Doji

''This is an article about the anime character. For the manga counterpart of the same name, see here.''

Doji (大道寺, Daidouji) was one of the main antagonists of the anime and manga series, Beyblade: Metal Fusion. He was an enemy of Gingka and the former leader of Dark Nebula who had Ryuga. He used to own Dark Wolf DF145FS. Doji seeked the power of the "Forbidden Bey", Lightning L-Drago 100HF.

Doji and Ryuga were the ones who invaded Koma Village, Gingka's hometown, and stole the Forbidden Bey Lightning L-Drago from it. Being the head of Dark Nebula, and having Ryuga on his side, he arranged the Battle Bladers tournament in order to give Ryuga more power so they could eventually rule the world. This plan backfired when Ryuga used the dark power of L-Drago and attacked Doji; sucking most of the life energy within him for L-Drago and left him waiting for death.



Despite this major health damage, Doji would not give up and started to wear a long coat that covered himself, a top hat, an artificial leg, and a walking cane due to the attack he suffered at the hands of L-Drago. As a result, he found Rago and the Nemesis Bladers and brought them to Pluto as he made his ultimate return in Beyblade: Metal Fury, only to die once again due to Ryuga's new Special Move.

Doji finally returned in the Shogun Steel anime in A New War, but this time, he was apparently revived by Merci. He was converted to light energy stored within the Hades computer system. His new form poses as a threat to the WBBA and the future of beyblading.

Appearance
Doji appears to be a wealthy businessman. With a pair of hexagonal shaped glasses, a purple suit and a red tie, he passes off as an intelligent, wealthy young man. He keeps a comb in his chest pocket and is seen in many episodes using it only to comb his golden streak in his hair, which he appears to love.

In Metal Fury, Doji's appearance changes considerably. Instead of glasses, he now wears a monocle while his other eye is covered by hair and has a scar passing through it. He now needs a cane for walking. His clothes seem more old-fashioned than his previous ones - he wears a long grey coat and a frilly white cravat. His hair has changed from black into a lighter grey.

His hologramm looks in the Zero G version shifts back to the first season design, implying this is how he still wishes to be seen.

Personality
Doji is a person who never really gets serious even if his enemies were strong such as Gingka. He is also a person who doesn't like to show his real power, especially not to children. Doji is extremely cruel, often punishing members of the Dark Nebula by "feeding" their power to Lightning L-Drago 100HF. He is never one to give up on his goals and desires, as he uses his intellect to get ahead of his enemies. He always speaks in a polite manner, even to his enemies, but there's no mistaking the arrogance in what he says. He'll frequently access people as 'my friend' in a condescending manner. Generally, he appears to never accept people as being on his level.

As shown in Metal Fury, Doji has a habit of taunting those who oppose him. In episode 141, he even goes so far to anger Ryuga by making note of him helping Gingka, as well as degrading him to a mere pawn in Hades Inc's plan. It's a form of manipulation, as he clearly nows this will cause Ryuga to immediately stop any cooperation with the other Legendary Bladers. Doji appears to take great enjoyment of taunting Ryuga, as he laughs hysterically at the Dragon Emperor's reactions. He has even done this to Gingka back in Metal Fusion when he "awakened" Lightning L-Drago.

Socially, Doji keeps his distance (Yu was the only one who had the potential to form a friendship with him.) He only associates with those who can be of use to him. Powerful bladers like Ryuga and Rago deserve the upmost respect, in his mind. Although Doji doesn't get close to others, he has the ability to "play others emotions like a piano". This is shown in episode 3 or Metal Fusion when he agitates Kyoya to the point where he bets on his free will. He also does this in Metal Fury to Ryuuga in order to mess up the Zeus Barrier.

In private, he has a conflicted relation with his own interests. He claims to 'hate cacti so much that he can't think about anything else'. The true reason for this, as Doji further describes, is that they are so pricky that he can't hug them. This sort of utter obsession with things he can't have seems to be a large part of his character motivation. In the anime version of Zero G, he is especially driven by this - given he is physically dead, he can't havy any form of physical sensation which he now misses terribly.

History
Not much is known about Doji's past. The only scene involving Doji was the event in which Ryuga obtained the "Forbidden Bey", Lightning L-Drago 100HF. Doji most likely found out where it was and lead Ryuga to Koma Village - The Beyblade Village where Gingka grew up in. He was seen helping Ryuga reach the Bey by launching his Dark Wolf against the traps and even Gingka's father, Ryo Hagane. It was most likely his decision to place Ryuga in a coma until Lightning L-Drago 100HF could awaken to it's full potential. At that point, Doji was loyal to Ryuga as he wanted to train him and L-Drago. However, it was revealed later that raising Ryuga was only meant for using him for Hades Inc's grand plan.

Beyblade: Metal Fusion
After Gingka Hagane left Koma Village on his quest, Doji kept a low profile as he waited for L-Drago's power to awaken. He began making small negotiations with the Face Hunters, including their leader, Kyoya Tategami. Refusing to make an agreement with him without a fight, Kyoya challenges Doji to a beybattle, promising to do whatever he is told if he loses. Despite the weather conditions being in Kyoya's favor, his lack of skills lead to his defeat, forcing him to keep his promise. Doji was the one to offer Dark Bull H145SD, Benkei Hanawa's current beyblade to him in order to defeat Gingka, which Benkei fails to do. After Kyoya is again defeated by Gingka, Doji shows up, revealing himself to be behind it all. He invites Gingka and his friends to the Dark Nebula Castle, where he awaits them. Once they arrive, he orders Merci to initiate many traps in store for them, causing Gingka to face him alone. A battle sparks between the two, causing Ryuga to awaken from his coma. Doji loses, but this fails to faze him. He oversees Ryuga and Gingka's battle, knowing that Storm Pegasus 105RF isactually feeding power to L-Drago. Gingka loses, and Doji reveals that it was Gingka himself that helped L-Drago awaken, causing the boy to fall in shame. Ryuga's awakening causes Doji to appear less often, usually spending time in his office overseeing battles. He did, however, find Yu Tendo, hired him and sent him off to the Survival Battle, which he wins in. As a reward for winning the Survival Battle, the WBBA grants whatever wish the winner chooses to grant. Yu, as instructed to do, asks for Battle Bladers to become possible. The crowds shout in approval for this wish. As Blader DJ willinglyagrees to this, Doji shows up in a helicopter, revealing that not only will his organization sponsor it, but he will also become Master of Ceremonies, granting him the power to do whatever he wishes with the tournament. Both him and Yu agree to only allow bladers with 50000 beypoints entry into the tournament. After making their announcement, Doji, Yu and Ryuga take their leave, despite Gingka's great disapproval. On the helicopter ride back, Doji reveals to Yu that he didn't think Battle Bladers would have been possible without him. He didn't believe there were worthy enough bladers to be Ryuga's food. Doji spends all of his time in his office, sometimes with Yu as they await the beginning of Battle Bladers. During this time, he recruits many new members of Dark Nebula, including Tsubasa Otori, Tetsuya Watarigani, Tobio Oike, Ryutaro Fukami and Reiji Mizuchi. He makes use of a machine to upgrade light wheel beyblades to metal wheel ones. Examples of this are Dark Gasher CH120FS and Evil Gemios DF145FS. As the Battle Bladers comes closer, Tsubasa gets caught after attempting to send much needed information to Gingka and his friends. He defeats all of the Dark Nebula's lower class bladers but Ryuga shows up just in time to battle him. Just when Ryuga performs him final spin move, the mysterious Phoenix saves him and escapes. This causes Doji to become agitated, but interested in the masked blader. He even tracks down his hiding place, only to find he's too late. However, his findings give him an idea of who exactly Phoenix is behind the mask. Battle Bladers begins, giving Doji an active role again. He kick starts the tournament with an opening speech, leading to Benkei Hanawa and Tobio Oike's battle. After the first round, Doji, unsatisfied with the Dark Nebula's string of defeats, sends the losers to Ryuga to become food. Yu, among these, battles Reiji for a "warming up". Flame Libra T125ES and Yu himself suffer great damage, but he manages to escape, surprising both Doji and Reiji.

The Master of Ceremonies exercises his right to change the order of who battles who, which angers Gingka and his friends. Anyone failing to follow his rules will be disqualified, he says. From there until episode 46, he oversees the battles. Beginning at episode 46, he successfully captures Yu and invites Kenta Yumiya and Hyoma to try to stop him, knowing that they will so that he can give more food to Ryuga. As expected, the two arrive, causing Doji and Dark Nebula bladers to take action. Kenta reaches a room with a crystal chandelier, where he meets with Doji. They battle for only a short while, as Kenta was using a stolen light wheel bey. Right when Wolf goes for the kill, Hyoma's Rock Aries ED145B sends Dark Wolf away, but this only starts a battle between Aries and Wolf. Doji, knowing that Hyoma doesn't have as much power as he started with, tires him out. Just when Hyoma is ready to give in, Kenta launches his greatly damaged Flame Sagittario C145ES at Dark Wolf, placing a chip in between the metal wheel in the process. Doji, seeing this as an act of desperation, performs his spin move on both beys. He defeats both Kenta and Hyoma, who are on the floor. Right before he goes to take them, Phoenix interrupts, appearing out of nowhere. This angers Doji greatly, for this was the second time Phoenix interfered. Despite this, Doji calmly and confidently challenges him to a battle, determined to defeat him once and for all. Strategically, Doji doesn't show his true power until Phoenix proves that he will require it. He sends both Phoenix and his beast under a black hole of darkness. When he almost had them finished, Phoenix reappears out of the hole, sends Burning Firestrike straight for Flame Sagittario C145ES chip wedged in the Dark wheel and cracks Wolf's facebolt in the center. This sends Doji across the room and the impact sends the crystal chandelier on him.

In episode 48, Doji breaks free from the crystals. He becomes crazed for Ryo Hagane's defeat, claiming that he will defeat him, even with his damaged Dark Wolf. On his way out of the Dark Nebula building, he runs into Ryuga. Ryuga says he has no need for frightened people as Doji was concerned that he wasn't powerful on his own to defeat Gingka. Unfortunately, Ryuga thought Doji didn't think he was powerful on his own and launched L-Drago out. Doji launched his shattered Dark Wolf, and Doji loses. L-Drago then takes all the power out of Doji, his soul included. After L-Drago was completely defeated, Doji's soul, like everyone else's souls, was placed back to his body.

Beyblade: Metal Masters
It was revealed by Dr. Ziggurat that Doji was sent to retrieve Lightning L-Drago 100HF, raise Ryuga and release their power to take over the world. Dark Nebula was created for the sole purpose of using Ryuga. Dr. Ziggurat was behind the entire operation, revealing himself to be Doji's boss and Dark Nebula's real owner, HD Academy.

Beyblade: Metal Fury
After being absent for one whole season, Doji finally returned in Metal Fury but in a damaged state due to his assault by Lightning L-Drago. Doji found Rago and the Nemesis Bladers and brought them to Pluto at the mystic ruins, to show his loyalty to Nemesis. He officially reveals himself to the Legend Bladers in episode 140. He mentions that he had been working for Hades Inc the whole time and that all of the event prior had lead up to Nemesis' return as planned. Him and Pluto are working together to bring the return of Nemesis to destroy the world. However, when Ryuga is facing Nemesis, he is knocked back by an explosion, falling off a cliff and assumingly dies again.

Beyblade: Shogun Steel
While he is physically dead, it is revealed that Merci has preserved his body long enough to be able to create a digital version of his personality. United with Merci's system, Doji has secretly been pulling the threads of the DNA organization - even the name stands for 'Dark Nebula Again'.

After the finale of Neo Battle Bladers, he stops to let Merci do all the talking and appears as a holographic version of himself. He kidnaps Gingka and gathers all the protagonists at the DNA headquarters for a final battle. After Kira loses against Zyro, Doji enters a robot body he had prepared. It first appears more like a giant beetle, but then transforms into a mega-sized beyblade. After this bey-version of Doji is defeated by Gingka and Zyro, it starts malfunctioning. Determined to not let them win over him, Doji throws himself down a hole in the building, causing an explosion that destroys the entire head quarters. Before this, he states that Gingka and the others would not be there to see the 'future of beyblading' which they speak about.

Ryuga
Doji and Ryuga worked hand in hand since they had raided Koma Village, stolen the Forbidden Bey and defeated Ryo Hagane. They both followed a plan to unleash L-Drago's true power upon the world, which ultimately backfired in the end. Doji set up Battle Bladers in order to get plenty of strong bladers together for the purpose of feeding power to L-Drago. Doji's efforts greatly powered up the Forbidden Bey since they had stolen it. However, he didn't believe L-Drago was strong enough to defeat Gingka Hagane, even after sending the defeated Dark Nebula members to their misery. This decision causes him to capture Yu, defeat both Kenta and Hyoma and battle Phoenix, only to end in defeat. Ryuga confronts his crazed self, only to find that Doji had been going to extreme lengths to obtain more food for him. Believing that Doji was doing this only because he thought L-Drago was too weak, Ryuga breaks Dark Wolf in half, taking Doji's soul in the process.

Doji's return in Metal Fury only made their relationship worse. As revenge for the damage L-Drago had done, Doji degrades Ryuga for helping Gingka out. He plays with the L-Drago user's emotions as if he knows exactly what's going on in his head. By doing this, he was able to make Ryuga leave Zeus's Barrier, causing Nemesis to awaken. However, Doji wasn't done toying with Ryuga yet, as he continues to taunt him for being used for the plan. This angers Ryuga greatly, turning his initial disgust for Doji into pure hatred. And then died soon after Ryuga's and Rago's battle.

They both seem to see each other as a past they need to put an end to - in Metal Masters Ryuuga faces the HD Academy in order to free himself from his Dark Nebula past and in 4D Daidouji seems to specifically aim for a mental 'win' over Ryuuga, in order to get revenge for the health damage done to him.

Dr. Ziggurat
Dr. Ziggurat didn't reveal himself to be the mastermind behind Doji and Dark Nebula until he brought Ryuga to HD Academy. Dr. Ziggurat and Doji most likely had a boss/employee relationship, although conversations between them were never seen in the anime. He was responsible for sending Doji to find the Forbidden Bey, bring Ryuga to it, bring him up to his fullest potential and ultimately unleash the power of L-Drago upon the world. The plan backfired, and since then, it is unknown if Dr. Ziggurat and Doji have talked.

Pluto
Now Doji's new boss, Pluto sent him to search for the Child of Nemesis. Near a waterfall, Doji discovers a prison-like cave, where the rightful owner of Diablo Nemesis, Rago and his Nemesis Bladers are found. Certain that he is the one, he takes all four of them with him to the Temple of Pluto. As seen in episode 135, Doji appears to have great respect for Pluto, bowing down to him. The two are working together to serve Rago, bring the return of Nemesis and destroy the world all together.

Yu Tendo
In the beginning, Yu's and Doji's relationship seemed fairly relaxed. It's been shown that Doji even went out of his way to design a huge playing room with a great amount of toys for Yu. He's been fairly lenient for Yu's requests as well and usually let him casually spend time at his office. Doji even attempted to tell Yu about his feelings (concerning cacti, specifically), but it ended up a one-sided monologue, seeing Yu was never interested.

Their fairly good relation immediately changed by the time Yu started being influenced as Ginga and seeing Beyblading as fun. Any friendliness Doji ever showed him vanishd completely, being replaced by the strict cruelty he also displays to other members of the Dark Nebula. It seems as if he saw Yu's change of heart as such as treason.

Beyblades
Dark Wolf DF145FS: In the anime, Doji started out with Dark Wolf instead of Wolf D125B. Dark Wolf is a Balance-Type Beyblade.

Beast/Finishing Moves

 * is the beast inside Doji's Beyblade.

Darkness Howling Blazer: Doji's first and only finishing move is, Doji first used this attack in episode 3. (Anime).

Trivia

 * Doji enjoys drinking orange juice stored in fancy and luxurious wine bottles and wine glasses to "replenish his body with vitamins" and also likes eating dry-cured ham and goat cheese claiming that it is "Mankind's greatest invention."
 * He also has an apparent hatred for cacti, though he secretly loved them.
 * He and Ryuga are the only people from Beyblade: Metal Fusion who didn't show up in the final picture of Blader's Spirit of Beyblade: Metal Fusion.
 * Whenever Doji appears, only one side of his glass is seen which is right and in some episodes, it is seen in the left side.
 * When he removes his eyeglasses during battle, he has a dark aura and his opponent gets captured in a dark bottomless hole as seen with his battle with Phoenix.
 * In Metal Fury he reappears with a scar on the left side of his face. The scar might possibly stem from Lightning L-Drago's attack on him in Metal Fusion. This is further supported as the according eye blacks out the moment he falls in that episode. In 4D the eye is passed by the scar and he only wears a monocle over his other eye. This indicates the scared eye is blind or made of glass, seeing it's no longer in need of seeing ai by clases.
 * In Beyblade Metal Fury, Doji did not obtain and or use a new Bey.
 * Doji has been nearly killed by Ryuga twice. The first being in Beyblade: Metal Fusion when Ryuga sucked-out all of Doji's energy. The second being in Beyblade: Metal Fury when he causes Doji to be thrown off a cliff.
 * In Beyblade: Metal Fury his hair is grey, most likely due to Lightning L-Drago stealing his life force.
 * He resembles Masamune Kadoya, because of which many thought Masamune was his son. It turns out they were not related at all. The only connection they share is that Masamune wears clothes of the brand 'Daido-G' which is a side company of the Dark Nebula. This has been confirmed by Takafumi Adachi on his blog and might only be true for the manga canon.