For several volumes the Chiruran series published by Mangetsu focused on side struggles but the Serizawa and Kondo clans take out the swords. Volume seven marks the beginning of a gang war.
How do you arrive at a war?
Chiruran is a flashback story made by a veteran in front of a young journalist. This old man has a very negative view of his past and this probably explains where the humor comes from: militiamen sometimes have childish attitudes that make us smile. Cartoonist Shinya Umemura has a big role in the success of the series. The crazy costumes and grimacing faces make it easy to make jokes: a spy looks like a frogman with a construction mask. The designer is just as good at conveying the dynamism and violence of duels. Chiruran is above all a war series and precisely the veteran will reveal in this volume seven the causes of the fratricidal struggle within the militia of Miburôshi Gumi: the assassination in Yagi-Tei… This volume very agitated for the militiamen when it only takes a spark to start the war. The reader had been waiting for a long time for the confrontation between the Kondo and Serizawa groups. Each general has gathered his group and they now live opposite each other. These two generals are greedy for power and sources of competition multiply. Indeed, in volume five, Kondo's group killed a spy placed by the opposing group. This tension set up by screenwriter Eiji Hashimoto leads to a war within the same samurai militia but its origin will surprise you because it is external to both groups. However, more than massive fighting, this rise in tension involves an opposition between two samurai and a police investigation.
The story behind the manga
The Miburōshi Gumi was a militia of leaderless samurai, ronins. In times of peace and modernization, this noble military elite found itself massively unemployed and the gangs quickly grew. The series illustrates the changing status of the samurai who is no longer a noble soldier in the service of a great lord but a man without resources who uses his military talents to earn a living. Socially, there is a regression because anyone can join the militia: one character is a former craftsman and another is the son of a peasant. This force becomes so inescapable that it receives responsibility for security in the metropolis of Kyoto. The Chiruran series exposes this situation because the gang gathers more than 100 members. They are so numerous that two factions emerge around two leaders: Kamo Serizawa and Isami Kondô. Chiruran, however, clearly sided with Isami Kondô. This group wants to restore order in the city of Kyoto and establish a charter between the militiamen while Kamo Serizawa is a demon who thinks only of crushing the other factions to take power over the archipelago. One gets the impression that the screenwriter wants to represent the birth of the police on one side and that of the yakuza on the other. Published on April 6, this new volume of Chiruran hits very hard. Despite the mass that Miburôshi Gumi represents, screenwriter Eiji Hashimoto always remains in the human by centering each new volume on a small group of characters. The rise of tensions between the factions goes through opposition of characters. You can find on these links to the previous chronicles: volume five and six.
