Hiroaki SamuraRezensionen

Includes vol. 01 to 03

Includes vol. 26 to 28

Now this was a weird volume. First of all this is violent comic, very violent comic. Also one that centers on women abuse and slavery and involuntary prostitution. And added to all of this are rather psychopathic and deranged personalities that are part of the criminal milieu and that have ... let's say horribly unique approaches to solving issues.

That being said it is rather dark story and if you don't have stomach for it I would advise against picking it up.

With that being said I have to admit that I am pleasantly surprised about the path taken by the author to tell this story in the first place. First part of the book will have you scratching your head and wondering what is going. But as story progresses more sinister forces arise, forces that are doing unthinkable things to general population. Forces that make the various Yakuza clans seem people friendly (and believe Yakuza in this book are anything but). And then with the second part we finally get the background story and what is actually happening here.

So this is action manga, lots of highly skilled assassins and gangsters, lots of blood and ever present good old revenge story. Art is just beautiful - but again creator is also author of Blade of the Immortal so nothing less was expected.

Story reads very fast but it takes some effort to concentrate on the first part in order not to lose all the threads.

Ending shocked me to be honest and I am eager to finish the second volume to see how does it all end.

Recommended to all fans of crime stories but beware that this is mature content and some parts are definitely not for the kids.

This is one of the best manga's I read. It is very successful mesh of excellent art, fantasy and samurai revenge story ... you need to read it to believe it. Characters are all extremely fleshed out and story is amazing. I can only congrats to DarkHorse for creating these omnibus gems for us that missed collecting original editions.

Highly recommended to anyone who likes graphic novels.

For me I think I enjoyed the title story ("Emerald", about a hired gun, a destitute orphan and finding strength) the most. It made very little sense at first, two seemingly unrelated stories both being told at the same time, but at the end it wrapped up so well that I went back and re-read it with my newfound knowledge. "Brigette's Dinner", about a young girl (another orphan, this is a big theme in this collection) taken in to have dinner with a young (disfigured) lord, is very very sad, but again ties up nicely in the end.

Another one "Shizuku's Cinema" was, despite the large age gap, sweet until the end when as a reader we learn the truth about the 'life' we were witnessing. Then it becomes very sad, especially the ending scene. A bit confusing as well, but mostly sad.

"The Uniforms Stay On" is a whole bunch of short chapters throughout the book, which reading the afterword was a serialized 'slice of life' sort of story through numerous issues of a magazine. On one hand I found them intriguing because they are very much topical (as far as what's going on in Japan) and reflected the socio-economic differences that Japan is going through (which is often only touched upon, if mentioned at all, in most manga I read). But they were so boring!

When compared against another collection that just came out, [b:Kaoru Mori: Anything and Something|14781536|Kaoru Mori Anything and Something|Kaoru Mori|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1354678860s/14781536.jpg|20434598], also filled with random works from a certain time period, I think this falls short. There's no context for any of the stories--the disturbing "The Kusein Family's Greatest Show", about a daughter, father and the shadow of the deceased mother, has no context so the creepy nature of the father's fixation with filming his daughter ALL THE TIME is...well...creepy. I'm not saying the story would be less disturbing in context, but a note about why Samura wrote/drew it and for what magazine would maybe explain it.

There is an afterword that kind of addresses where the stories came from, but they're short paragraph blurbs mostly of the creator saying this or that was more difficult then he thought it would be originally (it would seem several of the stories were chosen because Samura believed the location or topic to be 'easy' to work with...in the case of the "Uniforms" stories he found it hard to keep up with topical references as he's a very isolated, insular man).

As to the artwork, this is my first time reading this particular manga-ka, so for me the artwork was fine. Since all the stories are from the same decade (2000-2010 or so), the artwork doesn't change drastically and besides the stories aren't presented in publication order (there doesn't seem to be ANY order to them) so I couldn't say if it got better or not as time went on.

For the price, $12.99 retail and length (228 pages) I think this is a good volume for fans of his already (he is the creator of the popular "Blade of the Immortal" manga series, also released by Dark Horse Comics) that want to see him drawing/writing in a different setting. For newcomers, its rather misleading. I would read a series featuring the female gunslinger from "Emerald" for instance, but this volume doesn't make me want to go out and find more of Samura's works.

These people--even the protagonists Rin and Manji--are insane and ruthless.

Too little or shallow character motivations and plot holes. Yaobikuni's motivations to give Manji the kessen-chu aren't shown. The question as to what method to use to figure out who the truly evil ones are was completely dropped. It wasn't shown that Sori felt guilty and used the excuse to pay Rin for X because he could've simply taken X.

2,5-3

Well done, I guess, but not really my thing. The details of the cynical antihero's curse of immortality are sort of novel (body parts made out of "blood worms", and the requirement that he find and kill exactly one thousand bad guys) but the fight scenes fall into a predictable pattern: bad guy chops off hero's arms/legs/liver, not realizing he's immortal; bad guy chuckles and turns to go; hero gets up and kills him. Also, samurai intrigue for its own sake (renegades from Sword School X form Sword School Y to wipe out all the other sword schools, etc.) is possibly even sillier than superhero intrigue. The art is lovely, although the very gory violence is stylized in a way that just looks odd to me: for instance, people don't just get stabbed or sliced by swords, they get sliced in half effortlessly as if they were made out of Jello.

Rin begins to doubt worth of revenge

immortal swordsman and Rin pursue revenge against her parent's killers, killer giesha sent to kill Manji

immortal swordsman must kill 1000 evil men to be released

helpng girl avenge father, head of sword school

Having the members of the Mugai-Ryu be just as bad, if not worse, than some of the members of the Ittou-ryuu does make for an interesting way of setting up shades of grey in the story, particularly due to how utterly reprehensible some of the members if the Ittou-Ryuu have been in previous volumes in the series.

Very emotional and dramatic conclusion to the "On Silent Wings" arc. This volume really shows off the breadth of Samura's artistic ability, from the road strokes of his fight scenes to small subtle character moments.

Rin and Kagehisa finally meet face to face for the first time in this volume, and it makes for one hell of an encounter. I'd kind of compare it to the diner scene between De Niro and Pacino in Heat, to a certain degree - in terms of tension, and in terms of how the two characters really end up talking about why they do what they do, and how that makes them similar and different.

This volume makes things more interesting by putting some shades of grey in the *motivations* of the villains, while still making their acts incredibly monstrous.

This is a very fun, very good manga, though one that's exceptionally violent.

Well, now Rin and Manji are finding themselves wanted, dead or alive, not only by the Itto-Ryu, but by the shogunate as well. So, now they need to find a way to get out of Edo through the heavily guarded checkpoints, while also avoiding the agents of the Itto-Ryu.

Re-reading in advance of the Movie coming out in November. There is so much great decapitation. I'd also forgotten how often the idiosyncrasies in the US edition cause Manji's missing eye to switch back and forth.

So tense. The Rin story is really good.

The plot thickens, as a second set of villains appear.

Better than the initial volume. Less backstory, and the introduction of a silver bullet for blood worm immortality.

Another "Manji can't defeat everyone" book.

I was very excited when Kodansha Comics announced that it would be releasing Die Wergelder in English. At the time, I actually didn't know much about the manga series beyond the fact that it was created by Hiroaki Samura, but that was more than enough to capture my attention—Samura's long-running, award-winning series Blade of the Immortal was one of the first manga that I ever read and it remains a personal favorite. I've also throughly enjoyed Samura's two short manga collections that have been translated, Ohikkoshi and Emerald and Other Stories. As Blade of the Immortal was drawing to a close in Japan, Die Wergelder was just beginning, the first volume being published in 2013. The second volume was released two years later in Japan in 2015. The first installment of Kodansha's English-language edition of Die Wergelder, also published in 2015, collects both of those volumes.

Shinobu has made a mistake that may very well cost her life. After attempting to run way with a low-ranking yakuza member, along with a rather large sum of his syndicate's money, the two of them are caught and Ro's boss isn't particularly happy with them. Normally Shinbou would likely have been killed without a second thought, but her background happens to make her uniquely qualified for a job that Ro's boss needs done. She's more or less forced into accepting and so suddenly finds herself embroiled in the schemes and rivalries of multiple groups. The world of organized crime is fraught with danger and made even more so with the appearance of Träne, an assassin hellbent on revenge against those who have done her tremendous wrong. And then there's Jie Mao, an opposing bodyguard whose deadly combat skills make her a formidable foe. Shinobu does have the guts and brash attituded needed to survive, but that's also a large part of why she's in such trouble to being with.

Die Wergelder is heavily inspired by or at least influenced by 1970s Japanese pink films—theatrical releases steeped with eroticism, nudity, and sex. More specifically, Samura is taking cues from Toei's Pinky Violence series of films. (Träne's dark long coat, wide-brimmed hat, and tale of vengeance would appear to be a direct reference to the Female Convict Scorpion films in particular.) Likewise, Die Wergelder contains fairly extreme content, including gratuitous sex and explicit violence. Women and men, although to a somewhat lesser extent, are brutalized and degraded both sexually and physically throughout the story. Die Wergleder is true to its lurid and exploitative roots and the series seems to be self-aware of that. With an additional heavy dose of sadism, it's certainly not a manga to be lightly recommended to just anyone, though what it does it does well.

By far the most interesting and compelling characters in Die Wergelder are the women. They are easily the most sexualized and objectified as well, but they're also powerful and terrifying forces to be reckoned with. In comparison, the men of Die Wergelder aren't particularly memorable, even when they are impressively powerful their own right. Träne and Jie Mao are stunning to watch as they fight. As I've come to expect, Samura's action sequences are dramatic and dynamic. The martial skills shown may frequently be unbelievable, but they are devastatingly effective. With all its brutality and torture, Die Wergelder can be exceptionally violent and gruesome even while being beautifully drawn. It's a deliberately uncomfortable series, Samura pushing the boundaries of acceptability. Rape, murder, abuse, and unethical medical experimentation are all regular occurrences, and that's just scraping the surface of the despicable, thrilling, disturbing, titillating, and vicious world that Samura explores in Die Wergelder.

Experiments in Manga½

So, this is it. The Final Curtain of Blade of the Immortal, both literally and figuratively. Released by Dark Horse Comics in 2015, the volume is the thirty-first and final installment in the English-language edition of Hiroaki Samura's epic manga series. After nearly two decades of publication, the entirety Blade of the Immortal has now been translated. Due to slight differences between the early English trade collections and the Japanese releases, Final Curtain is actually equivalent to the thirtieth volume of the original Japanese edition of Blade of the Immortal published in 2013. The manga has been well-received by both critics and fans alike, winning Samura many awards and honors including a Japan Media Arts Award and an Eisner Award. Blade of the Immortal was one of the very first manga that I began reading and collecting and the series has remained a personal favorite of mine ever since I discovered it. Because of that, Blade of the Immortal and its ending hold particular meaning for me. I have been looking forward to reading its conclusion for a very long time.

At its height, the Ittō-ryū was poised to become the official sword school of the shogunate, bringing the goal of the group's leader Anotsu Kagehisa—the restoration of the way of the sword to Japan—tantalizingly close. But in the end they were betrayed and massacred by the very people who invited them to join the banshū. Since then the Ittō-ryū's numbers have continued to dwindle as the survivors of that initial attack have been hunted down by the Mugai-ryū and Rokki-dan, forces largely made up of death row criminals commanded by Habaki Kagimura. The fighting has been fierce and casualties have been immense on both sides. Now only a few members of each group remain and they are locked in their final battles against one another. Though it appears as though Anotsu may have the upper hand, the outcome of the conflict is far from certain, especially as there are others interested in controlling the fate of the Ittō-ryū, including the young woman Rin and her near-immortal bodyguard Manji.

Final Curtain serves two main purposes: providing a resolution to the intense and bloody confrontations begun in the previous volume, Vigilance, and granting a conclusion to Blade of the Immortal as a whole. I feel the final volume is successful on both counts. Even though they aren't as over-the-top or as brutal as some of the other fight sequences in the series, there are still plenty of surprises to be had in the final battles of Blade of the Immortal. They require incredible physical, mental, and even emotional fortitude from those involved, making the scenes very engaging to read. It's not just fighting for fighting's sake; there is deliberate purpose and reason behind the struggles. Lately, the series seems to have turned its attention to the dramatic demise of the Ittō-ryū and its leader, but Final Curtain manages to bring the manga full circle again by allowing Rin and Manji to once again become directly involved in how events unfold.

Blade of the Immortal has always had a large cast of characters as well as several intertwining plot threads. All of the survivors and the families and friends of those who have died have at least one moment in Final Curtain, even if it's only a few panels, in which they become the focus of the manga, creating something akin to an epilogue. Loose ends are tied up and, while some ambiguity remains, the aftermath of the long struggle is revealed. Blade of the Immortal covered a lot of ground in its thirty-one volumes, the story twisting and turning and the characters and their relationships continually growing and evolving. The series can be read and enjoyed simply for its impressive action and fight sequences, but the manga also explores deeper, thought-provoking ideas. The characters are morally complex—very few can be said to be entirely in the right or in the wrong—and Blade of the Immortal questions what their or any person's ultimate legacy will be. As for the last volume itself, I found Final Curtain to be a very satisfying conclusion to the series.

Experiments in Manga½