A 2008anime television series adaptation was produced byBee Train. Also in 2008, the novelBlade of the Immortal: Legend of the Sword Demon was released by Kodansha. Alive actionfilm adaptationof the same name was released in April 2017. A second anime adaptation byLiden Films was broadcast from October 2019 to March 2020. In North America, the manga has been published byDark Horse Comics. The first anime series was licensed byMedia Blasters. The second anime series is licensed byAmazon Prime Video.
By May 2019, the manga had over 7.5 million copies in circulation. In 1997,Blade of the Immortal received the Excellence Award at the firstJapan Media Arts Festival.
Manji is a skilledrōnin cursed with immortality. After his violent past results in the deaths of 100 samurai, including his sister's husband, an 800-year-oldnun namedYaobikuni grants him agelessness through "Sacred Bloodworms" (血仙蟲,Kessen-chū). These creatures heal even fatal wounds by merging with his body, enabling severed limbs to be reattached, though they cannot regenerate large-scale tissue loss. Seeking redemption, Manji vows to kill 1,000 evil men to end his immortality.
He allies with Rin Asano, a girl whose parents were murdered by Anotsu Kagehisa, leader of the rogue swordsmen group Ittō-ryū (逸刀流). Anotsu's philosophy embraces any technique that ensures victory, and his conquest of rivaldōjōs forces survivors into exile. Opposing them is the shadowy Mugai-ryū (無骸流), which employs similarly ruthless methods. Though Manji briefly joins them, he abandons the group upon learning its members are death row convicts serving theshogunate. Despite his disdain for their most brutal agent, Shira, he maintains ties with other members while continuing his quest alongside Rin.
Samura stated thatTange Sazen was the largest influence on his characters and narrative style.[4] In regards to the overall work he stated that he wanted to create a new style of manga, with his intended style being "Don't obsess about the details—just look at the story."[4]
Written and illustrated byHiroaki Samura,Blade of the Immortal started inKodansha'sseinen manga magazineMonthly Afternoon on June 25, 1993,[5] and finished on December 25, 2012.[6][7] Kodansha collected its 207 chapters in 30tankōbon volumes, released from September 22, 1994,[8] to February 22, 2013.[9] A 15-volumekanzenban edition was released from August 23, 2016,[10] to February 23, 2017.[11]
A sequel, titledBlade of the Immortal – Bakumatsu Arc (無限の住人～幕末ノ章～,Mugen no Jūnin Nakumatsu no Fumi), written by Kenji Takigawa and illustrated by Ryū Suenobu, with Samura's collaboration, was serialized inMonthly Afternoon from May 25, 2019,[12] to May 24, 2024.[13] Kodansha collected its chapters in tentankōbon volumes, released from October 23, 2019,[14] to August 22, 2024.[15]
Panel of the first "death" of Manji (Dark Horse Comics edition), arranged in a left-to-right orientation and with theonomatopoeia translated
The English language version of the manga was published byDark Horse Comics. The manga began its publication in individual monthly issues, with the first issue being published on June 1, 1996.[16] These issues were later collected into individual volumes, and the first one was published on March 1, 1997.[17] On October 11, 2007, Dark Horse Comics announced that they would drop the monthly issues publishing, with issue #131, released on November 14, 2007, being the last one.[18][19] The series continued publishing through trade paperback volumes only, starting with the 18th volume, released on February 6, 2008.[18][20] The 31st and last collected volume was published on April 1, 2015.[21]
To preserve the integrity of his art, Samura requested the publisher Dark Horse Comics not to "flip" the manga, that is, reverse the pages as if in a mirror.[22][23] At the time, flipping was an almost universal practice for English-translated manga.[24] Instead,Blade of the Immortal was modified for Western readers by the unusual method of cutting up the panels and rearranging them on the page in order to have the action flow from left to right.[23][22] Another reason for not "flipping" the English version is Manji's clothing, which features amanji symbol, that if the pages were "flipped" would resemble specifically theNazi swastika, instead of the ancient Eurasian swastika (that can be of any orientation), which for many cultures represents concepts such as peace and harmony.[25]
Although American industry practice has largely changed over to publishing translated manga in its original right-to-left orientation,[24]Blade of the Immortal had retained the labor-intensive cut-and-paste method.[26][27][28] The publisher cautions that rearranging the panels is not foolproof, and can lead to continuity errors; this usually occurs when the flow of text bubbles is dependent upon character placement within panels.[29] Some sound effects within the panel were retouched out and re-lettered in English.[30][31][32] Japanese sound effects that are an integral part of the artwork were usually left as is.[30][31][33] Additionally, some text bubbles or panel borders were redrawn, and script pacing subtly altered in order to understand the story or the placement of text bubbles.[30]
In the monthly Dark Horse serialization, colored versions of title pages from the corresponding manga chapter were often featured as cover art,[34][35][31] though in some cases different pieces of artwork, such as atankōbon covers, were used as well.[35] The original Japanesetankōbon volumes also collected more chapters than the English volumes published by Dark Horse, as such, they are longer and do not directly correspond to the English numbering scheme.[28]
In July 2015, Dark Horse Comics announced an omnibus edition ofBlade of the Immortal, each volume containing three original volumes, maintaining the left-to-right format.[36] Ten volumes were released from December 28, 2016,[37] to November 13, 2019.[38] In March 2020, Dark Horse announced a deluxe re-release of the omnibus edition in hardcover.[39][40] The volumes were released from October 7, 2020,[41] to October 18, 2023.[42]
A novel, titledBlade of the Immortal: Legend of the Sword Demon (無限の住人 刃獣異聞,Mugen no Jūnin Ninjū Ibun), written by Junichi Ohsako, with illustrations by Samura, was released by Kodansha on July 18, 2008.[43] In North America, the novel was published byDark Horse Books on January 27, 2010.[44]
On March 23, 2008, it was announced that an animated television series adaptation of the manga would be directed byKōichi Mashimo and produced byBee Train in 2008.[45][46] The series aired from July 14 to December 29, 2008, onAT-X.[47][48][49] The opening theme is "Akai Usagi" (赤いウサギ;lit.'Red Rabbit') by Makura no Sōshi, and the closing theme is "Wants" by Grapevine. In North America,Media Blasters licensed the series and released it on September 29, 2009.[50]
A second anime adaptation titled was listed on the cover of the July issue ofMonthly Afternoon on May 10, 2019.[51] It was later announced that the anime adaptation would be a complete adaptation.[52] The series is animated byLiden Films and directed by Hiroshi Hamasaki, withMakoto Fukami handling series composition, Shingo Ogiso designing the characters, andEiko Ishibashi composing the music. It aired from October 10, 2019, to March 25, 2020, onAmazon Prime Video.[53]Kiyoharu performed the series' opening theme song "Survive of Vision".[54][55] On October 15, 2020,Sentai Filmworks announced that they had licensed the anime for home video and released it onBlu-ray Disc on January 19, 2021.[56][57]
^Loveridge, Lynzee (August 25, 2013)."Dark Horse—Japan Expo USA 2013".Anime News Network.Archived from the original on October 20, 2020. RetrievedMay 25, 2020.the company started releasing its second longest-running series,Blade of the Immortal. Horn stated that Dark Horse doesn't plan to "unflop" the manga because fans have read it flipped for such a long time and he respects their dedication to the title.
^Smith, Toren (September 2007)."Manga Monday: Blade of the Immortal Volume 31: Final Curtain".Dark Horse Comics.Archived from the original on May 25, 2020. RetrievedMay 25, 2020.I could move the readers along correctly with strategic repositioning of the word balloons and tweaking the dialogue. Except for a few cases where I got brain fade and screwed up, I think it worked pretty well. Hey, it's tough to read each panel knowing it will be unflopped . . . and yet reordered on the page! For the first couple volumes I actually cut and pasted each page, but eventually I was able to do it in my head, on the fly. All of my mistakes were corrected in the trade collections, and after Tomoko came on board there were essentially none, since she kept an eagle eye on this.
^abcYadao, Jason S. (October 2009).The Rough Guide to Manga.Rough Guides. p. 96.ISBN978-1-85828-561-0.Sound effects were left untranslated wherever possible, but when translation was crucial to understanding the story, Samura would redraw the panel to ensure a harmonious blend of effect and art.
^Haley, Ken (June 20, 2010)."The Art of Blade of the Immortal".PopCultureShock. Archived fromthe original on May 25, 2020. RetrievedMay 25, 2020.[It includes] a few black-and-white pieces that were colored to be used as covers for the US monthly comic edition of the series.
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