Path of the Assassin, Vol. 9 (v. 9)
The tiny strike force launched at the castle commanding Mino Province at the end of Shinobi with Extending Fists (2007) succeeds as this volume of Koike and Kojima’s epic opens. Soon after, ninja hero Hanzo’s son is born, and a chillingly “principled” wild-card samurai enters the factional struggle to control all Japan. The story that names the volume closes it, beginning in earnest the long conflict eventually resolved by Hanzo’s master Ieyasu’s establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The historical names fly thick and fast, the plotting gets dense, and “reading” Kojima’s art becomes, besides a pleasure, a necessity. --Ray Olson