Genre: Fantasy, Action
Rating: Older Teens (16+)
Price: $10.99

If you’re even mildly into manga, it’s hard not to have at least heard of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai. I’ve never seen it, but I have heard of it. And with the Samurai 7 manga, Mizutaka Suhou puts a spin on that story.

It’s set in a time after a great space war that split the earth in half and pitted giant armed robots against just a few men, whose only weapon were their swords called taisenshatou. Now, after the war is over, samurai have no master to serve, and most wander around, feeding and plundering as much as possible.

Still, in some minds, at least, there exists the notion that samurai can be straight and noble — but not too many people see samurai that way anymore.

One day, Katsushiro, a wandering samurai, befriends a pretty young woman in a market. She takes him to a fellow villager; the two of them were sent on a mission to the city to enlist some samurai to help out a village in its struggle against a group of warrior bandits, who have threatened the villagers.

However, Katsushiro is more than he appears to be. In fact, some details are revealed in the volume that shed light on his character and motivations. But those details also undermine his efforts to help the village.

In the end, a group of helpers forms and decides to set off to the village to help rid it of the group of warrior bandits. The volume ends in a battle that forces the hand of a couple of people.

The opening volume in this series sets the stage, but it really isn’t anything spectacular. At times it’s light, funny, serious, but it’s never consistent enough to be great; it ends up being just good. Hopefully that will improve with the forthcoming volumes.

 

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