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.