this deep anger inside him when we get a flashback of when he was a child, living alone and in horrible conditions in China after Tomoe’s death. Afterwards he is taken in by a kind family, willing to give him a new home, but Enishi proceeds to murder them, not because they did anything to him, but rather because seeing them being so happy when he had his entire happiness taken away from him angered him, and thus he killed them.
By now, we have been giving the information to know that inside Enishi, he has a dangerous and unpredictable anger and after having thought that he had Kenshin beat, he tries to imagine Tomoe smiling for him, but instead he envisions her sad. Almost like if in his mind, these hallucinations of Tomoe act like a conscience, and like if somewhere in his mind, he knows what he did was wrong, and knows that Tomoe would think so too. No matter how much he may not realize this himself. Tomoe wants him to move on from the past, and to change, but in causing pain to Kenshin and holding on to the past instead of moving on, she becomes upset. Her emotions being shown through his hallucinations, as if he knows that Tomoe would be upset at him for what he has done, but he never admits it, acting confused and angry at Tomoe for not smiling at him in his hallucinations. There’s something wrong going on inside of Enishi’s mind that makes him such a sad and almost haunting character, and this scene of him going berserk in seeing Tomoe upset is a great example of how messed up Tomoe’s death left him, but it also shows that hidden anger, and even the sadness he feels at her death but we’ll get to the sadness and pain he feels later.
The final showcase of Enishi’s anger comes in form in the final battle, in being unable to imagine Tomoe smile for him he becomes a ticking time bomb ready to go off at any moment, but in finding out Kenshin survived his attempt at defeating him and leaving him for dead, brought Enishi to his limit, he was on the verge of letting loose and snapping completely. In the final battle against Kenshin, that’s exactly what happened, he snapped and in releasing all of his anger he activated an ability that all those years of repressed anger caused, his frenzy nerves and as Saito pointed out, Enishi lost all composure and care for his own well being and was now set on nothing but Kenshin’s death, but alas, he was defeated.
In his defeat, we are told that more than anything, he's really angry at the fact that he unable to protect his sister. In a way, you could look at his Jinchu as a form of atonement for himself, to atone for not having been strong enough to protect his sister on the day she died. Only, his Jinchu is based on revenge and murder, while Kenshin's solution is based around forgiveness and protecting those you love. Tomoe wanted both Enishi and Kenshin to move on, but Kenshin was held back by doubt in his ability to ever find atonement, held back by chains in a way. While for Enishi the mere concept of moving on and changing was completely alien to him, it never crossed his mind. If Kenshin was held back by chains due to his doubt and guilt, then Enishi was completely engulfed in these chains due to revenge and hatred, never even trying to escape the chains that kept him from moving on from the past.
Sadness:
Finally, I want to talk about Enishi’s least talked about but his most subtle aspect, and that is the amount of pain he’s in. Similar to Kenshin, he too feels regret, and he too is deeply in pain, with several panels showcasing the parallels in how both men feel. The story wants you to understand Enishi, and that he isn’t just some cold and sadistic villain like he pretends to be, instead he’s an insanely emotional person, one who’s undergoing the same pain that our main character is, he like Kenshin is a human being who too feels real and genuine sadness over what he cares for. We are shown the anger that he feels from her death, and also the trauma he suffered in our first meeting between Enishi and Kenshin, but we don’t get his first sign of the pain he feels until a little bit before Kenshin tells his friends about his past, we are shown a scene of Enishi by himself, laughing at the thought of unleashing his Jinchuu on Kenshin, acting like a sadistic, cold, and psychotic monster, and then we see him crying. Enishi, this cold killing machine that we’ve been shown up to this point, was crying in just thinking about his sister, and this scene establishes that he too feels a lot of pain in remembering the past.
The next example is of a scene with Enishi and Kaoru. After having realized that he can’t physically harm her, Kaoru makes him soup. Despite everything he’s done to Kenshin, and her friends, she finally understood Enishi. He wasn’t an evil tyrant like Shishio, he was simply misguided, he saw the wrong thing at the wrong time and since then misunderstood everything about what happened during Tomoe’s death, and Kaoru understood this, because she realized that Enishi was feeling the exact same pain that Kenshin was feeling, the pain of losing a woman who mattered so much to both men. She didn’t forgive him, but she did finally understand him, and she wanted to help him move on because of the fact that she recognized the pain he’s in, and out of kindness she makes him soup. When looking at the soup and Kaoru’s act of kindness he remembers when Tomoe who used to cook soup for him when he was younger, and he gives a face of pure sadness and pain that describes everything that he was feeling in remembering the past.
The final moment showcasing this pain was after being unable to imagine Tomoe smile for him in the final battle with Kenshin, which lead to his defeat due to being unable to change and move on from the past, something Kenshin was willing to do and hence Kenshin was able to win. Afterwards however, he does the unthinkable and saves Kaoru due to being unable to witness a woman who looked like Tomoe die, and afterwards Enishi drops to his knees, and begins crying. And here we see the 3 components of his character in effect, the 3 things that are keeping him from moving on. The trauma he suffered at witnessing Tomoe’s death which makes him unable to harm or see a woman who looks like her be harmed, the anger that he feels towards himself for not being strong enough to save her life, and finally the sadness he feels at losing the most important person in his life and he cries over losing her. In the end, Kaoru now understanding what she has to do in order to help Enishi move on from the past, gives Enishi the words of the only person he’ll listen to: Tomoe’s diary and with this Enishi now has a chance at finally being able to move on from the past.
