Jul 1, 2019
I've never written a review, but I've seen a bit of misconception of the series, and I just want to give my views on what makes this story tick.
Takemitsu Zamurai is a brilliant multi-character story involving the ronin Senou, a village child Kan, the assassin Kikuchi, and about half a dozen other fleshed out characters. I've seen some write that the series revolves around only Senou himself, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.
In a very short 8 volumes, this series starts and completes all of their character arcs whilst tying most of them together with each other. A major theme of Takemitsu
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Zamurai is being what you're born as, and not being able to escape that fate. The characters have dreams as any else, but all wind up being exactly as they began.
When I say being born, I mean it both literally and figuratively. Much of the cast were born into the class system from their parents, and after their journey, end up falling prey to that same system- being very emblematic of how much of the ancient world and Japan worked.
On the other hand, characters such as Kikuchi and Omorusaki were "born" and bound to a single experience that changed their course of life and had to live out the rest of their lives by that.
The story ends in a both happy and poignant place. It is not a basic happy ending, but one that involves a great deal of regret. A major arc of the story involves Senou wanting a very average, everyday, enjoyable life, tied around Kankichu, a village boy who looks up to Senou, wanting exactly the same thing so that they can spend their lives together. Kankichi, being an actual child, and Senou, a man who never got the chance to grow up, both sharing the same, youthful dream. A dream that, by the end of the series, very painfully doesn't come true. The one thing that these characters wanted above most all is the one thing they couldn't have, and that's where the heartache in the ending comes from.
However, like almost every real person, we all have childhood dreams, and for most of us, they never come to fruition. They are what they are- immature hopes that you think about when you don't have a true grasp on the world.
The death of those dreams is natural, and while that is sad, their is happiness after. Senou wishes to escape the sword and the demon inside him, and in the end, loses his arm and his literal ability to fight. He loses his average life, and is forced into a job he never wanted. Yet somehow, through that all, in the last chapter, he's happy. Kan is happy. The death of a childhood dream doesn't mean the death of life. For these characters and the others in the series, happiness is obtainable- it just might not be where they're looking.
One last thing here but the art is absolutely outstanding, the storytelling and panel composition is wonderful. You can hear the narration and see the characters move.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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