Azumi the Better Ninja Manga

And finally, the number one manga that deserves an anime is Azumi! *everyone cheers* Yay!

And you're probably wondering. What's Azumi about? and why should we care? Well, let me review why this action pack ninja manga deserves the total badass award and anime treatment.

And once again: Spoilers, you have been warned.

Also Warning: Graphic Imagery!

Azumi is a ninja manga that was first created in 1994 and finished in 2009 with a total of 48 volumes, created by Yu Koyama. Just to let you know, I haven't finished the series. I'm reading it online and so far I've only made it up to volume 19. Yah, I read a lot but still don't know how this manga ends so I'll over give a review to what I've seen and read so far. I think the wiki site gave a better summary to what's the initial story to Azumi, as they put " focuses upon the life of the titular young female assassin. The manga begins an indeterminate number of years after the Battle of Sekigahara. As Azumi begins her duty, the manga introduces its characters into mainstream history. Many of the early missions that Azumi undertakes are the assassinations of the prominent supporters and generals of the Toyotomi Clan, against whom Tokugawa Ieyasu expected to again go to war. The manga 'reveals' that many of the Toyotomi leaders who conveniently died of diseases or accidents prior to the final confrontation between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa were actually victims of assassinations by Azumi and her comrades, thus indicating to the reader when the events were taking place." I'm no expert on Japanese war history so I can't confirm if Koyama did an accurate job at describing real-life events or real people. If you happen to be a conosuir of Japanese history, most likely you could give that confirmation.

So let's first talk about the Artwork: 9/10, Koyama's art is pretty good and detail in the scenery of Japanese landscapes. In fact, some of the background scenery is so amazingly detailed, I found myself getting lost in all the awesome line work.  The artwork is more anatomy correct when it comes to the people. Such as the eyes are not as huge as other mangas and body proportions are more realistic. However, to add some humor to the characters, Koyama did give some faces a caricature design. Like for most male characters, they would have huge noses, unibrows or "Homer Simpson" chin shadow. Also, character designs are pretty simple. No, strange hair color, or hair designs. It gives that realistic touch. The clothing is natural to the time period where the story is taking place. So I get the feeling Koyama was more about practicality rather than over exaggerated expressional art. This is kinda rare for mangaka because it could have been so easy to make Azami and crew look like crazy color superheroes. Instead, Koyama goes with natural colors and design. Koyama even didn't use the traditional manga small noses for Azumi. Instead, a more natural nose. Pretty impressing. I have great respect for someone who doesn't follow the popular norms.

Story Plot: 9/10 Again since I haven't finished reading the manga, I can't give a full review of the story plot. So who knows how it will end. Hopefully, it will end just as amazing as it started. So the story about a female assassin who must work for a man whom she always considers her grandfather, who turns out to be a rebel terrorist who was against the shogun system, is both complex and addicting. Koyama is not afraid to show the blood either. After all, since this is a ninja/assassin manga, naturally there should be blood and holy hell there's no end supply of bloody horror. Right off the bat, Azumi goes double holy hell when at a young age, she had to prove her assassin status by killing her best friend/love interest! Yah and from there she has to kill different government officials, stop another assassin from killing her while being naked, (this happens twice actually), Lure one government official into a friendship, only to be caught and forced to kill her other friend. Then the man who raises her gets killed and pretty soon Azumi is all alone while more assassins try to kill her for successfully killing a powerful shogun or emperor...I kinda forgot. Anyways, once in a while, an unknown narrator explains the political situations between the state and higher law powers. I can't really explain it all here because again Japanese political history is not a subject I'm anywhere near familiar with. Also, I'm not sure if it's Azumi doing the narrating. She could be but again I'm not a hundred percent sure. If it ever becomes an anime, it would interesting to have her be the narrator. Now get ready for some major sad tearjerking scenes because it happens a lot. Azumi had to watch each of her comrades/friends/"brothers" get murder until she is all alone. She does find a friend in a transgender girl but she too also dies. Many times, she had to kill someone she deeply respects or loves. Yah, the number of dead friends from this manga makes George R.R Martin's Game of Thrones look like My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. There are plenty of times when Azumi wondered if she should die whether by her own hand or by another assassin. Very deep depression our Azumi must go thru.

Characters (Protagonist): 9/10 So the initial character to talk about is Azumi, of course. Azumi is an amazing female character. Because she was raised by a man along with many male companions, she didn't understand that she was a female and different. Even her "brothers" were surprised when explained that Azumi was a different gender or that there was a different gender. In the first few volumes, Azumi would comment about her gender, wondering about the different feelings she gets as she develops more into a woman. Because of her upbringing, she doesn't understand the social boundaries woman have created. Like she wouldn't mind being naked in front of strangers or in front of men. Many cases she doesn't understand the difference between men and women. As time goes by, she sees certain "brothers" in a different light. About three times, she and a "brother" confesses their feelings to one another, which makes it so heartbreaking because, in the end, they do die. As an assassin, she's one hundred percent bad-ass. The scenes showing how she fights are memorizing to look at. Whenever she gets into tough situations, she always finds a way out. Whether by her own intellect or by a stroke of luck. Now maybe the speed she shows is a little unrealistic at times, she does look more like the flash than an actual ninja. I think this is where Koyama exaggerates when it comes to how fast Azumi could be during the fighting. It makes for some action pack reading but again the way she moves, she could outrun Sonic. A major theme about Azumi is that her innocence about the world is a deep part of her personality. She may have killed but only because she was either order to or was defending herself. She's not a malevolent character. She never wishes to kill anyone. If anything, after losing her grandfather and comrades, she tries her damn best to avoid death and blood spatter. But it seems Azumi is a character of prophetic doom. To always have death around her. And she comes to realize this is sad despair. I know some manga critics have deemed her as a bodhisattva - a being of enlightenment, and to be fair I do agree (while everyone around her is corrupt or becomes corrupt, she on the other hand never does, instead learns and sees how people's inner darkness comes out during stressed situations, even then Azumi would forgive those who tried to wrong her.)  however, I really come to see her as a Hamlet figure too. Sometimes Azumi sees things too much in black and white and gets used a lot by others. This is how she gets in trouble when she kills the emperor (shogun maybe? it's been a while since I read that chapter), someone used her into believing the emperor had to be killed and now lots of assassins are

after her now. Other than that, she's an easy character to like. She has good humor and when we do get those moments of calm and peace, we see how she dreams of the past and wishes to make those who died proud of her so far. Before Azumi wished to join her comrades/"brothers" in death but later she changes her mind and decides to continue living so she wouldn't fail them. A kind of promise that she won't die despite the odds. And trust me the odds for her can be very difficult. Double bonus points for her rocking that cape thou. So ok enough with Azumi, lets tried to talk about some secondary characters. For the most part, we get only brief ideas of the secondary characters, since many do die very quickly within each story arch. However, one character that manages to stay alive so far in my readings is Saru. A short male assassin who has a comical face since he has a unibrow and a red nose. In the beginning, he was helping his master in taking down Azumi and did try to kill her many times. He did kill Hyuga, a "brother" to Azumi, but he did it out of mercy because the psycho killer Bijomaru was tormenting the poor boy. So while Saru does kill without fear, he has more of an honor code to killing. He doesn't believe in cruel torture. Eventually, he becomes Azumi's ally, mainly on orders but also because he does have a respect for Azumi. She will eventually have an equal respect for him. I really like their teamwork, I really hope Saru continues to survive, he could at least provide Azumi companionship. Then we have Yae who shows up briefly in the beginning. She was an acrobat along with her father and siblings however when government assassins were looking for Azumi and her "brothers", they mistake Yae's family and properly kills everyone, only Yae survives. She falls in love with Hyuga, and the two even kiss and promises to see each other again, however after Yae leaves, Hyuga gets murder. She appears again much later in the story, now a prostitute. Her relationship with Azumi goes up and down, once she scowls Azumi when Azumi tries to pay Yae out of the prostitute house, claiming that Azumi only is pitying her. Then she falls in love with a ronin who wants to kill Azumi and most probably have sex with her, his reasons are pretty complicated. He treats Yae kindly and she falls in love with him. Then she witnesses Azumi and this ronin talking and he forces a kiss on Azumi. Naturally, Yae gets jealous at Azumi, however, later Yae gets kidnapped by yet another assassin, Azumi must kill that assassin and the ronin and she must say goodbye to Yae. In turn, Yae forgives Azumi. I really hope we see Yae again. Despite her naivety, she does give hope for Azumi on achieving a normal life. However since the danger is following her, she has no choice but to stay away from Yae. It's sad, showing how lonely Azumi must be. Let's talk about the Grandfather who trains Azumi into the ninja hood. Now it would seem at first that the grandfather has no emotional connection with his students/"grandchildren" since after each one dies, he simply instructs the others and Azumi to move on and learn from the mistakes their dead "brothers" made, however in one scene we see that he actually has wooden carved figurines of each child he lost that he craves himself, and he would lament and show sadness to the children who died for the cause. His death is equally sad. He and Azumi are on a bridge, cornered by the government army. In the last moment, out of love, he throws Azumi into the river so she could escape and she cries out her grandfather's name. He then gets wounded only to finally realize the enemy's main plan on using Azumi for an assassination on the emperor. He tries to stay alive long enough to warn Azumi but it's too late, he dies before she gets back to him. This was pretty damn emotional to watch because the grandfather shows his love but regret on not keeping Azumi well informed of the real mission and true enemy she must face.

Yeah, I know there are more side characters in the manga but it will take me forever to analyze and list them all so let's get to the villains.

Characters (Antagonists): 6/10 I gave this one a lesser grade only because the villains range from boring to predictable to pretty easy to defeat. The main villain is the general who arranges to trick Azumi into killing the emperor, so that way the emperor's son becomes emperor, and now wants to kill Azumi because if she learns the truth she will come after him and she knows too much. The rest of the villains are just assassins and they range from easily defeated to just plain weird. And too many times Azumi encounters crazy rapists wearing too much makeup, no seriously, one guy, after getting mortally wounded, wished he just one chance raping Azumi, and he tells her this in this dramatic fashion, it's so weird. Since I haven't finished the manga I haven't gotten to any point where Azumi could finally take vengeance on the main official who used her and kill her grandfather. Right now I'm at the chapter where Azumi meets a religious man who seemed to have the power to heal people, I'm sure he's also an enemy but so far it hasn't been established yet. Because the main villains are hardly seen, I can't really give a high score, I think for sure the main objective that the villains have to overtake the country of Japan. So basically to get incredible power and maybe take over the government. Typical bad guy stuff. 

Overall: If you're looking for overexaggerated fights and ninjas with colorful clothes and hairstyles you might be bored with Azumi, however, if you're looking for realistic fighting, gory sword kills, plenty of stories of loss and betrayal and an coming of age story about a girl surviving in Japan then Azumi is for you. The art is in amazing detail and practical and the story is all about finding peace as an assassin while in a turmoil Japan. I was amazed on how Azumi didn't have the girly cliches of being a clutz or boy crazy gossip. Every chapter she is learning more about herself, as an assassin, as a human being, and as a woman. You feel for her when she loses someone she considered as a friend, and you cheer for her when she wins a sword fight. The story does remind the reader that being an assassin is not a romantic career, with constant action, and secret agent gaggery. Most of the time, it is about loneliness, about figuring out what kind of life one could lead when in a career of murder and above all how to see the positive in life after all the heartbreak and bloodshed. Now I know there are two live-action movies about Azumi and I did watch the first one. The first movie I think talks about the first 6 volumes, but since its a movie, they had to condense stories, remove characters and important scene and even change some events to give the movie more sense. While the costumes and fighting scenes are nice, it's a poor adaptation and representation to the original manga. That is why an anime is in need. With an anime, the story adaptation would be better, the artwork and scenes could be preserved and we could have a long ninja anime to rival Naruto and in my opinion would be better than Naruto so that's why it's my number one pick as the manga that deserves an anime!