MJ Review: Kurogane Vol 3

[Jason]

Title: Kurogane Volume 3
Manga-ka: Kei Toume
Serialized in: Morning (Kodansha)
Genre: Seinen
Licensed by: Del Rey

The first chapter of Kurogane Volume Three, “Strange Paradise,” opens with Jintetsu trying to find a place to bed down on a foggy mountainside and a man who lives in the area taking him in. His host is a strange man, as dinner proves, when his blunt questions make Jintetsu uncomfortable. As rough as life on the mountain is, his wife, O-Sei, the daughter of a samurai, is dressed as finely as her former station would have demanded her to be. Silent and shy, she perplexes Jintetsu. His host admits they ran away so that they could be together.

The shed Jintetsu gets to sleep in is filled with life-sized dolls and is quite creepy - even the sword thinks so. Their host had been a clockmaker and likes to make karakuri dolls, automated dolls popular in the Edo period. Weird sounds echo in the night and the fog remains come daylight. Jintetsu decides to stick around until he finds out what’s actually going on, even if it kills him.

“Crimson” brings Jintetsu into town, where a woman wants him to kill someone for her. Turning her down, he goes to meet with Yashiro, a boss, to get his new job: hunt down Takuzo, one of his men, who stole Yashiro’s fortune along with his wife, O-En. Yashiro wants them dead even though there are reasons for O-En to hate him. It’s quickly clear O-En is playing poor Takuzo just to get her vengeance on Yashiro, that Takuzo never wanted any of this trouble. It ends up with O-En hiring Makoto, the Scarlet Sparrow, who made her appearance in volume number two and is pretty much the only other recurring character so far in this series. Makoto still wants to take Jintetsu’s life because she believes he’s responsible for ruining her family. O-En doesn’t understand why Makoto lives like a boy, refusing to use her looks to ease her way through life. Crimson is the largest episodic arc to date in the series, spanning four chapters of Machiavellian maneuvering to their bloody conclusion. I especially enjoyed seeing Makoto again since she makes a great foil for Jintetsu.

“Mask” opens in Gokuman Pass, which is supposedly haunted. On Jintetsu’s trail is Makoto, still wanting to kill him. Before that can happen the ‘ghost’ nearly kills her but Jintetsu steps in. After the battle, they decide that there is nothing ghostly about this so-called phantom. Injured in the skirmish, Jintetsu makes camp and Makoto stays with him, confused as to why he’s helping her and feeling she owes him. Makoto gets a good look at Jintetsu’s body – our first really good look for that matter – and he tells her his story. His sword offers up a tidbit of his history at long last and we learn what Haganemaru truly is. Makoto, however, can’t believe such an outlandish tale. Jintetsu heads into town, sick and feverish from his wound, with Makoto still watching him from a distance. He finds shelter with a young shopkeeper who tells him of her samurai-in-training brother, hoping he might have information for her; she has heard bad rumors about her brother. Once again Jintetsu’s compassion compels him to help her in spite of the cost.

Jintetsu remains a very compelling, tragic character and the addition of Makoto as a secondary character has enhanced this series for me. The art still has something of a rough, scratchy look and I remain amazed at how much emotion shows in Jintetsu’s half-metal face. This volume didn’t fall prey to the cut off word balloons like the first two, so that pleased me and again Del Rey gives us a very nice glossary of terms that most Westerners wouldn’t know on sight.

Reviewed by: Cornerofmadness
Proofed by: Iliana
Edited by: Firedog