Fate Grand Order's Shimosa arc brought me here. I found out that one of my favourite arcs was based off of the novel that this manga originated from. So naturally I will be wearing my bias on my sleeve. I’ll try to avoid comparisons because that’s clearly unfair.
Makai Tenshou, or its better known name Demonic Resurrection, details the adventures of Yagyuu Juubei, one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen. The story revolves around his galivanting around the countryside as Japan’s most famous historical figures are brought back to life as demons in a satanic ritual with the intention of stirring the pot and making it bad news bears for everyone around. Illustrated by Ishikawa Ken, one of Go Nagai’s contemporaries, you can expect some good old school ultra-violence to splatter across the pages.
Story: 6
I know after performing research that there are multiple different iterations and versions of the original novel. As I have never read said novel, I naturally don’t know how similar these two stories are. On that note, the story feels pretty generic. I think the synopsis I wrote earlier does a clear cut job of explaining this story’s wafer thin plot. It’s not a well written tale about the nature of good vs evil, but it is rather inoffensive and if you are expecting anything that boggles the mind, it’s nothing new. If you liked Devilman by Go Nagai, you might like this.
One of the main plot lines is that the story tries to commentate on the nature of hell, which is why the demonic ritual occurs – to pull the world of hell into Earth. I mean, it’s a nice premise and all, but the novel never really explains why the ritual is important. I know being evil for evil’s sake is a simple explanation, but there isn’t really any debate as to the benefits of pure anarchy. Looking at the ritual of turning into an immortal demon, the age old question always surfaces: Why would I not want to become a demon? I mean… immortality is a pretty good deal. The story fails to answer that question or characterise the characters in ways that explain why people shouldn’t take the easy demon route which is pretty damaging in terms of themes or whatever.
Art: 7
Now while the art is old school, I like me some old school art. There are some pages where the characters look rusty as heck, but the story does a good job of illustrating action. Like sometimes when someone swings a sword, your eyes just straight up glide across the page just to see the impact. Motion is hard to capture in a still medium and this story nails it. Backgrounds are also really good. Demonic imagery has always been a solid point. How it clutters up the sky, how the line between man and monster is blurred, etc.
Character designs on the other hand are pretty hit or miss. Juubei himself looks like Guts fused with Kenshiro. He just doesn’t seem to jell with the atmosphere of the setting. On the other hand, the demons are really outlandish. Sometimes it feels like overdoing it, like killing a man with a knife and then pouring red food colouring on the body because there wasn’t enough blood.
Characters: 2
Ooh boy where do I begin. Yeah this is not good at all. Kind of a symptom of reading series from an older time. This one in particular feels like a missed opportunity to characterise the historical figures, especially the ones that sacrificed their humanity to become demons. Which is a shame, considering the pedigree of historical figures showing up: Miyamoto Musashi, Amakusa Shirou Tokisada, Hozoin Inshun, some big wigs show up and the manga struggles to do anything interesting with ANY of them. I mean, when you bring back a pacifistic Buddhist monk back from the grave, at least work with the personality a little. Make him regret indiscriminate murder or something. There’s plenty of material to go around. Anything is better than what we ended up with. The demons kind of just show up, be evil for evil’s sake and then get their dumb asses handed back to them by Juubei. Musashi is the only one who gets any kind of nuance with his obsession of maintaining his legacy, but then it kind of flounders because it doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot.
As for the non-demon human characters, they exist to get killed. I know Juubei’s the main character, but it is kind of frustrating when every other “good” character exists for the sole purpose so that they can die to make Juubei look cooler. The regular humans are so incompetent, I kind of would rather let the demons win because in the story, being human has no benefits. You’ll see what I mean when you get to the ending.
Enjoyment: 8
Wow with all that criticism, yet it nets an 8 in enjoyment?? Well that’s because I came in with no expectations. Just pure mindless dumb fun. That’s why I used “galivanting” in the beginning of the review. Just a single dumb man monkey braining his way through demons, DOOM slayer style. Yay.
Overall: 6
Let me level here for a sec: if you came here for good storytelling, don’t get yer hopes up dude. At the end of the day, I got a fun dumb read and it made my afternoon. It was long enough to take me a while to read, but also short enough for me to finish it before I got too mad at the dumb plot and the stale characterisation.
