Chapter 8
Ohtaka doesn't really seem to be taking advantage of the colour pages, the last colour page was just a basic full body shot of the two mains and this is mostly one colour (I wonder if it's supposed to be a reference to a Hitodama or something) which is a shame since her colouring is amazing.
Love the moment where Musashi shows gratitude for inheriting the way of the sword from Kojiro and his father thus giving him purpose, a goal to strive for, great character moment. Ohtaka has done a great job establishing the friendship between these two.
I was hoping it would just be the two of them for a while, but with the talk of finding comrades and that girl appeared at the end it seems there might be a new main character soon. I wonder how many party members they will end up with, Takeda made a big deal about how multiple Bushi are needed to take down a Kishin, but I don’t think that Musashi and Kojiro are going to get an entire army of them. I thinking around seven Bushi would be a nice number.
More insight into these two characters while Musashi is more book smart, seems that his time at the miner academy left him overly reliant on other people, whereas Kojiro has more life experience and is self sufficient after living on his own after his father died. Musashi is pretty mature compared to other Shounen main characters, he realised how trivial their fight was and was willing to make amends after some reflection. Even when he was butthurt over the Takeda stealing his kill, part of him knew he was being petty. Seems the inferiority complex that was growing in Kojiro in chapter 3, has made him quite competitive with Musashi. Considering their real life counterparts, this was a foregone conclusion, interested to see how Ohtaka tackles a classic Shounen rivalry. Magi didn’t really have any rivalries other than Sinbad and Kouken I guess, but that never really came to a head.
Chapter 9
Wasn't expecting to see hand to hand combat from Musashi, a pleasant surprise. Good fight choreography. I even recognised some techniques like Morote Seoinage, Outside Block, Triangle Choke and of course the Tomoe Nage. Tsugumi was pretty cool too, recovering in mid air, sticking a landing and immediately going for a counter attack. Judging by her family name and the fact she had a kunai she's probably a Ninja too, didn't think we'd see one this early. I heard that female ninjas or kunoichis often dressed in revealing outfits to distract their enemies, not sure how accurate that is though.
Glad that there is some weapon variety, I wasn’t kind of worried most of those special weapons that the Bushi have would mostly be Katanas, but we’re already seeing some different types of weapons like Tsugumi arm blade thing and the Kosameda leaders bow and arrow. Musashi looks down on females as combatants, make sense considering the era this takes place in. Though, I still gotta respect Ohtaka giving her MC a flaw that will most certainly make him despicable to some people. I’m interested to see how that character arc unfolds.
The name Kosameda doesn't seem familiar, looks like it might be an original clan. The leader seems kind of unsettling, characters with their eyes always shut almost always are shady as hell. Hattori Tsugumi? So she is related to Hattori Hanzo. When the first chapter of this series stated that all the famous Sengoku Period warlords were killed by the Kishin, I wondered why? Isn't half the fun of setting the story in that era portraying all those legendary people? But it seems the reason for this is because of one of the themes of the manga, legacy. Instead of Takeda Shingen, we have Takeda Naotora with his group using Hekiten Kakuyoku which seems to be an advanced version of Kakuyoku a battle formation used by Takeda Shingen at the 4th Battle of Kawanakajima in 1561 against Uesegi army. In this chapter we have Hattori Tsugumi instead of Hattori Hanzo. Instead of showcasing the key players from the Sengoku Period this series will probably be more focused on those who descended from them/carried on their will.
Chapter 10
Despite Musashi and Kojiro idealising Bushi, they don’t seem to have much problem with the idea of fighting them as enemies. Already putting Bushi in an antagonistic role, I wonder how long it will take to encounter a good natured Oni. Going off Magi, Ohtaka tends to stray away from black and white morality ironically enough considering the two types of Rukh.
Some nice world building this chapter, these travelling bases with whole civilization living inside them kind of reminds me of Alrest from Xenoblade 2, where the world is covered by a sea of clouds with Titans along its surface. Each Titan hosts its own distinct civilizations, cultures, wildlife, and environments. I guess it explains how Samurai are able to survive long distances outside of the towns given how barren and far apart cities seem to be, Musashi and Kojiro have been on the move for a week yet weren’t able to find a town. I wonder if most of the population in this series lives this way and Tatsuyama was just a rare exception. Can’t wait to see how these travelling fortresses are utilised, they seem to have lots of advantages, like in warfare, being able to move your base to a more strategically advantageous position, not having to wait for resources to make it back from home all the way to your encampment. Also in terms of narrative, the characters can interact with a new area and cast will also simultaneously travelling to another new setting as well.
Between the Kaleidoscope and the travelling base, it makes sense how that huge army of Takeda happened upon Engoku Tengu in that remote town. Still eagerly waiting for the manga to explain the weapons the Bushi use, I figured they were made using the ore that the Kishin/Oni eat given how Engoku Tengu also wanted to eat Kojiro’s sword. The same seems to be true for the motorcycles given the crystal like protrusion that come out from them. Since the series already places emphasis on techniques, are the weapons solely used to enhance those abilities or do they have powers of their own? I was really fond of the battle system in Magi, though it wasn’t really a battle heavy series compared to other Shounen, Orient seems to be more battle focused so I look forward to see how the battle system of this series works.
It was cool to see another aspect of Bushi, with the Takeda they were portrayed as heroes or freedom fighters. Here they’re portrayed as a family, pretty heartwarming almost made me forget how Tsugumi attacked Musashi and Kojiro and seemingly tried to kill them, almost. Family might be another theme of this series, makes sense since legacy and family have a strong correlation. Musashi doesn’t seem all that broken up when implying all his family are dead, the real life Musashi apparently had a troubled relationship with his father Shinmen Munisai, so I wonder if that’s the case here. Though the fact that Musashi doesn’t even have a family name implies he might be a low born in this version.
Chapter 11
Musashi clearly likes having his ego stroked, this character trait shown in the first chapter allowed him to be completely played by Hideo, in what was clearly a shady situation.
Seems the Takada wasn’t the standard for Bushi, but rather the higher echelons of Bushi, their amour did look a bit more modern like something out of Kamen Rider or Super Sentai. Where as these Bushi have normal looking Japanese armour, not to mention the Takada had a bunch of motorcycles and whereas these only have a few horses.
Tsugumi used the same ability that female Takeda Bushi used, where as before Musashi was able to break out, he couldn’t do so here, is it because Tsugumi stronger or was that other girl holding back. I hope there’s more variety in the abilities of these iron Oni blades it would be kind of meh if they all were the same.
Hideo seems like he’s going to be an interesting antagonist, I like how he isn’t outright malicious like Jamil. He was even willing to work with Musashi and Kojiro until he found out they were novices. His motivation to the defeat the Oni and defend the land given to them by their lord, are noble aspirations, the problems is that he’s so focused on that goal to the detriment of the people around him.
This harkens back to that one Oni follower that argued with Takeda in chapter 5 saying that because of Bushi trying to achieve the impossible, they end up leading countless people to their deaths. These two antagonists are complete opposites where as the Oni follower conforms to the Oni rule for the sake of preservation, thinking the defeating them is impossible and turns against his own kind. Hideo opposes the Oni so strongly that he’s willing to face them despite his lack of resources and the overwhelming odds basically sending his people to an early grave. So the ideal place is somewhere in middle of these extremes, not completely conforming to the Oni rule but also not rebelling recklessly.
Chapter 12
Another colour page, must be doing pretty well to keep getting these, not the colour scheme I expected for Tsugumi to have, the huge amounts of turquoise make her look like a Yuki Onna. The Volume 1 cover looks good, but I wish Ohtaka went the route of the Sinbad no broken covers which were ether visual summaries of the arc or a screenshot of a key moment in the arc.
So Kitestu are made from the fragments of Oni, I thought they were turned into energy or something when they were getting absorbed in the swords. So rather than absorbing the Kishin powers it was more like storing its remains for later use, but she did say that Kitestu has mysterious powers so maybe it has more than one use.
Tsugumi appears to have dependent personality disorder, and Hideo seems rather good at exploiting this to control her. Some of the symptoms of include; having difficulty making every days decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others, this chapter where she needed Musashi to urge her to challenge Hideo and even then she needed to flashback to that very same event that happened not too long ago, along with another one of her sister encouraging her in order to finally do it.
Has difficulty expressing disagreement with others, in chapter 11 when she couldn’t muster the courage to tell Hideo she didn’t agree with his plan to rally the town, she even states in this chapter the best course of action is to hide away and letting them pass by.
Feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone/helplessness when a relationship ends, this chapter Hideo used her fears of solitude to crush her resolve.
Needs others to assume responsibility for most major areas of her life, in chapter 9 and 11 where she constantly asks Hideo to give instructions what to do, like she can’t act without his word, hell even her meeting with Musashi and Kojiro chapter was because he asked her to.
Frequently refer to herself as stupid or belittle herself, does quite a bit in chapter 11 and this chapter.
It was a nice touch having Musashi to urge her to speak her mind to Hideo since he went through a similar situation in chapter 1 where he felt pressured by his peer to conform to their hatred of Bushi and dreams of becoming miners.
Maybe you arent allowed to answer stuff like that, but im just a bit curious, sorry about that.
