Origami Warriors (Taiwanese translation: Origami Fighters, ) is a Taiwanese comic book created by Jhou Sian-Zong and published by the Ching Win Company. This comic series includes the original series serialized in 1995, published volume in 1996 and 22 volumes in total, then Origami Fighters G published volume in 2003 and 19 volumes in total, and Origami Fighters A published volume in 2019 and 13 volumes in total. It also released two one volume side stories Origami Fighters X (2009) and Origami Fighters F (2014), and two independent short stories Origami Q Fighters (one volume) and Origami Fighters W (digital only, it's full color comic).
An animated adaptation, with significant differences, was created by a Korean studio. Reminiscent of 2000's "monster collecting" anime, including a cast akin to the archetypes that would appear in said shows. An English dub for the adaptation was later made by Vitello Productions, and featured voice actors notable for roles in American cartoons. The dub, however, was scarcely distributed.
Plot Original series The story begins one night, a mysterious archaeologist Dakr Wolf comes to visit Jher's dad, but was attacked by an Origami Fighter who claimed to be a member of Black League, then Dakr also transformed into the Origami Fighter and defeated him. This was the first time Jher and his parents knew about Origami Fighters.
Jher accidentally found an origami manual and some paper left behind by Dakr, and took them to school to share with his friends Lian and Su Dai-Zhi.They summoned the origami spirits, the Flower, Crane, and Dragon spirits, but were chased by an Origami Fighter of Black League. In order to save themselves, Jher made a contract with the Dragon spirit and transformed into the Origami Fighter Red Sky Dragon. Later, Su Dai-Zhi and Lian also transformed into Violet Crane and Yellow Flower Fairy, and Pizi, their classmate and Miss Lyu, their teacher were also involved in the incidents. Then Kuang Long, the son of the chief of Black League also join them.
The purpose of Black League is to rule the world through the power of the Spirit World, where the origami spirits live and the magic of Origami Fighters comes from. Therefore, Jher and the others fight against Black League. However, in the first decisive battle, they were still defeated by the chief of Black League who transforms into Golden Dragon Emperor, and then he went to the Spirit World.
When they woke up a few months later, the world had changed dramatically. A large number of Origami Fighter-turned-monsters appeared on the Earth. They were discovered to have invaded Earth from five ruins around the world. The Black League plan to connect online the Spirit World to the five ruins and trigger the sealing light ball, this will cause large-scale destruction of the ruins and the surrounding areas, with it will also allow the Spirit World to appear on Earth. After a series of arduous battles, Jher and the others successfully traveled from the last ruins to the Spirit World.
They were shocked to discover that the Spirit World is actually located on the moon. The Origami Fighters and related system are actually products of ancient civilization Dragon People Clan. Because the genetic monsters they were trying to create got out of control, they taking the entire Spirit World to the moon and using the heat of the atmosphere to destroy the monsters, however they ended up staying on the moon and becoming extinct. The Black League plan to bring the Spirit World return to the Earth under the guidance of the five ruins, but this will cause the moon to hit the Earth and trigger mass extinction while they only have days left to stop it.
At the same time they accidentally discovered Stunning Color system, the last product left by the Dragon People Clan. Through this system Jher successfully transformed into Stunning Color Sky Dragon. With the help of the United Earth Forces, they successfully restrained Black League. However, because they shut down the power reactor of moon, this gave the eight magic gods (six elemental gods and the Spirit God and Spirit Demon), who were bound by the Dragon People Clan to the Spirit World, the opportunity to merge into one and restore their true giant body and memory, Chaos God, and heading straight towards the Earth.
Despite turning off its power reactor, the moon continues to approach Earth. They could only rely on Jher's dad who transforms into Silver Battle Mouse to use special magic to open the dimensional gate and use gravity to attract the moon back to its original orbit. This eventually led to Jher's parents disappearing into the dimension.
The Chaos God lurked on Earth for a year in order to reshape human civilization. Jher and Kuang Long fight on the front lines, then the others also went to the front lines to support them after obtaining the prototype Stunning Color armors which made by the United Earth Forces. They finally broke through the defense line, approached Chaos God's base, and started a fierce battle with Dark Demon Dragon Emperor, who was the chief of Black League was transformed into a cyborg by Chaos God. Finally Kuang Long sadly hit Dark Demon Dragon Emperor's soul storage device, causing him to lose his soul.
Then Chaos God began to absorb the power of the sealing light ball of five ruins and planned to start transforming the world. After everyone fought hard, Stunning Color Sky Dragon's power awakened, which this system was designed to fight Chaos God, and stopped his plan, but they were also almost completely wiped out. At this moment, many "Chaos Gods" crossed over from the dimensional space and cured Jher and the others. It turns out that they are the spiritual beings from the same dimensional as Chaos God, who is actually a professor and is trying to influence other dimensions with technology, so he is being hunted.
In the end these giant spiritual beings destroyed most of the ancient civilization ruins including the Spirit World of moon, that Chaos God had left behind. In order to find Jher's parents and restore Lian's memory (Since Lian had been resurrected from the dead before, she lost her memory about Jher), Jher and Lian also went to their dimension. They were told that due to the different flow rates of time, they might not be able to return to Earth in the short term.
Twenty-five years later, Stunning Color Sky Dragon became the legend hero of saving the world. Humanity once again used the remaining data to develop a new origami system. Origami Fighters also moved towards a new generation.
Origami Fighters G (Generation) Twenty-five years after experiencing the catastrophic event known as the Great Destruction, human civilization was re-established. However, since the remaining Origami Fighters of Black League and their descendants turned into the beast humans and attacked ordinary people from time to time, the United Earth Forces still tried to control this.
Yi Zhang-Zhi, a young man from a remote mountain village who just graduated from the police academy and went to check in at the police station in the metropolitan Newborn City. He was assigned to the seventh squad of the Stunning Color Police department, as known as Origami Fighters. In addition to Yi, the members of the seventh squad also include Li Yan, the captain this squad and can summon the swallow spirit, and Bi Sheng, the senior of the same age who came in earlier than Yi.
The mission of this department is to deal with incidents related to the beast humans. At first they thought the beast humans all were thugs, but that didn't seem to be the case. On the other hand, an organization called Dark Victory is secretly active and trying to rally the beast humans to confront the United Earth Forces.
Origami Fighters X and Origami Fighters F (side stories)
This series also published two one volume side stories Origami Fighters X (X-Files) and Origami Fighters F (Forever Young). These two stories follow the ends of the original series and Origami Fighters G respectively.
Origami Fighters X tells of Jher and Lian returning to the ancient earth through the Reverse Dimension, when the Dragon People Clan was still prosperous and the Stunning Color system was first created. Lian also got the origami of Stunning Color Flying Phoenix. And Origami Fighters F tells of how several years after Yi and Xiao-Die disappeared, Bi Sheng, who became the Red Wandering Dragon to protect the Newborn City, and Lian, who accidentally traveled back to Earth, investigated a conspiracy to fuse plant and animal genes to achieve immortality.
Concept
Origami Fighters in the original series are super fighters formed by the fusion of human and origami spirit when they made a contract. After merging with spirit, they will also become the potential beast human (including plant fighters). Then in Origami Fighters G, Origami Fighters generally refer to people who use origami armor and summon spirit to use magic to fight. Although there is no need to fuse with spirit, the main characters are the descendants of beast humans, or modified beast humans and possess beast human genes.
In the original series, Origami Fighters are divided into twelve levels based on the color of the Origami Transformation Talisman. From highest to lowest are gold, silver, black, grey, white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. If a low-level Origami Fighter defeats a high-level Origami Fighter, the low-level one will be promoted to the opponent's level. If an Origami Fighter is defeated by an ordinary person, the Origami Fighter's spirit will be transferred to the ordinary person. After an Origami Fighter is defeated, their origami will be left behind, and their body and soul will be transported to the Spirit World (The Spirit World ceased to function after it was destroyed).
Colors other than the twelve colors are the Origami Gadget Talisman.These can be used to summon any origami gadgets, weapons, means of transport, or guardians (usually as giant robots), except dragon head origami which only for use with Fighter Transformation Talisman / the origami for summoning spirit. The Gadget Talisman can be disassembled and reused and the Fighter Transformation Origami cannot be changed once it is folded complete.
In Origami Fighters G, since the Spirit World was destroyed, they first used the new Stunning Color system with no color levels, later they used the Rainbow system that included only seven color levels. The magic of original Stunning Color system (Stunning Color Sky Dragon and Stunning Color Flying Phoenix) still had twelve color levels.
Origami Fighters' magic are divided into six element, fire, water, wind, earth, wood and electric, and the Spirit God and Spirit Demon have their own special magic sacred magic and dark magic.
Characters
Original series
Main characters Wang Zhi-Zher / Wang Jhih-Jher (王志哲)
The main protagonist. His nickname is Jher (小哲 Xiao-Zher). He was a fifth-grade elementary school student at the beginning. He is good at running, not good at origami but learns quickly. His hobby is playing video games and often plays with his dad.
He always has a headband on his head, it was later revealed that the headband is actually the Stunning Color Transformation Talisman. Because of this, Kuang Long initially thought Jher was his lost old brother. Although Jher is healthy now, he was once so sick that he had to have a heart transplant as a child. In a car accident, Jher's parents received a mysterious cloth with ancient writings – the Stunning Color Transformation Talisman from Kuang Long's half-brother's biological father, and Jher received Kuang Long's half-brother's heart transplant.
He has a cheerful and optimistic personality. He was depressed and gloomy for a while after his parents disappeared, then he cheered up after learning that there was a chance to find his parents.