Blade of the Immortal: Secrets

A book review by Mighty Doom

I generally dislike manga series; they’re typically lacking in detail, downright confusing due to half-baked artwork and they’re not half as dynamic as their anime counterparts. A few talented artists, however, have increased my respect for the medium to a considerable extent – Masamune Shirow (an incredible political writer as well as my favorite living comic artist) and Katsuhiro Otomo immediately spring to mind. Rounding out my top three is Hiroaki Samura, artist and author or the ongoing Dark Horse manga Blade of the Immortal.

Samura is beyond talented. His art is en par with the greatest of the feudal Japanese painters – stylized, yet not unrealistic. Anyone who adheres to the precept that comics are not a valid art form need only read an issue of the Eisner-award-winning Blade of the Immortal. Most manga artists are in fact classically trained, adapting old styles to now-archaic environments, yet Samura has taken the medium a step further by drawing a series in the style of Hiroshige, the first documented manga artist, who published a series of volumes of pictorial stories toward the end of the eighteen hundreds, if memory serves.

One advantage manga holds over American comics is that the author is almost exclusively the artist as well. This allows for a degree of control typically unseen in other comics. In Blade of the Immortal, Samura’s art compliments his deft writing seamlessly. The domestic translation is actually somewhat odd in that the characters are essentially feudal Japanese street punks, and speak accordingly, utilizing modern slang and liberal profanity. This takes some getting used to, but after reading a few issues it seems entirely natural.

Secrets is volume ten of Samura’s epic, and is almost entirely plot-oriented, with a minimum of swordfighting (a refreshing twist after the last three collections, which were extremely violent – often excruciatingly so). This is primarily due to the fact that Manji, the series’ immortal protagonist, was entirely dismembered in the last story arc and is recovering in the back room of a friend’s house. Manji owes his indestructibility to the kessen-chu – worms that live in his blood and piece together his flesh when he’s wounded. His client, Rin, is on her own throughout the book, having escaped to another district in order to exact revenge upon the renegade swordsman who killed her parents. Old friends and enemies return, and new twists are revealed.

Blade of the Immortal is unique in that it tackles a number of issues typically not touched upon in other series of this sort – namely, the fact that Manji is becoming a lousy swordsman because he can’t be killed. With nothing at stake, he’s losing his touch, and in Secrets, it’s cost him valuable time and given him a new set of worries: the kessen-chu seem to be losing their edge as well, no longer able to differentiate between Manji’s flesh and their own repair jobs, after ten volumes’ worth of intense sword battles.

I can’t recommend this series enough; like Shirow’s work, it is incredible to look at, and there’s a decent plot as well – but Blade of the Immortal is not for the squeamish. Feudal Japan was a fairly brutal place, and Samura pulls no punches in terms of violence. Though not gratuitous, it’s extremely unpleasant. For those willing to stomach it, however, comics don’t get much better than this.