Readers of Lone Wolf & Cub came to know a samurai of such high honor that he was not only able to perform but enjoyed and, in fact, learned from basic daily tasks. Cutting wood, cooking food. That wasn't something a samurai did back in feudal Japan. These same human elements are apparent in Kubikiri Asa, the main character in Samurai Executioner. He's a man of the people, though his job is to separate many of those same people from their heads. In this volume, however, we're treated to three fantastic stories of amazing weapons skill, both on the part of Asa and those around him.
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Koike and Kojima's 1990s manga, Samurai Executioner, finally emerging in English, is essentially a police procedural series set in the Edo period in Japan (1603-1867) and revolving around the title character, Asaemon, whose background was explored in the first story in When the Demon Knife Weeps (2004). Two of the three stories in this book focus on Asaemon, and in the other, he is more involved than in all but the first Demon Knife story. A pyromaniac arsonist, the rapist-murderer son of a brewer for the shogunate court, and a freelance policeman who framed a man Asaemon beheaded are the culprits. Slashing violence, convincingly rendered gore, nudity (nonfrontal), and sex (gritty but not pornographic) occur in every story, but what distinguishes all is the dazzling plenitude of angles of vision, the masterly use of shading, and the tremendous energy in Kojima's strictly black-and-white artwork. Koike's dialogue, in which the diction reflects the character's personality and status, burnishes each story's noirish sheen. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Decapitator Asaemon helps with three different problems,
By Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)
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This review is from: Samurai Executioner, Vol. 3: The Hell Stick (Paperback)
In "The Hell Stick," the third volume of the "Samurai Executioner" manga of writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima, the title character only has to perform one actual execution. In the pervious collection there was more of an emphasis on philosophical matters and to a large extent that continues in these three stories originally published in Japan in 1995:
(9) "The Hell Stick" is brought to Yamada Asaemon by Aya, daughter of Onagi Shirobee, Katana-ban of the Nagaoka-Han daimyo's house in Edo to be tested. But it is a Sengo Muramasa blade, which have a long history for which they are considered cursed by the Tokugawa family. Asaemon agrees to test the sword anyway, and Aya requests to stay until the day of the test. This has the neighbors thinking the Executioner has taken a wife to live in his creepy house. However, our interest is drawn to the long scar on Aya's back, for there is a story behind that scar and a very strange but important request that she has to make of the Executioner. One of the interesting things in these stories is how women, who are relatively worthless in the social system of feudal Japan, often show the strongest senses of honor and acceptance of the samurai code. As always, the political nuances of the period can be both complicated and yet subtle. (10) "The Mad Sword of Tsukuba Bakushu" is about a postless gokenin who wants Decaptitator Asaemon's post. Bakushu has trained in a most unique and intense style of swordsmanship, and is supported in his challenge to Asaemon's position. After all, Asaemon is still only a ronin. But there is another factor in this challenge because the mad sword in question is a Muramasa, and there is a final encounter between the two as well that suggests Tsukuba Bakushu is not as crazy as he acts. For those of you who were thinking that you had seen just about everything somebody could do with a samurai sword in the manga of Koike and Kojima, this one has a few surprises. (11) "Catcher Kasajiro" is another example of Yamada-Sama as a teacher. Sakane Kasajiro is a jomawari, a regular patrol man with the local police, who is already a okakaeseki (the lowest grade retainer of the shogun). He uses the kusari-jitte (a truncheon with a retractable chain) and the kaginawa (hook rope), but during this first assignment things go wrong and Kasajiro has been ordered to take a leave of absence. He constantly practices, but curses himself for being "one breath too slow," and his boss asks Aesemon to talk to the young man. The Executioner is unfamiliar with Kasajiro's weapons of choice, but knows that the young man must learn a different sort of lesson. Having worked my way through the "Lone Wolf & Cub" saga, while the "Samurai Executioner" stories are decided more mature in orientation and execution, I am at the point where I take the sex and violence at the value of the Japanese culture being depicted. The key thing is that they are never the point of the stories being told, just part of the context in which the particular lesson is being set. The "Samurai Executioner" stories are obviously more episodic than "Lone Wolf & Cub," but because there is not a story arc that defines the entire series they strike me as being more moralistic (almost like parables, albeit with lots of blood and nudity). These are essentially prequels to "Lone Wolf & Cub," but narratively they are extensions of the legendary manga saga.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Manga at its best,
By danny boy "dbswongv" (Singapore) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Samurai Executioner, Vol. 3: The Hell Stick (Paperback)
Three stories here. The first two mentions a specific type of Muramasa sword, mention and use of which is anaethema to the ruling Tokugawa clan, who appear to be cursed with this type of sword. Naturally, this has a bearing on the stories here. The first story shows the extraordinary lengths that Japanese women will undergo in their submission to a male-dominated society. It follows a convoluted plan to get Asaemon to replicate a specific cut on her body. Sado-masochism at its height.
The second story is simpler and and involves a challenge to Asaemon's role as executioner, contrasting their skills in swordsmanship. The third story has Asaemon instructing a policeman in the philosophy of catching criminals. However, this story tended to drag a bit.
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