Lady Snowblood

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Lady Snowblood ( Japanese 修羅 雪 姫 , Shurayuki-hime ) is a manga by the Japanese author Kazuo Koike and the illustrator Kazuo Kamimura from 1972 and 1973. The manga was filmed in 1973 as a feature film of the same name .

action

prehistory

At the beginning of the Meiji period , Teacher Kashima is believed to be an official because of his clothes, which the rural population hated because they recruited conscripts. The three men Gishiro Tsukamoto, Banzou Takemura and Tokuichi Shouei and the woman Okono Kitahama killed him and his son, they were paid for by the villagers. His wife Sayo is raped. When she takes revenge on Tokuichi Shouei and kills him, she is sentenced to life imprisonment. But to get revenge on the other three, she seduces the guards so that she has a son who can avenge her. But she dies giving birth to a daughter. This is now supposed to take her mother's revenge and is trained accordingly by the older inmate Tora Mikazuki.

Main storyline

In Meiji 20, Yuki Kashima did homicide assignments for money and information about her mother's torturers. That's how she works for the yakuza . In Tokyo she is taught the craft of theft by Dajire, the mistress of the region's thieves. She later wreaked havoc in the Rokumeikan on behalf of the Black Turtle Party and enabled the government to change its policy.

In the woods, Yuki finds Matsuemon, leader of a community in the woods, who is supposed to find out the whereabouts of the three remaining torturers of her mother for her. To do this, however , she has to bring a Sukhavati memorial book, which she steals after the death of a noblewoman. With this the community Matsuemons organizes donations, on which it lives. Soon after, Matsuemon reveals the whereabouts of Okono Kitahama. This runs a financial cooperative in Osaka and is wealthy. However, Yuki manages to ruin her financially, and Kitahama goes to jail for her debts.

When Matsuemon can't make out the whereabouts of the remaining two, he advises Yuki to have her story published as a book in order to lure her out. She persuades the eccentric writer Gaikotsu Miyahara to do so and the novel becomes a great success. After a while, Miyahara is kidnapped by a group of criminals so that Lady Snowblood can show herself. This was arranged by Gishiro Tsukamoto, who found himself cornered by the novel. But Yuki can kill him too.

Soon afterwards, Yuki learns from Matsuemon that the last remaining tormentor in her family, Banzou Takemura, makes bamboo pillows and trades them. She soon finds Banzou, who is seriously ill and has a 16-year-old daughter. When his daughter leaves him alone at night to earn money with prostitution, Yuki kills Banzou, who first begs her for forgiveness. Then she makes sure that his daughter is better than before.

Concept and style

According to Georg Seeßlen , a moral concept comes into play in the work, which is also important in other works by the author Kazuo Koike. The descendants of the actors are also included in the chain of violence and revenge and repeat history, they only live for revenge. Furthermore, Lady Snowblood also represents a symbol for the moral crisis in Japan at the end of the 19th century. Therefore, historical events of the time are included in the course of the plot.

publication

The manga appeared in Japan from 1972 to 1973 in Playboy magazine and in four anthologies ( Tankōbon ) by Shueisha . The work was published in English by Dark Horse Comics , in French by Kana and in Spanish by Planeta DeAgostini Comics . The Portuguese edition was published by Conrad Verlag in Brazil.

The manga was published in German in 2006 by Carlsen Comics . The translation is by Dorothea Uberall.

Adaptation

The manga was adapted in Japan in 1973 as a feature film entitled Lady Snowblood . In 1974 the sequel Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance followed . In 2001, Shinsuke Sato's material was again adapted as a real film.

continuation

In 2006 a sequel to the manga was discovered in Japanese archives and published under the title Shurayuki-hime - Fukkatsu no Shō . The 420-page work was published in January 2009 with the title Lady Snowblood - Resurrection at Carlsen Comics in German. The story is about the same character, but with a different historical background.

reception

According to Christel Scheja from splashcomics.de, a classic that shows the dichotomy between tradition and western modernity. The work paints a gloomy but realistic picture of Japan at the time, violence is openly discussed. The plot is profound and cynical, but also exciting and full of action.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Foreword by Georg Seeßlen to the first volume of the manga
  2. ^ Posting in the Carlsen publishing forum by Carlsen employee Kai-Steffen Schwarz
  3. ↑ Carlsen Comics for sequel
  4. ^ Review of the 1st volume at splashcomics.de, by Christel Scheja