_Shigurui_ is about power. Seizing power, developing power, sabotaging power. We see power exercised in casual assassinations, marauding groups of murderers, offhand executions of random ronin, the social power of giving bad etiquette advice, the confinement of a demon warrior within a rigid hierarchy, the seductive power of beautiful women... It's not so much that _Shigurui_ is an extended demonstration of the amorality of power, but it demonstrates the corrupting effects of power, the *immorality* of power. Power once had will be abused, and we will see it done so for every reason: bloodlust, sexual lust, entertainment, pride, advertising, money, "reasons of state", and so on.
There is almost no male character we can describe as good: as much as we identify with the "heroic" protagonist, we have to remember he is a blood-daubed murderer who repeatedly murders for trivial reasons such as anger or being ordered by his master and our nose is rubbed in this by the time we reach the end. We might identify with Seigen due to his egalitarianism and how we spend most of the time watching him be persecuted and take his revenge - except he is introduced with cruelty, is ultimately undone by his own hubris, manipulates and lies beatifically, and kills his first master. (I say male characters, because the women are disempowered chess pieces who are subjected rather than subjects.) The beauty of the martial arts displayed is outweighed by the horror of what they are *for*, and it is all wrapped in a trenchant critique of the politics which allow and encourage all of this to happen. This is not a romantic depiction of bushido or what unswerving loyalty means; it is a depiction of the intrinsic failure modes, and the inevitable lord who is unworthy of loyalty of any kind but cannot be quietly executed or tortured to death as he deserves.
The sustained effect is depressing. There are no meaningful ideals. Attempts to teach martial arts merely produce living weapons. Everyone uses each other. All men die, and if they defeat their foes, they are defeated by old age and descend into their dotage. Men themselves are a fragile conglomeration of muscles and guts, which when spilled all look alike. The strongest warrior can be undone by an accidental trip or one stroke of a blade, and all their achievements negated. I read it over 3 days and felt unusually nihilistic and materialistic by the end.
The art is uniformly excellent, almost lavish, with commendable shading and detail: towards the end, I found myself just pausing and admiring the depiction of wood grain and the castle.
Some narrative tricks work well in a manga setting, like showing (without any comment or visual distinction) possible scenarios or outcomes and abruptly snapping back to the present - one sees characters die a dozen deaths before they actually die ("The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily.")
Manga abruptly ends, with zero resolution of the toad-man and futanari arc, and the pacifist _Rurouni Kenshin_-style swordsman character unexplored despite repeatedly showing up in minor roles. It ends within a few pages: Seigen is killed, he stumbles back to his corner victorious and rewarded with a position, and finds the maiden Mei dead. Then we flip to a scene of them walking together in civvies. The End. I'm still not sure what this is supposed to mean: logically, he'd then commit suicide since he has nothing left to live for and has carried out the vengeance order on Seigen, but nothing we're shown confirms this theory and I'm not sure the first volume's foreshadowing established that either. Oh well.
