Samurai Executioner, Vol. 10 (v. 10)
The last sixSamurai Executionerstories share with their 48 predecessors the excellence of Koike's canny scripting and of Kojima's art with its resemblances to the historical films of Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. None of the six is as intense as the diptych of "The Bamboo Splitter" and "Toothless Yoshichi" inThe Bamboo Splitter(2005), or the extraordinarily gritty "Life Link" inTen Fingers, One Life(2005), but the two featuring a young policeman and his ex-offender wife, series regulars since debuting inShinko the Kappa(2005), bring erotic jollity into a milieu in which sex is elsewhere harsh and violent. As before, the mysteries raised in the shorter stories focused on single executions are resolved by swordsman Asaemon's quest to understand those he executes; the poignant "The Chrysanthemum Head" is one of the finest such pieces in the entire series. The concluding story, "Cough," sounds once more the series' persistent theme of common humanity by tracing a cold from condemned to prison guards to policemen to even the executioner.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved