Oct 9, 2021
Musashi review – Motomiya Hiroshi
Wow what a story. Surprised I even finished it.
Similar to the more well-known manga Vagabond, by Slam Dunk creator Takehiko Inoue, Musashi is a fictionalised account of the life of Miyamoto Musashi. One of the most popularly adapted historical figures in Manga, Miyamoto Musashi is known for being the strongest swordsman of all of Japan.
Story – 4
The story is a jumbled mess. That’s it really. I mean, 9 chapters right? You can’t expect too much ya know?
The story kind of jumps through events in Musashi’s life. Sometimes it can feel like it adapts too little and other times it focuses on
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seemingly inconsequential events. Your overall enjoyment would be better if you genuinely knew all the key events in Musashi’s life. Or if you’ve already read Vagabond which is probably why you’re here.
Art – 6
Pretty old art. I guess that’s what you get when you read a story from the 70s. I personally started reading this story because the cover had a similar art style to Ashita no Joe. There are some scenes that can be hard to follow, such as when a house is on fire, and scene composition occasionally makes you lose track of where the characters are or even where the main character is (he changes hairstyle once and I thought the story stopped focusing on him for 2 chapters until someone mentioned him by name once) but honestly? Definitely not the worst art style I’ve seen.
Also, there’s a lot of blood in this. Like, an assistant tripped the ink bottle over the page level of blood. Very much a product of the times. Definitely less gore this time though. Like it doesn’t focus on a dismembered body too much and kind of looks past it.
Character – 2
Yikes. Let’s focus the main character first shall we?
Musashi’s greatest character flaw is his wild nature. Which is a fine character flaw. The only problem is he can be very insufferable at times. The amount of times where Musashi just yells while slaughtering people and running off into the woods while everyone else yells at him to calm the flip down is a staggeringly large number. In fact, now that I think about it while writing this section, the story could have actually been interesting if Musashi was written with a diagnosable medical condition. The greater parts of the manga are the few scenes where Musashi genuinely comes to terms with his violent nature and attempts to overcome it. However, his personality always reverts just in time for the next chapter. I feel that the greatest flaw of the story is that Musashi’s character flaws are never really addressed with any kind of resolution.
The other characters are very hit and miss. But there are no hits. Only misses. Only one other character really grows without reverting and that is the eyepatch guy I couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of. Even major players like Sasaki Koujiro are left on the cutting room floor. As a person writing this review with no greater context, it feels like the story probably became unpopular and forced a rushed ending, which is a common practice of weekly shounen.
Enjoyment – 5
Other than a few chapters in the second volume, I did not personally enjoy a lot of the story. Normally senseless ultraviolence gives me amusement due to its self-gratuitous nature, but this one felt more like it didn’t know what kind of story it wanted to tell, and it really hurt it in the long run.
Overall – 5
The story kind of felt like a complete waste. It’s kind of hard to justify recommending this series to others, especially because Vagabond, a vastly superior adaptation exists. Honestly I could only recommend this to people who have already read Vagabond, and want more out of Miyamoto Musashi. But at that point, you should probably read Book of Five Rings instead. I find value in it because it was short enough to finish in an afternoon and write a review before sundown.
It also introduced me to Hiroshi Motomiya, the same man who made Salaryman Kintarou, a story that has enough buzz that even I had heard of it. So I’m guessing that he improved over time. I might check that story out and may even write a review about it, but I’ll cross swords with that when I feel like it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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