Title: Lady Snowblood #1 - The Deep-Seated Grudge
Story by Kazuo Koike
Art by Kazuo Mamimura
Publisher: Dark Horse
ISBN: 1593073852
May Contain Spoilers
Born in prison, Yuki was conceived to bring vengeance for the brutal murder of her mother’s husband and young son. Now an assassin for hire who commands a price of one thousand yen per job, she’s an emotionless killer. Accepting jobs from various employers, she travels Meiji era Japan plying her deadly trade.
I just could not get in to this book. There’s violence galore, as Yuki drifts from one chapter to the next, slaying indiscriminately along the way. However, I don’t feel like I ever got to know her, or understand why she’s running around leaving a path of blood in her wake. There’s zero character development, and though some of the settings are interesting, the story itself was rather flat.
Told in a series of vignettes, some of the historical details were far more interesting than Yuki’s assignments. Maybe this series is a little too gritty for me, as our heroine wields her killing skills in various states of undress, or forces a hapless servant to rape his employer’s daughter. It was a struggle to plow through to the end, and there wasn’t even that much dialog to slow the pace of the action.
Grade: C-
Rated for 18+
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4:39 am
I loved Lady SnowBlood. Then again, I admit all the time how much I like anti-heroes and the nitty gritty.The first volume does leave you with questions as to how she came to be and why she does what she does. However, it sets up pretty well how good she is at what she does. And how she uses everything; training, femininity, expectations, prejudices etc, to get the job done. She’s fearless, tactical and efficient.All of this comes in handy as her tale continues. So it’s good to have seen right up front that she goes the extra distance to get the job done.I also loved the historical detailing, from the city layouts and the hiearchies. I can’t swear it’s all accurate - I hope it was. But it did make me feel like I was learning something as I read.
7:48 pm
I loved this series. It was amazing. I was hooked by the first few pages. It is gritty but it also redeems itself later on. Not a real turn around but it gets better, I assure you.
1:28 pm
I’ve seen the Lady Snowblood movie and it’s really good but I haven’t had a chance to read the manga.