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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5
EAN num: 9781593075170
ISBN number: 1593075170
Label: Dark Horse
Manufacturer: Dark Horse
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 264
Printing Date: September 27, 2006
Publishing house: Dark Horse
Sale Popularity Level: 805618
Studio: Dark Horse
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This is the Edo-era samurai guts. Controversial, tough, angry, highly skilled and lost in a time of peace, the characters of Satsuma Gishiden tell a quasi-historical tale of social caste and brutal reprisal. Readers with a taste for Kazuo Koike's gritty Lone Wolf & Cub will go nuts for master gekiga artist Hiroshi Hirata's tome of samurai struggle. Hirata's art and calligraphy leap off the page during scenes of action, only to unfold upon a full bleed that looks like a fine plate print. It's art at is most expressive, accentuating the classic stoic samurai characters you've come to know, only with a little more true society thrown in to help the reader understand what it was really like to be a warrior without a war.
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Rated by buyers 
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This great title is a must have for any Gekiga O Jidai Geki fan! Artwork is amazing, so is storytelling!!! Highly recommended!!!
Rated by buyers 
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Coming from Dark Horse manga (who are always a reliable source for samurai action) and having drawn comparisons to other genre classics like "Lone Wolf and Cub," I was expecting nothing less than greatness from "Satsuma Gishiden." And while this is by no means a bad manga, it is perhapse best looked at as a magnification of its genre's inherent flaws.
The book opens with a stunningly composed "hunting" scene in which the reader is quickly acquainted with the world that these characters inhabit, one in which criminals are used for cruel sport by the ruling samurai. Through flashbacks we learn of not only the main character's past and what led to his grim fate, as well as the social conditions of the day. What seems to be an incredibly compelling tale on the surface in undermined by the extreme simplicity of the writing. Old-school seinen manga have never been known for their subtility, but Hirata takes this "macho" style to new extremes. Just in case the savagry of the action did not affect the reader, the manga takes every opportunity to remind the reader that of the cruel fate that befalls the samurai of the tale. We are given little room for interpritation as much of the plot consists of characters spewing out overly long monologues on masculinity, honor and every other cliche the samurai genre is known for. The characters themselves never really come off a fully developed people, but rather caricatures who's purpose in life is to assert their masculinity and prove their honor for anyone who looks at them the wrong way. This overly blunt style of writing leaves little room for actual substance: the social commentary never goes beyond pointing out that feudal Japan was not a pleasant place to live and the character's largely fail to invoke any pathos from the reader.
While the writing is deeply flawed, "Satsuma Gishiden" succeeds perfectly when it comes to the visual aspect. To be blunt, Hirata's artwork is amazing. There are obvious similarities to his contemporaries like Goseki Kojima and Sanpei Shirato, yet I'd argue that his style is the best of the three. Beautiful penwork that bears many similarities to calligraphy (which is to be expected since Hirata is an accomplished calligrapher) and an exellent sense of motion make this title a visual marvel.
My review may sound harsh, and it is only because I was expecting so much from this title. As a surface read it is quite amusing. The brisk pace and brutal action makes the story fun despite the serious flaws of the writing, and there are moments of comedy gold within these pages that are only enhanced by the overly serious nature of the rest of the book. This surface enjoyment, the possibility of a compelling story and the stunning artwork may inspire me to look into future volumes of the title down the line, as it's certianly more interesting than the majority of manga on the market. Anyone looking for an ultra-macho tale of blood, guts and honor will find much to like here. Just don't expect an overly sophisticated reading experience.
Rated by buyers -
Satsuma Gishiden is an intense manga with a style that is a refreshing change from the work of Koike Kazou and Goseki Kojima ("Lone Wolf and Cub," "Samurai Executioner," "Path of the Assassin").
Begining with events that take place during the very first hundred years of peace following the Battle of Sekigahara and the ushering in of the Edo Period, Satsuma Gishiden, volume 1, offers a story driven by compelling characters told from a grittier and more realisitic viewpoint than has been the case in other samurai-based manga. In a sense, you could say the violent action and wild draughtsmanship of Satsuma Gishiden stem from a deeper examination of the period than is found in Lone Wolf and Cub and the books by the same authors which followed it.
The Tokugawa Shogunate was history's last great experiment in Feudalism--the last place where a hereditary warrior class was given the chance to govern a nation. With its administrative organization and traditional allies, the forces controlled by the Tokugawa Shogunate kept the destructive energy of Japan's feudal lords in check for two and a half centuries, but it was unable to suppress Japan's social and economic stagnation. Satsuma Gishiden is the gritty, character-driven, story of these historical trends coming together to produce events that are just as bloody as much of what you find in Lone Wolf and Cub but the sense that drives the story is far stronger.
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