Samurai Executioner

From the creators of Lone Wolf and Cub comes Samurai Executioner. Before Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima created Itto Ogami, they created Kubikiri Asa, better known to Lone Wolf readers as Decapitator Asaemon. He was the equal to Itto, bearer of the sword Onibocho and charged with the duty of testing swords for the shogun. Samurai Executioner is based on the life of the decapitator before his fatal duel with Lone Wolf. Expect legendary drama, frantic action, and stoic samurai stature, combined with the exemplary art and storytelling that made Lone Wolf and Cub one of the most popular and influential comic books in the world! • Never before published in America, Samurai Executioner was the precursor to one of the most seminal works of manga, Lone Wolf and Cub!

It's the same classic style you came to expect from Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima. The same tale of an honorable samurai and a similar great sword in the hand of a similarly fantastic swordsman, but make no mistake, Samurai Executioner is very different from its brother, Lone Wolf and Cub, sometimes frighteningly so. In a prison world, there are few good stories, and this is the world of Kubikiri Asa, the beheader and master samurai under the shogun. It's a world full of vengeance, greed, and violence. A world of depravity and sin. One man can set things straight if he can keep his wits. This is a story of extreme proportions, of sword study thick in tradition and with grim purpose, of blood rivers, agonizing screams, bondage, torture, and the evil prevalent in human failure.

Readers of Lone Wolf and Cub came to know a samurai of such high honor that he was not only able to perform but enjoyed and, in fact, learned from basic daily tasks. Cutting wood, cooking food: those weren't things a samurai did back in feudal Japan, but those human elements are apparent in Samurai Executioner's Kubikiri Asa. He's a man of the people, though his job is to separate many of those same people from their heads. In this volume, however, we're treated to three fantastic stories of amazing weapons skill, both on the part of Asa and those around him. Witness, for the first time in this series, a duel between two great samurai, in the slow, contemplative tradition.

A frenetic mix of samurai honor, base violence, and the blood of beheadings, Samurai Executioner is not for the faint of heart. For those who love blood-and-guts crime drama, historical fiction, and brutal action, this is right up your alley. The creators of Lone Wolf and Cub bring you one Kubikiri Asa, a young ronin samurai who helps keep the peace by putting the fear of beheading into Edo's criminals. But it doesn't always work, and so he has to follow through with his threats. Full of squirting blood, fast-paced samurai sword work, and the drama that comes from human corruption, Samurai Executioner is like no other classic manga. • Never before published in America, Samurai Executioner is the companion to one of the most seminal works of manga, Lone Wolf and Cub! • For mature readers.

Striking similarities between Lone Wolf and Cub and Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's parallel story line Samurai Executioner (known as Kubikiri Asa in Japan) are evident in the cool attitude, rebellious honor, and unflappable bushido of the lead characters of both series, but readers will delight in the new genre of Edo-era samurai spirit in Samurai Executioner. Wrapped tightly around a core of crime fiction, this is a world of harsh and violent crime, and the forces up against it. In this volume, after stories of criminals' lives leading to execution, we meet two Edo-era police officers and explore their specialized methods of capturing crafty criminals. In Koike's signature fashion, the volume ends with a psychotic killer and her grueling and violent end.

Yamada Asaemon, the shogun's fearsome executioner, has been the end of the road for countless criminals, but rarely has he been involved in a case so strange. A mysterious woman with a turtle-demon tattoo on her back and the ability to swim like no other is stealing weapons from men around Edo, bruising egos and stirring trouble. But when she steals a policeman's jitte, all hell breaks loose, and hell is exactly what Asaemon is trained to deliver. • Samurai Executioner is the companion to one of the most seminal works of manga, Lone Wolf and Cub! • For mature readers.

As Samurai Executioner continues in its own world of crime and punishment, honor and bushido, we are beginning to learn more about the characters and situations involved in Edo-era justice. We learn about Kubikiri Asa, the shogun's decapitator, and his stoic, joyless existence, with stories of his childhood and their impact on his present life. We also learn more about the peace officers of the era, such as Catcher Kasajiro, the charming young man who uses a hooked rope and a chained cudgel with such great skill. With these two characters—one with the guilt of many generations, and one bearing the naiveté of a young buck—comes an odd sort of tenderness to a world of pain and death. For mature readers.

Spring is a season of rebirth and delight, but not for Kubikiri Asa, the Shogun's executioner. And for those condemned to lose their heads to Asa's sword, this spring will be their final season. Samurai Executioner, the Edo-era samurai crime drama by Lone Wolf and Cub creators Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, continues down its path of heinous crime and diligent, bloody justice. • For mature readers.

As the shogun's sword tester and executioner, Yamada Asaemon stands at the precipice of life and death. Such a position is not to be taken lightly, and Kubikiri Asa (head chopper) most certainly does not, often listening to the stories of those about to die and paying respect to these often maligned prisoners. But honor is honor, and while Asa may feel deep emotion for the condemned, ultimately the shogun's blade must fall. From the acclaimed Lone Wolf and Cub creative team of writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima, Samurai Executioner is intense, violent, and though-provoking, historical manga at its finest. • For mature readers.

The Shogun's executioner has received many strange last requests from those about to lose their head, some stranger than others. A woman condemned for murder wants her locks severed by the killing blade to be given to a lost love. An old man asks that his own decapitation follow that of his prized chrysanthemum, and that his executioner grow another from its cuttings. And elsewhere, the woman who once stole the weapons of samurai policemen is asked to serve as a cop herself to use her own unique skills to help solve a puzzling murder. All this and more in the final volume of Samurai Executioner! From the legendary writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima, Samurai Executioner is historical manga at its finest, as tender as it is violent. • For mature readers.