Kou was, as I said, nine years old. For the first four years of his life, his mother had poured every ounce of love into every moment of his life, until the day came when she burned that tiger into his arm. She never explained why, and she disappeared very shortly after that, leaving her little boy in the care of a pair of green grocers who assumed she was dead. Kou was sure she was not dead, and as his tenth birthday approached, was seized by a compulsion to find her. For you see, she had laid that compulsion. Kou's father was a Gohma, and if she did not meet her son before his birthday (which she did not tell him, or anyone else, when it was), so would he be, no matter what anyone wanted.

The great love of Kou's life was Rin. To him, she was both a replacement for the mother he had lost, and a dream of marriage of his own. He was horrendously jealous of her time, but under her influence, became a gentler, saner boy than he had been before.

He first appeared in Episode 17, and continued to be a major player through 18, 19 and 20, taking a brief break then reappearing in 22 to get his Star Beast. Things were quiet for him until episodes 28 through 30, when our heroes finally found out he was the Kibaranger. And then things were mostly quiet, until the story arc of episodes 42 through 44....