Manga 17554 Chidaruma Kenpou - Onorera Ni Tsugu

A very short tragedy manga about a Samurai's plea and vengeance.

The manga was released in 1960 and it uses the feudal era at its setting to essentially testify an outcast's life and his resentment towards the classes that discriminate him.

What makes the main character an outcast is his status as the son of Buraku, a real class of people that exist(ed) in Japan.

"Buraku describes a large minority group in Japan, historically descendants of outcast communities of the feudal era, which mainly comprised those with occupations considered "tainted" with death or ritual impurity (such as executioners, undertakers or tanners), and traditionally lived in their own secluded ... hamlets and ghettos."

The translator also left this note about the controversial publishing of the manga:

"Chidaruma Kenpou: Onorera ni Tsugu is a very controversial manga that was published in the '60s and was soon removed from shelves after being protested against by Buraku groups for its arguably negative portrayal of a Buraku main character. In recent times, it was restored and republished in this new version, but derogatory statements connected to Buraku and their history have still been blanked out. These missing bits have been restored as much as possible in this English translation."

Story-wise (8/10),
The story stars Gennosuke, the son of Buraku parents who died. He makes his way through a Dojo and is portrayed as being very persistant and recklessly relentless. His ultimate goal is to plea for the law of the land to be changed in order to make Buraku a protected class. This plan gets discovered and people realize he's a Buraku himself. This doesn't sit well among Dojo members and causes a cascade of events that end up with him carrying out an ultimate plan of vengeance. The story itself has nice minor twists but it's also fairly predictable and extremely short (even though it spans over more than a decade within the story). There's nothing particularly wrong with the story, it just wasn't exceptional and life during the time-skip should have had more story development. The time-skip almost felt practically useless given how few "changes" were portrayed after it passed. The ending is also a very nice twist that's a bit poetic. He's ended by someone of his caste, eliminating each other in the end, which only benefited the "bad guys" in the story.

Character-wise (10/10),
Gennosuke is very impulsive and intense. You see the emotions he goes through particularly well; you can feel that he's very troubled by what he's living. Fits of violent rage and fits of crying rage constantly on display, with no room given to "normal" scenes. There are basically 2 other important characters which make up his immediate circle, with nice twists to both of them.

Art-wise (7/10),
It's clearly very old but it's not bad by any means. It's simply underwhelming compared to newer art styles, it lacks detail and has this grainy texture. During fights, it can have some nice strokes that give the impression of speed/swinging but it can be bland or messy.

Overall, the manga is short and sweet. Enjoyable.

It was most definitely an inspiration for Shigurui

Gennosuke...Gonzaemon...crippleness...challenge to inherit Dojo...Irako son of "filth"...a distaste of the caste system...the revegeance plot...slay the tiger...even the sword style at some point...

An outcast, who's been persecuted his whole life, vows to become a ranking samurai and save his people from persecution. Unfortunately, his rage and inability to think lead him to a massive killing spree, culminating in he and his victims (all missing limbs) fighting to the death.

In short, nice art. Awful story. Blatantly racist, and more than a bit stupid.

At first I really enjoyed the first pages of this manga because the art is gorgeous with the subtle use of colour in the first section really adding an extra pop to all the panels. Then it presented and descended into racist propaganda that ... isn't all explained away by it being a period piece. The fact that Gennosuke is portrayed as a mindless beast whenever he picks up a sword - that he can only be tamed by his civilized sword master - that he transforms himself into an armless monster-snake is just such an example of blatant racism, it was hard to bear. I understood the racism the characters portrayed since that was a historical fact, but the racism the author portrayed was not acceptable and completely ruined the rest of the manga for me.

The last half of it also descends into a repetitive killing orgy of handicapped samurai. Hardcore the first time, boring the second, third and fourth times. I've read other manga by this author and I know he has more imaginative plots, but it doesn't show here.