Taro Gunkanyama

Taro Gunkanyama is the fourth and final Don of the Tower of Barbs, and the founder of M.I.L.K..

Lore
"Another one of the mysterious appeals of this tower is the ability to meet the "old you" after you die within. This is due to the four dons that live within the Tower. They reanimate the corpses of all who die in their domain, and in turn, use them as their own mindless undead killers within the Tower. Most visitors are shocked to see that their corpse has been reanimated and is now on a killing spree on their way to the top of the Tower. The chance of fighting against your own reanimated corpse is just yet another allure of this Tower."

- Mother Barbs

Mother Barbs also claims that the Jackals were originally hired by the Dons to deliver the dead bodies in the Tower to them.

Uncle Death Quotes:
 * "I had no idea you'd make it this far. Are you some kind of a pro gamer? Much respect! Word up, buddy! You're coming up on your final challenge. Apparently, you can't equip anything from this point forward. I'll hold on to your items for you in the meantime. Go on, don't be shy. Ah, come on. Take off your equipment." - Outside Taro Gunkanyama's boss fight, 40F FUTAGI.
 * "Ready to take off your equipment now?" - Outside Taro Gunkanyama's boss fight, 40F FUTAGI.
 * "Don't worry, I'll give everything back later. Good luck in your fight!" - Starting Taro Gunkanyama's boss fight, 40F FUTAGI.
 * "Wow! Sorry, Senpai! All your equipment got stolen! If you can survive, you should be able to get it all back. Good luck!" - During Taro Gunkanyama's boss fight, 40F FUTAGI.
 * "N...N...NO WAY! You've gotta be kidding me! I never thought you'd make it this far, dude!" - Defeating Taro Gunkanyama, 40F FUTAGI.

Tales From the Barbs Transcript:

Born in Japan, Taro Gunkanyama excelled at every sport. Speed skating was his only weak point. Although of small build, he was a natural athlete. After graduation, he announced he was going to be a sumo wrestler, despite not meeting the minimum height requirements. He did, however, manage to pass the medical examination tests by hiding a model battleship inside his coiffure, earning him the wrestling name "Gunkanyama" (Mt. Battleship).

Gunkanyama excelled at sumo and his fans hoped that he'd topple the foreign-born wrestlers who dominated the rankings. However, something strange was occurring in the athletics world. A total of 18 wrestlers and athletes of large build went missing. With no leads, the daily tabloids were splashed with lurid rumors ranging from "Alien Abduction?" to "National Intrigue!" TV shows even had psychics try to divine their whereabouts, all to no avail.

Something was also afoot at the sumo stable. Their suppliers changed, and meat that didn't seem like beef, pork, or chicken began to appear in their chanko stew. Although some did dare to eat the mystery meat, it tasted so strange they'd spit it out, but Gunkanyama gobbled it up as if he knew exactly what kind of meat it was. He grew rapidly to be 7'10" tall, and rose through the sumo rankings to the very top. The Gunkanyama Era had dawned.

No sooner had he won a grand slam than Gunkanyama announced his retirement from sumo. Although sad to say goodbye to the sumo world, Gunkanyama soon founded the Muscle International League Killers (M.I.L.K.), a squad of athletes skilled in hand-to-hand combat. They modded rackets, bats, javelins, archers' bows and other sports apparatus, turning them into weapons, creating a mixed-martial art that was almost baroque in its cut-throat violence.

The M.I.L.K. games struck a chord, even topping the ratings of all the New Year's Eve shows. However, the bouts were so extreme that many contenders were killed, even during practices. Dark rumors again began to swirl. Gunkanyama convened a meeting, but was interrupted by the Earth Rage global tectonic shift. A speed-skating boot came flying, striking and decapitating Gunkanyama. He was dead at 28. The whereabouts of his head are still unknown.

Taro Gunkanyama Quotes:
 * "Dosukoi! Domo dosukoi. You must be quite the Sumo wrestler to have made it this far! Our fighters seem to be here. So let’s proceed with the first match of the day! Domo Dosukoi! This is a fight to the death! Winner takes all! Let the fight begin! Hajime!" - Boss fight intro.
 * "We meet at last for the final fight." - Boss fight starts.
 * "Your body and soul are that of yokozuna! Domo arigato, fighter!" - Defeating Taro Gunkanyama.

Pre-Fight
This fight is different from every other boss battle as you are forced to start with no equipment.

There are 2 main stages to the fight.

In stage 1 your death bag is empty and you first fight 3 haters. Fortunately you fight these haters 1 at a time. You have to fight the first hater while naked with your bare fists on a small raised platform. This hater will be a similar level to you. The second hater will have whatever weapons you had equipped and will be simalarly leveled to you, despite what previous iterations said. The hater will possibly even have their level limit broken. After this hater is defeated it will drop your weapons and you can pick them up to equip them. The third hater will be wearing your armor but with your weapons it should be easy to defeat. Once its defeated you can pick up parts of your armor but maybe missing the helmet and only have the legs and body. After these 3 haters have been killed you then need to fight a Level 11 COEN. This COEN uses 2 corpses to attack you, as on Floor 34, but fortunately seems to be limited to 2 attacks - hitting the ground with the corpses in a 2 hit attack and pounding the ground(this is untrue, Coen will perform ground slams, 2 hit attacks, and corpse throws). You must be especially careful in this fight as it can knock you off of the raised platform. This causes hands on the base of the platform to hit you. If you take too long(if you don't cancel the knockback and immediately sprint back onto the raised platform) to get back onto the platform large explosive fireballs will rain down onto your location.

Once you have killed COEN the raised platform will lower itself down to ground level and he should drop the rest of your armor. There will be a silver chest on the ground with the rest of the contents of your death bag.

Strategy
Upon retrieving the contents of your death bag, Stage 2 will commence. In this Stage Taro will take control of a U-10 body and will start to attack you. Fortunately you will have all of your equipment and mushrooms back for this fight, so you should eat a grilled Transparungus, Helmetshroom/Guardshroom and anything to boost your attack like a Stingshroom or Oakshroom. With appropriate weapons, armour and mushrooms this stage of the fight is easy to complete. If you have multiple Transparungi and a strong fire weapon you can attack him continuously without him moving from the spot he spawns in the beginning of the fight. At certain points this will make him knocked down and easier to give harder attacks.

Once this stage is complete you will get a silver chest containing KC and a Gold Chest containing a Red Metal. You will also gain access to the 41st floor and the current ending cinematic for the game.

You will also gain access to the last quests available.

The difficulty of this boss battle depends entirely on how good you are at anticipating attacks and dodging.
 * Any mushrooms eaten before the battle starts keeps their effects going even during the phase where you lose all your equipment.
 * To make this fight slightly easy on yourself make sure to load up with appropriate decals before the battle starts, such as Barbells, Dumbells, Diamonds, etc.
 * To make this fight really easy you can eat 10-20 Guardshrooms before you leave the waiting room - giving you 10+ minutes of invincibility. This invincibility should last for the entire fight.
 * Make sure you take 3+ Transparungus, 2+ Stingshrooms or Oakshrooms and a Death Burner Iron or a FFWF-285 Flamethrower E for the last stage of the fight as that will allow you to quickly kill Taro.