Locke vs. Nanami vs. Vash: Every Anime Character League's New 'Ashen Exorcist' Borrows From
If your timeline spent June 24 insisting that League of Legends had just added Nanami, you weren't imagining it. Riot released a new champion that day, Corvin Locke, and a blond, sharply dressed exorcist in round glasses who fights with a big blunt weapon does look an awful lot like a certain Jujutsu Kaisen fan favorite.
But "they copied Nanami" is the lazy version of the story, and it's wrong in a way that's actually more fun. Locke isn't a lift of one character. He's a quilt of anime influences stitched onto a video-game silhouette, and the single inspiration Riot named on the record isn't an anime at all. So before the Nanami comparison hardens into accepted fact, here's the honest breakdown: who Locke is, what Riot actually said, and every anime character fans are (correctly) seeing in him.
The quick answer
- Locke is real and the resemblance is real. Corvin Locke, "the Ashen Exorcist," is a League of Legends champion who launched on June 24, 2026, and yes, he looks strikingly like Nanami Kento.
- So far, he's Riot's only new champion of 2026. A mid-lane assassin from the kingdom of Demacia, billed as "a nail-slinging exorcist versed in forbidden rites."
- Riot did not say "Nanami." On the record, Riot named Devil May Cry's Dante and Vergil, plus a general love of anime among the art team. The specific Nanami read is the community's, not an official admission.
- The anime DNA goes wider than Jujutsu Kaisen. Fans see Vash the Stampede and Alucard in him too, and his dance emote is a documented nod to another JJK character entirely.
If that's all you wanted, you're caught up. If you want the character-by-character receipts, read on.
What Riot actually said
This is the part most of the "League added Nanami" posts skip.
In a developer Q&A around the champion's launch, Riot's senior game product manager Edward Zhao talked through Locke's design inspirations. He pointed at the art team's anime habit: "our art lead in this one in particular does watch a lot of anime, so there are some inspirations from there." Then he named one specific reference for the vibe: Devil May Cry. Locke, he said, is more "Dante-esque, Vergil-esque," a cool, stylish-action character.
Nowhere in that does Riot say Jujutsu Kaisen, and nowhere does anyone at Riot say Nanami. Every outlet that raised the JJK comparison framed it as their own observation, not a confirmation. That distinction matters, because "a champion that happens to evoke Nanami" and "Riot built a Nanami tribute" are two very different claims, and only the first one is supported.
The honest framing is the interesting one anyway: Locke is what you get when stylish-action games and a stack of anime go into the same blender. The resemblances are real. The intent behind any one of them is mostly inference.
The anime characters fans see in Locke
Here's the lineup, and what Locke actually shares with each one.
| Character | Series | What Locke shares | Named by Riot? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nanami Kento | Jujutsu Kaisen | Blond hair, round glasses, suited silhouette, a blunt weapon, stoic exorcist energy | No (fan observation) |
| Vash the Stampede | Trigun Stampede | Lanky, stylish blond in a long coat | No |
| Alucard | Hellsing | The long-coated, glasses-wearing monster-hunter menace | No |
| Dante / Vergil | Devil May Cry (game) | Stylish-action swagger and coat | Yes (Riot named DMC) |
| Kinji Hakari | Jujutsu Kaisen | His in-game dance emote | Fan-noted, not stated by Riot |
Nanami Kento (Jujutsu Kaisen)
This is the one that broke containment, and it's easy to see why. Nanami is the ex-salaryman sorcerer: blond hair parted neatly, dark-tinted glasses, a fitted business look, and a deliberately blunt blade he swings with zero theatrics. He's calm, exhausted, and competent, the adult in a cast of teenagers, and that stoic-professional energy is exactly what people are reading off Locke's "exorcist who clocked in for a shift" presentation. Put the two side by side and the blond-plus-glasses-plus-suit-plus-blunt-weapon overlap does most of the talking.
Vash the Stampede (Trigun)
Before Nanami, there was Vash. Trigun Stampede is the most recent face of a character who's been the template for "lanky, blond, coat-wearing stylish gunslinger" for decades. Locke's silhouette, the long coat and the loose, theatrical movement, sits squarely in that lineage. If Nanami covers the face and the stoicism, Vash covers the build and the drama.
Alucard (Hellsing)
The "exorcist" half of "Ashen Exorcist" points straight at Hellsing. Alucard is the genre's defining monster-hunter-in-a-long-coat: tinted glasses, gothic menace, a servant of an organization that exists to put down supernatural threats. Locke's whole "holy professional who hunts cursed things" framing is the same archetype Hellsing built a series around. It's less about the face and more about the job description.
The one anime reference that's actually documented
Here's the twist for the Jujutsu Kaisen crowd: the clearest, most concrete JJK link in Locke isn't Nanami at all.
His dance emote is a recognized nod to Kinji Hakari's dance from Jujutsu Kaisen, the one tied to his cursed technique. That's the reference fans have pinned down with the most confidence, and it's the one logged in the community wiki's trivia. So the strongest concrete JJK link runs through Hakari, not the character everyone's posting about. Fans have also compared Locke's nail-based attacks to Nobara Kugisaki's hammer-and-nails technique, though that one's a looser read.
It's a neat illustration of how this kind of design works. The character broadly evokes Nanami, the meme settles on Nanami, but the deliberate, traceable homage is a totally different JJK character buried in an emote. Convergent vibes up front, specific Easter eggs underneath.
Why an anime-coded champion isn't a surprise
Riot leaning anime isn't new, which is part of why this landed so naturally.
The studio's biggest crossover success, Arcane, sits right next to the anime canon in most fans' heads, even though it's technically Western animation made by the French studio Fortiche. Riot has also spent years building anime-flavored events and skin lines like Spirit Blossom into League. An art team that, by Riot's own admission, watches a lot of anime is going to produce characters that read as anime, whether or not any single one is a direct tribute. Locke is just the most on-the-nose example yet.
So the resemblance isn't a coincidence in the strict sense, and it isn't a confirmed homage either. It's the natural output of a design culture steeped in the same shows you watch.
So: tribute or coincidence?
The defensible answer is "neither, exactly." Locke is convergent design from a team that openly loves anime, with one named game inspiration (Devil May Cry), one documented anime Easter egg (the Hakari dance), and a face that happens to land squarely on Nanami. Calling him "the Nanami champion" is the catchy version. Calling him a love letter to a decade of stylish anime swordsmen and gun-toting coat-wearers is the accurate one.
What do you think, deliberate Jujutsu Kaisen tribute, or just what happens when an anime-pilled art team designs an exorcist? Either way, if Locke sent you looking for the real thing, start with Jujutsu Kaisen for Nanami, Trigun Stampede for Vash, and the rest of our supernatural and action picks on MyAnimePulse.