Bloody Stumps Samurai (EN)

THIS. IS. GEKIGA. Idolized by creators across the arts, from Akira’s Otomo Katsuhiro to novelist Mishima Yukio, Hirata Hiroshi (b. 1937) is widely considered one of the most talented and influential artists of the comics medium in Japan. Known to English readers through such titles as Satsuma Gishiden (Dark Horse Comics), Hirata has been killing the samurai genre since the late 1950s with manga of jaw-dropping draftsmanship and heart-stopping cruelty. His work is essential, unforgettable, unparalleled, and in the case of Bloody Stumps Samurai (1962) also too radical for its own good. With this book, published here for the first time in any Western language, Hirata set out to draw a passionate critique of discrimination against the Japanese outcaste community known as the burakumin, around the character of Gennosuke, a burakumin youth whose mission to avenge and uplift his peoples through the sword goes horribly and gorily wrong. Though clearly intended as an anti-racist broadside, Bloody Stumps Samurai rubbed the Buraku Liberation League the wrong way, leading to copies being confiscated and burned and Hirata temporarily blacklisted. With essays explaining the history and politics of the work by critic Kure Tomofusa and translator Ryan Holmberg, this edition will blow your mind and turn your stomach. It is essential reading for all fans of Japanese history or pop culture.