Blade of the Immortal Vol. 9: The Gathering Part 2

[pmpknface]

How appropriate that Halloween is right around the corner and we have the trade with more blood splatters than a Friday the 13th marathon!

First things first... we get to see the end of Manji's throw-down with the 3 Itto-ryo members which is just insane. Not only are body parts flying, but they are being stuck to trees, used as disctactions, etc... This is yet another well-coreagraphed (sp?) battle. The ending to it and the absolute drenching of Hyakurin in blood is jaw-dropping.

As entertaining as this swordfight is, as the cover suggests, Rin really takes center stage here. The pressure of the intense situation that she puts herself in actually makes you sweat reading the pages. Samura really throws a few gasps in there too by changing up the time frames of Rin's conversations with the inkeeper's wife, which keeps you on edge. Can she keep her cool or what? :rolleyes:

Man... these 2 volumes togather probablly make my favorite story so far in this series (with Dreamsong following right behind). The tension in Rin's story, "Cloudburst," is unmatched with anything I think I have ever read. Few creators can drag you to the edge of your seat and keep you there.

All that and another visit to "Samura's Weapon Shop" too. What else could you ask for? :D

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

I can't believe we're up to the ninth volume already.

This was quite the bloody little volume, wasn't it? Bloody bloody von Blood Blood. And then there's the decapitation. The amputation. The mutilation. And the spewing forth of blood. For a minute, I thought I was reading a comics adaptation of some bad foreign import slasher flic.

But you know what? It didn't gross me out the way those movies would.

Thankfully, the second half of the book was a lot more cerebral. Rin's passage was edge of the seat exciting, even when it's just three people sitting in a room to chat.

I really should have the book in front of me when I'm writing these things. Might make my statements more coherent, don'tcha think?

In the end, this book had both halves of what makes the series so great -- it had the insane fight scenes with lots of pain and blood, as well as the tense political struggle (of a sort) with all the headgames that entails.

I do have to admit that "Samura's Weapons Shop" does nothing for me, though. Someone said in another thread here already today: What this book needs is a page or two devoted to headshots, names, and a quick sentence description of their roles in the series. That would be very very helpful.

-Augie

[pmpknface]

In the end, this book had both halves of what makes the series so great -- it had the insane fight scenes with lots of pain and blood, as well as the tense political struggle (of a sort) with all the headgames that entails.

I do have to admit that "Samura's Weapons Shop" does nothing for me, though. Someone said in another thread here already today: What this book needs is a page or two devoted to headshots, names, and a quick sentence description of their roles in the series. That would be very very helpful.

-Augie

That's why these volumes are my favorites!

I am in agreement with you on the headshots / descrions though. But talking about the characters every other week (and the fact that this is like the third time I'm re-reading this series) has been helping out a lot.

[Madame Manga]

There was a pictorial character guide in the magazine that runs Mugen no Junin in Japan, but although I could point you to scans of it, it's all in Japanese and therefore of somewhat limited utility! It was also put together much later in the run of the series than we've seen so far in translation, so there are spoilers--dead characters have a great big red kanji splashed over their descriptions.

This is one of the most excruciating fights so far, especially from Manji's point of view. If this book was in color, it would probably be too damn much! I like Manji's interesting tactics--hack off a limb to bait a trap, eviscerate a corpse to dye the water; it makes you wonder where the hell he learned things like that. There's also a great sense of just how SCARY this guy looks to people other than Rin. Manji manages to freak out one of his opponents to the extent that he practically defeats himself. Though how on earth from that starting point you can get the leverage to cleanly bisect a body in one stroke I have no idea! That part always gets a snicker from me--just a touch over the top, IMO.

I wondered for a while why Manji didn't stick his right arm back together before crawling up to the road to face Higa, and then realized it's all about the tegata. If he took the time to rest and regroup, the last of the three might just high-tail it out of there, and he'd lose his chance to get the precious thing. It's always uppermost in his mind--even when he's practically been reduced to a torso, he tells Hyakurin to fetch the tegata first instead of collecting his scattered limbs.

Speaking of scary dudes, Higa is near the top of the list! Even without bloodworms to help him out, he seems darn near unkillable and apparently has delusions of vampirism. The way he gnaws on Hyakurin's neck and the sound effects thereof come across as thoroughly grisly; he'd give even Shira a run for his money.

Manji's devotion to Rin seems to have impressed Hyakurin; even Shinriji notices how broken up she gets when grieving over his 'corpse'. She started out dismissing him as one more dumb thug, and then has to realize that he's a lot more than his surface implies. A LOT more--her reaction when she sees that he's still alive after the hacking he took is hilarious!

Rin likes to dance on the thinnest edges she can, almost as if to prove her devotion to her cause and justify what Manji has gone through for her. That interview with the official is just plain harrowing; very well put together. (Not very historically accurate about the relative difficulties of leaving Edo for someone like her, but what the heck, it makes a good story.) When she unhesitatingly strips to display the scar, you can tell she's come a long way from the kid she was at the beginning of the series--that's real grit.

But it sure was lucky for her that the nice innkeepers decided not to take ALL her cash; what was she planning to do on the road to Kaga without any money? At least for now, she's doing fine...that new maturity goes in fits and starts. One moment she's a tower of strength and the next she does something downright silly. Man, I'm glad I'm not sixteen any more. ;-)

MM

[De Carabas]

RE: Manji's fight

Oh.

My.

God.

That last guy was insane! It was like Manji vs. Marv! While I may have been quick to guess that Manji was going to cut off his own hand, that is where any predictions I may have had ended. That was easily one of the most intense and unpredictable fight scenes I have ever seen. Wow.

And that wasn't s**t compared to what followed.

About seven months ago, Augie (rightly) complained about the people who accused the Young Avengers preview as being boring because there was no fighting. As much as the fight scene satisfied my lower brain function's urges for violence, it is Rin's scene that was the truly tense and nerve-wracking one. I almost felt like the sweat on the inn keeper's brow was mine. Keeping him in the dark may have made the plan riskier, but it seriously added to the reader's tension and sense that this could go horribly wrong any second. His nervousness and fear became our own.

EM

P.S. Never live in a state that gets hurricanes. It is just not worth it.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Thanks for the shout out, Eric. It's always nice to hear people remember what I wrote months later. =)

-Augie

P.S. Not a problem. I have no desire. Besides, I like cold weather every now and then, too. And by "cold," I mean colder than 70 degrees on an on-going basis. . .