Keiji is always struggling with different clans seeking to impose themselves in the shogun's entourage. In this eighth volume, he even becomes an investigator. But, to the logic of Sherlock Holmes, he prefers to take out the sword.
A mountain of muscles with a teenage mind
In the previous volume, Keiji had left the capital for the village of Nagiri. He understood that a little girl, Ofû, is at the center of a conflict between the two most powerful clans in the country. Alone, or almost, he had driven an entire army away. In this volume, the sponsor, Mitsunari, comes to demand that the child be delivered to him. Logically, Keiji overtaken in number and political influence by this very close to the shogun, should give in but the kabuki-mono only follows his code of honor…
Rather than fight him, he humiliates Mitsunari in public. He wipes his ears with his opponent's underwear. Keiji loves to provoke by words, by actions even if it means falling into violence but also by his outfit. This outrage makes him an endearing character because he is closer to a capricious teenager than the adult strategist. He even appears very modern in his democratic vision of Japanese society. Even though he is a great lord, he kneels with a humble peasant to pray. It strikes both humble soldiers and powerful lords. The fight is its form of democracy because offspring or money fade before force. Tetsuo Hara's drawing makes Keiji a superhero. He cuts up bodies by the dozen with a single spear. His assistants have extreme bodies. One is small in size and the other a giant. We make fun of two but Keiji pulls out his sword to command respect.
Sherlock to Nureyev
In Keiji's eighth, screenwriters Mio Asô and Keiichirô Ryù offer a new path to the series. The first part is organized as a police investigation to find a murderer. Indeed, a meeting for tea between two powerful people is an opportunity to talk about a murder that moved the court. One notable killed his guards, the men of Nagiri, before killing himself. The high official, Tokugawa, leans towards a stroke of madness while his friend, the tea merchant, expresses doubts but without being able to say everything. Indeed, his suspect is married to the daughter of the senior official.
Keiji's subsequent adventures are even more delusional, evoking the Ken the Survivor series by the same cartoonist. The mercenaries of the king of the underworld attack the concubine of a shogun. One of these soldiers can repel his opponents and paralyze them with his voice. This is even more true afterwards because the second part switches to the fantastic. A severed head flies and speaks, a ghost appears. However, far from scary, these exaggerations make you smile. Keiji takes advantage of a Noh dance contest to set a trap. In front of him, Kôtarô Fumâ can make columns of water spring by a triangle wave of the hand, lacerate bodies with his hair and rain a flock of butterflies. The fight to the death between the two becomes a series of poetic gestures. None of this would be credible without Tetsuo Hara's talent. His style is reminiscent of old-fashioned cinema classics. For long dialogues, the layout is simple and boxes seem to form slow motion before giving way to complex diagonals for combat.
In this eighth volume, Keiji remains a fun action story. The series edited by Mangetsu does not seek to denounce war or violence but to distract you. She succeeds thanks to the many plots and shenanigans more and more complex to give false leads and hide a decisive attack to come…
Take out the swords to find on the site the chronicles of the beginnings of Keiji or the thriller Golden Guy from the same publisher.
