Samurai Executioner, Vol. 8 (v. 8)
Acclaimedmangamaster Koike's historical series look enough alike to suggest that his relationship to his artist collaborators is like that of a film director to a cinematographer. He probably constructs scenarios detailed right down to angles of vision and charges the artists to realize them with differing degrees of realism.Samurai Executioneris drawn in a poetic realist style. Gushing blood, grimacing faces, rain, wind, and fire appear next-to--photographic at first; a beat later, the lines and shadings that conjure mood register. One could rush through a story barely noticing Kojima's craftsmanship, especially inThe Death Sign of Spring'stwo hyperviolent volume openers about men of very different stations who in essence go berserk. Asaemon the executioner's exceptional compassion is the point of the next three shorter, quieter stories, one of which lacks violence, though--this is another story about the eponymous heroine ofShinko the Kappa(2005)--not sex. There is less swirling black ink in those three, which makes sense. The concluding two stories about offenders roused to fury by perceived injustice return to the noirish lighting effects of the first two.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved