Vassago Casals (in Japanese: ヴァサゴ・カザルス, Vasago Kazarusu), better known by his online handle PoH (in Japanese: プー, Pū), is the secondary antagonist of the light novel franchise Sword Art Online, as well as its anime and manga adaptation. Being the secondary antagonist for the Aincrad arc, and the second half of the Alicization arc. He also appeared as the main antagonist in the video game Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment.
PoH is the leader of the Red Guild Laughing Coffin and one of the 10,000 Players who were trapped in Sword Art Online. His guild was later destroyed by a large force of clearers, but he was neither killed, nor captured during the crusade.
In Japanese, he was voiced by Tsuyoshi Koyama in the anime and the late Keiji Fujiwara (who also voiced Mewtwo, Esidisi in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Axel in the Kingdom Hearts series, and Vladmir Makarov in the Japanese dub of the Call of Duty franchise) in Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment. In English, he was voiced by Xander Mobus (who also voiced Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki and Shizuma Hoshigaki) in the Naruto franchise.
Appearance[]
Like the other members of Laughing Coffin, he wears a hooded cloak of dark color covering his face one a shadow, and he wields a kitchen knife dagger Chinese type, called Mate Chopper, but simply know as axe of kitchen. Kirito recalls that PoH had an appearance of a handsome man.
Persona[]
Vassago is a cold, sadistic, cruel and mostly calm man that spreads the thought of how many players he really killed by the NerveGear HP engine when a player reaches 0 just look at him, the designer of the mechanism, Kayaba Akihiko, would be the real culprit of the murder as well as Vassago and other red players, they were just one of the things Kayaba created when he arrested more than 10,000 players in SAO, so players had the right to kill other players, it also served to enjoy the game as much as normal players and maniacs killers who also killed several people indiscriminately.
Vassago is also a man with a cool head, barely ever losing patience, he analyses the situation rationally, either normal or in combat, as when he stopped the emotional Johnny Black to hear Kirito before taking any action and ordered his men to withdraw when he learned that Kirito had asked the help of 30 players from the sappers, as well as having drunk one antidote potion ahead and bring many healing crystals with him. He also has a dangerous fixation on Kirito, both because he finds Kirito's ideals of hope and solidarity, which are antithetical to his own, which are sickening to him, but because he also resembles his Japanese half-brother, whom he utterly loathes. Because of this twisted hatred, he not only desires to kill Kirito but destroy the foundations of his motivation and beliefs - such as enticing players to kill one another by playing on their inherent bigotry and distrust, killing Kirito's friends and wiping out all of the inhabitants of Underworld in a bloody massacre. Vassago is also extremely charismatic and influential. In SAO, he inspires many players into becoming Player Killers and then rallies them together into a single guild known as Laughing Coffin.
Biography[]
Pre-Aincrad Online[]
Vassago was born as an illegitimate child in the Tenderloin District in San Francisco by a Japanese man and a Mexican woman. Originally the product of an unwanted pregnancy as his father paid his mother for sex during his stay in the US, his mother wanted to have an abortion but his father persuaded her not to as he hoped that the child would serve as a kidney donor for his real son, who has been suffering from a congenital kidney defect. As his mother never wanted to have him to begin with, she decided to name him after the devil but US naming laws would not allow such demeaning names to be given to children, so she chose to name him Vassago, a demon from the Ars Goetia known as the "Prince of Hell".
His relationship with his parents was non-existent. His mother hated him and verbally abused him, and his father only occasionally checked in for his health and provided just the bare minimum of child-rearing funding to make sure he was healthy enough to act as a donor. At fifteen years of age, Vassago learnt about his father's plans to use him as a donor. Desiring to get away from his abusive mother, he had no choice but to give in to his father's demands and follow him to Japan to start his life anew. However, Japan's legal procedures for international adoptions were strict and highly bureaucratic and time-consuming. Even if he was adopted he would not be able to receive the status of resident and thus faced the risk of deportation. With minimal prospects, an onerous legal system that made residency difficult, and deportation back to the US looming, Vassago had no choice but to turn to the criminal underworld.
Upon entering the criminal underworld, Vassago joined a Korean-based crime syndicate. The syndicate provided him a false ID and trained him to become a hitman. By the time he was twenty years old, he had completed nine hits for the syndicate. The tenth hit was a rather unique one: he was to infiltrate a VRMMORPG called Sword Art Online, a virtual reality that had trapped nearly ten thousand players in a death game just days prior. The objective of thie tenth hit was to kill a target who is trapped in the game. This is because the target was too heavily guarded to kill in the real world and there was no guarantee that he would be killed by the death game he had become trapped in. As the cause of death from dying in SAO was due to the NerveGear firing microwaves to a person's brain, there would be no evidence that it had been a planned assassination, allowing them to get away with it. As the NerveGear headsets has been confiscated by the Japanese authorities, Vassago had to steal one and find a safehouse to elude the authorities, though he would end up being transferred to a hospital upon entering the game. Should someone complete this high-stakes task, they would be rewarded a huge amount of money.
Upon entering Sword Art Online, Vassago created his account with the name PoH, an acronym of "Prince of Hell", derived from the name his mother had given to him. Even though he was tasked to kill a specific player in the game by his employer, his exposure to large amounts of Japanese people caused his negative sentiments born from his strained relationship with his father to metastasize into an outright hatred of East Asians. Thus he used being in Sword Art Online as his opportunity to kill as many players in the games as he could in addition to his assigned target, going on to establish the "Laughing Coffin", the largest and most infamous player killer guild in the game that would go on to kill many players in the game.
Aincrad Online[]
Although PoH plays a big part in the plot of the anime, he only made his first appearance in April 2024, along with two other members of the guild, Red-Eyed XaXa and Johnny Black. They were hired to assassinate Grimlock, Schmitt, Caynz and Yolko, who were all members of his former guild, the Golden Apple, as an attempt to cover up the truth behind the murder of Griselda. Despite the incident, PoH and his companions were prevented by Kirito, who threatened that he had called for reinforcement clearers, making him unable to kill their targets, despite Kirito and PoH they met in face-to-face, nor Kirito at least knew PoH was the leader of the Laughing Coffin.
August 2024[]
In August 2024, the members of Laughing Coffin were defeated by a force of clearers on a crusade, most were arrested, however, because of the battle that had been ambushed by the intelligence of PoH, many members of the Laughing Coffin eventually died what would become known as the largest number of deaths, with more than 30 players killed in a single fight in Sword Art online, against the alliance. However, the guild leader; PoH, was not found in the list of people killed or captured at the end of the battle. Poh's whereabouts are unknown after the battle, because there was no sign of him anywhere. However, he is presumed to be alive, as he was not on the list of dead players and also it is known that he still alive after the end of SAO.
October 2024[]
Some months later after the Alliance's battle against the Laughing Coffin, PoH watched the duel Kirito against Kuradeel in Kamdet, the main settlement on Floor 74, and quietly left after the duel was over.
Sometime later, PoH heard Kuradeel wanted to kill Kirito for revenge, and thus recruited him for what was left of Laughing Coffin, even teaching him to create the poisoned water that inflicted paralysis.
Alicization Arc[]
After Sword Art Online is cleared, Vassago returns to the real world. Being denied the payment for having completed his task for his crime syndicate, he murders the boss and flees to the United States. There, he engages in sparring in VR combat with the divisions of the United State military such as Marines, Navy and National Guard, being promoted to instructor. He eventually joins Glowgen Defenses, a private military contractor company specializing in wetwork, where he works alongside Gabriel Miller. Their company is eventually are hired by the NSA to attack RATH's base, the Ocean Turtle, where they tasked with acquiring the Soul Translator technology and the Light Cube of Alice Zuberg, the only known Fluctlight to have successfully become an A.L.I.C.E.
Vassago along with Glowgen assault the base and capture the main control room, but are locked out from the Light Cube cluster. So there only option is for some of their members to enter the Underworld themselves, capture Alice, and have her forcibly exit the Underworld so her Light Cube would be ejected. However due to having restricted access, they are forced to spawn in the Dark Territory, where Vassago uses the account of a Dark Knight. Gabriel, using the superaccount Emperor Vecta, orders the Dark Territory forces to invade the Human Empire and find Alice.
However, Vassago soon grows bored of standing around and waiting in the throne room, so Gabriel allows him to go off and have fun. Vasago sneaks into the Human Empire camp and gleefully kills several guards and attempts to ambush Ronye, but gets spotted. He and Ronye duel one another, to which Vassago notices how familiar her sword style is, due to her being mentored by Kirito. Ultimately Vassago triumphs over the girl and is second from killing her, before he is interrupted by the timely arrival of Asuna logging into the Underworld with the superaccount Stacia the Goddess of Creation. Asuna uses her power of landscape terraforming to cause a chasm that separates the Human Empire and Dark Territory forces. She also creatEs a deep hole underneath Vassago, to which he plummets down and his Dark Knight account dies, but not before he gets a look at Asuna's face and recognizes her from SAO as the Vice Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath.
After returning to the real world, Vassago seeks to return to the Underworld again knowing that Asuna (and likely) Kirito were present there. Vassago decides to log back in using his old SAO account where he once again dons his PoH avatar. Soon after Critter sends foreign players from other countries (China, Korea, and America) into the Underworld, using a fake ad that advertises it as a new VR game and giving them the accounts of red soldiers. Vassago then pretends to be an administrator and announces that the Japanese players have hacked the server, so rallies the foreign players to kill the Japanese players.
Upon coming face-to-face with Asuna and the other heroes, Vassage orders for Kirito to be brought out before him. Vassago is disappointed to find that the great Kirito was reduced to an empty comatose shell. He tries to awaken Kirito by beating him and cutting him with his blade, but his attempts get interrupted by a player named Moonphase (in the anime this is changed to Eiji Nochizawa) who attacks him. While fighting valiantly, ultimately Vassago kills the young man, sending him back to the real world.
While some players begin seeing through Vassago's ruse, he plays upon their hatred of the Japanese players to reignite their aggression. In the anime, this is changed to Vassago using his Incarnation to spread to incite a bloodlist among all the foreign players, where they start blindly attacking everything in sight. So Asuna, having her Incarnation empowered by Yuuki's spirit, fights Vassago and manages to damage him so bad he is left with a hole in his torso. Vassago only manages to survive thanks to Mate Chopper absorbing all the spatial resources to restore his Life.
Before Vassago goes in for the kill, Kirito finally reawakens from his coma and fends him off. Kirito uses the Blue Rose Sword to perform a Perfect Weapon Control and freezes Vassago and all the foreign players in ice. However Vassago breaks out of the ice, delighted that Kirito has awoken, finally able to engage in the long-awaited fight with his greatest adversary. Vassago continually mocks Kirito, attempting to goad him into killing the foreign players, stating it was the only way to ensure they wouldn't break out and kill Kirito's friends. With assistance from Eugeo's spirit, Kirito restores the Blue Rose Sword and instead logs them out of the Underworld, ensuring that none of them would suffer.
Vassago also discovers to his horror, that his Mate Chopper is no longer absorbing spatial resources, due to Kirito's Night Sky Sword doing a better job at it. The two SAO survivors continue to duel, where eventually the Mate Chopper sustains too much damage and shatters, leaving Vassago vulnerable to a direct strike from Kirito's sword. However the dying Vassago taunts Kirito that even if he kills him in the Underworld, he would continue pursuing him in the real world. So Kirito refuses to ever let Vasago logout of the Underworld, instead using the Night Sky Sword to transform him into a tree.
Vassago's Fluctlight ends up getting overwhelmed, leading him to die in the real world too. Critter arrives at the STL room to find the corpses of both Vassago and Gabriel.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
- Incarnation: In the anime, Vassago's Incarnation manifests as a shadowy aura that spreads over the foreign players and causes them to go into a bloodlust and will blindly attack everything.
Skills[]
- Assassination skills: Vassago is stated to have a talent for killing, having found work as a professional killer in the real world.
- Master swordsman: Vassago is one of the top players of SAO, with exceptional swordsmanship able to match some of the best swordsman like Kirito and Asuna. He duels very evenly against the both of them in the Underworld.
- Charisma: During his time in SAO, he displayed an impressive degree of persuasion as PoH, allowing him to recruit all of the red players to form the Laughing Coffin guild. This carries over into the Underworld, where he is able to rally all of the foreign players into attacking the Japanese players.
Equipment[]
- Weapon: «Mate Chopper» (Large Dagger «Demonic Sword» - boss drop), cursed weapon that absorbs the life of any player it killed to increase its power. This carries over into the Underworld where PoH is able to use it to absorb the Spatial Resources in the area from deceased Underworld residents.
Trivia[]
- Bowser will likely revive him from death or create a clone of him.
- Yoshi and his friends will encounter him in Yoshi's Adventures of Sword Art Online
- Yoshi will learn from Kieran and Kirito about Vassage in Kieran and Yoshi's Adventures of Sailor Moon Cosmos and will learn about the Underworld.