Blade of the Immortal 3
Posted: February 25, 2010 Filed under: Blade of the Immortal 3 Comments »Hiroaki Samura – Dark Horse – 1999 – 25+ volumes
Hmm. This was kind of a strange story arc after what was in the first two. Strange, but still good. It focused a lot more on the incidental side character than it did on Manji and Rin, but she was an interesting side character. She was torn between being a swordsman and being a sex worker (I don’t remember the Japanese word they used for this), and was no good at either, by all accounts. She was sent after Manji by her lover, Anotsu, the man that Rin and Manji are looking for. Her sword skills are quite good, in fact, but she lacks the confidence to use them, and she also seems to lack the confidence to be Anotsu’s lover.
We see a lot of nuances to her story, and explanations for both her skills and a bit of Anotsu’s past in a lengthy flashback in the middle of the volume. The flashback was suitably extreme, but it was nothing compared to the real fight between the woman Makie and Manji. When she puts on her swordsman hat… damn. It is an insane fight that is difficult to keep up with. It’s got a pretty clear winner all the way through, though, something else that was quite interesting about it.
Basically: YES. Kind of a slow volume, but still interesting, and the flashback and final swordfight made everything worth it. Moving on to the next volume, then.
[...] on vol. 1 of The Big Adventures of Majoko (Manga Maniac Cafe) Connie on vol. 4 of Blade of the Immortal (Slightly Biased Manga) Sean Gaffney on vol. 3 of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (A Case Suitable for Treatment) [...]
One feels bad for Makie because you can tell that outside the rigid society, she’d be a legend, and Anotsu can see that.
That’s very true, and I completely forgot that point somehow. I loved the flashback for bringing that to the front and making it an issue.