Volume 1

Hello, everyone. I have returned once more with another somewhat obscure manga offering this week: Blade of the Immortal. Where my previous offering, Excel Saga, is a humorous, off-the-wall series, Blade of the Immortal is considerably different. If you are a fan of samurai stories, stylish violence, wit, bizarre characters, and deep story, then this might be for you. Read on to learn more.

Blade of the Immortal, known as Mugen no Junin in Japan (literally meaning Inhabitant of Infinity), comes to us from the imagination of Hiroaki Samura, a classically trained artist who turned his pen to manga in the mid nineties, following his dreams of becoming a mangaka (a writer and illustrator of manga). His style is unique amongst mangaka, being done in black and white pencil-sketch style, with a masterful eye on subtle details and elements of anatomy. His knowledge of how the human body moves and functions imparts a high degree of expression into his characters, which greatly aids in his often frenetic battle scenes, where many characters can be engaged in combat simultaneously. One of the most well-known features of his work in Blade is his “center-fold,” a highly detailed snapshot of a character, usually the main character Manji, in motion while fighting. These sketches take a great deal of time and are filled with details that most manga don’t bother with. This is not your average comic book artwork, though many of his frames are simplified in style due to necessity. The balance of simple and complex art is one of the reasons I adore Blade so much, but pretty pretty pictures are just a small part of it.

Dark Horse Comics, issue 126, featuring Rin.

The style and feel of Blade of the Immortal is unique as well, blending the historical background of 1780’s Japan with characters whose style and speech seem to come from the here and now. It might put some readers in mind of Samurai Champloo, but Blade is considerably deeper and more mature story-wise, but the anachronistic similarities are there. Fans of the series also look to see what ridiculous weapons the characters will be wielding next – things straight from Samura-san’s mind, with often impractical applications in real life, but that make for some really awesome fight scenes. However, without a good, compelling story loaded with engaging characters it is all for naught. Luckily, Blade of the Immortal is strong there, as well.

The central plot is this: A young girl, Rin, watches as her family and friends are slaughtered before her in her father’s dojo by a band of renegade kenshi (swordsmen) calling themselves the Itto-ryu, lead by Anotsu Kagehisa. Rin then embarks on a quest for revenge, but with little skill of her own, it would be suicide to go up against such skilled fighters, so she had to find someone to help her. Enter Manji, the series’ main protagonist. Manji was once a samurai, but was made a ronin and wanted man after he battled against a hundred other officers and slew them, including his own sister’s husband. He wandered bondless, hiding from the law until an encounter with the enigmatic Buddhist nun, Yaobikuni. She infected him with creatures known as kessen-chu, or blood worms, which will unnaturally prolong his life and instantly regenerate any wounds he suffers, and she challenges him to find meaning in a now nearly unending life. Nearly unkillable now, short of a rare poison that attacks the kessen-chu directly, Manji pledges to slay a thousand evil men – ten for each good man he killed – and so be freed of his burden. When Rin approaches him with her request to hire him as a bodyguard, Manji sees it as a possible way to come closer to his goal and accepts the job. In due time Manji finds himself fighting everyone from renegade swordsmen to corrupt shogunate lords, who crave the secrets of his nigh-immortality.

Rin, preparing for her mission into the "Badger Hole."

The plot, however, goes far beyond a simple revenge yarn, and as the story unfolds and the characters develop, the motivations that drove them (protagonist and antagonist alike) seem less important as time goes by. The series is now approaching its finale, starting with volume 22, Footsteps, beginning the Winter War arc that will complete the story, and I can tell you it’s a hard wait. One of the largest problems Blade of the Immortal has is an extremely slow print-run, with only one volume printed every year to year and a half. So even if only three to four volumes remain, it’s still plenty of time to get caught up. The series is published in English by Dark Horse Comics as a collected volume, though it was once published monthly as a normally-sized comic, but that run was discontinued due to low sales (since people like me usually waited for the whole, complete, volume instead). Prices per volume range from $14.95 to $19.95, quite a bit more than most manga, but the effort that goes into the manga helps explain that. It is printed in standard English comic format, rather than the more standard Japanese style right-to-left, by Samura-san’s request, no less. He wished to preserve the way the art flowed, and so rather than simply flip it to English style, each frame is cut and pasted before printing to assure accuracy.

"Blade of the Immortal," animated version, 2009.

Blade of the Immortal was recently turned into an anime, though I must say the anime cannot capture either the beauty of Hiroaki Samura’s art or the intricacies of his story, and largely falls flat. The manga, meanwhile, is widely regarded as a masterpiece, but still has a comparatively small following. According to Anime News Network, based on a weighted average, Blade of the Immortal ranks #230 of 2079 – not very low, and far higher on the scale than Excel Saga, which I featured a couple of weeks ago (#1826 of 2079), but still not enough people know how incredible this manga is. There is nothing out there quite like Blade of the Immortal, and If you want a mature, adult-oriented story with incredible, unique art and amazing action, try out Blade of the Immortal. You won’t regret it. Cheers, everyone, and happy reading!