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Reviewed by Craig Johnson Manji is the Immortal of the title. He's not in this book. Manji is assisting Rin on her quest to avenge the deaths of her parents. She's not in this book. Anotsu is the leader of the Itto-ryu school of rogue samurai, and the man who killed Rin's folks. He's not here either. Is anyone in this flipping book? Beasts is most recent, and nastiest, storyline to appear in Dark Horse's fabulous monthly series. Running from issues sixty-six through to seventy-two, it tells how a pair of assassins who previously helped Manji and Rin are captured by some members of the Itto-ryu, how their revenge is taken, and how closure is finally achieved. Hyakurin and Shinriji are the assassin duo, and in a succinct opening sequence we learn more about the assassin's guild than we've known in the previous sixty-five issues. It seems that no assassin is in the guild by choice, and we find out here how and why Shinriji is a member (Hyakurin's story is told later on in this volume). Giichi is the third member of this little "team", but he's away from their hiding place at the moment - which proves fatal for Shinriji in a nasty sequence, and horrifying for Hyakurin in a much nastier, and much lengthier, set of scenes. When a group of rogue, male, samurai capture a beautiful female assassin who has dispatched a few of their number - what do you think they do? Yes, they do it here...some is shown, some is alluded to, but her ordeal is not skimped or dealt with briefly. That she retains enough presence of mind to do what she does in the final chapters is impressive...but typical of the character we've seen in the chapters leading up to this one. Giichi comes back into the frame late on, and there appears to be an unspoken attraction between them...Giichi takes things very personally...at the end, Hyakurin performs a symbolic act to move on with what remains of her life - although Manji can recover from wounds over time thanks to the bloodworms in his body, these wounds to Hyakurin's physical and mental self are going to take far longer to overcome. An excellent book, only brought down by not developing the central plot thread of the series one iota (even a cameo from Rin and Manji would've been nice to keep track of what they are up to whilst this storyline plays out); however this does mean that as the story is pretty much standalone, the first-time reader can jump aboard at this point without feeling too far out of depth. A good alternative to picking up book one of the series. Comment on this review of Blade of the Immortal: Beasts on the Manga Life Forums. |
7 May 2008
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