Rise of the Rōnin Guide | How to Unlock Jigoro Kano as Ally

Jigoro Kano in Rise of the Rōnin represents the only character who fights exclusively with unarmed combat techniques and joins your team as an ally. His recruitment requires completing a specific bond mission that becomes available after story progression.

Kano has unique fighting skills that are all based on fighting without weapons and counter-based fighting tactics.

How to Unlock Jigoro Kano

To unlock Jigoro Kano as your ally, you must complete the bond mission "Strength in Softness", which becomes available after completing the "A Show for the Shogun" ronin mission. This bond mission involves both Hirobumi Ito and Aritomo Yamagata, demonstrating the interconnected relationships between multiple characters.

The "Strength in Softness" mission becomes accessible after finishing the tournament-style combat encounters in "A Show for the Shogun." You need to complete the main story mission first, then seek out the bond mission that involves all three characters.

Within the bond mission, there are different goals, fights, and storylines that look at the ties between Kano, Ito, and Yamagata. To make Kano an available partner, the mission's goals must be successfully completed.

During the mission, you will encounter challenges that demonstrate Kano's martial philosophy and his approach to combat that emphasizes technique over raw strength. The mission showcases his unarmed combat abilities and his teaching methods.

Completing all objectives within the "Strength in Softness" mission will make Kano available as a permanent ally for future missions and combat encounters.

Combat Abilities and Equipment

Jigoro Kano never uses guns in his fights; he only uses unarmed fighting methods. His style of fighting is based on nothing but punches, grapples, throws, and defense moves that can be done with your bare hands.

His way of fighting without weapons focuses on speed and skill over weapon-based damage. This lets him attack quickly and defend against defensive moves. This unique way of fighting gives you strategic choices that your weapon-using friends don't have.

His blessing ability specifically enhances unarmed combat effectiveness, but only provides benefits if you choose to engage in bare-handed fighting yourself. The blessing increases ki exchange for any successful unarmed counter or spark techniques you perform during combat.

Kano's gift doesn't help you in real life if you don't use unarmed combat methods yourself. This makes him most useful for players who want to try out different bare-handed fighting styles.

Bond Level Rewards and Combat Training

When your friendship with Jigoro Kano reaches its highest level, he will give you prizes that focus on your physical skills instead of your weapon training. Kano doesn't teach any fighting styles like most of his friends do because he specializes in unarmed methods that don't work in fighting with weapons.

At maximum bond level, Kano grants you two dexterity skill points, which can be invested in the dexterity skill tree to enhance agility, accuracy, speed-based combat abilities, and reaction times during various gameplay situations.

The dexterity skill points prove valuable for improving overall combat effectiveness, movement capabilities, and precision-based activities throughout the game, even if you do not choose to utilize unarmed combat techniques yourself.

The combination of unarmed combat expertise, counter-based blessing enhancement, and dexterity skill point rewards makes Kano most suitable for players who want to explore alternative combat approaches and develop agility-based capabilities while experimenting with bare-handed fighting techniques as a unique gameplay experience.

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