The Bottom Line
A modern Japanese military commander goes back in time with his soldiers, tanks and weapons and disrupts history by killing Nobunaga Oda, the legendary military leader of feudal Japan. Originally written as a screenplay, this samurai action / sci-fi / military tale resembles a blockbuster flick or a shoot 'em up video game. Samurai Commando delivers the goods, as far as graphic battle scenes and military accuracy goes, but fails in its mission to provide readers with engaging, complex characters or a truly compelling story worth reading.
Pros
- Hybrid of samurai, military and sci-fi action that reads like a video game or blockbuster flick
- With lots of tanks, guns and bloody combat scenes, it's manly manga for macho guys
Cons
- A missed opportunity to explain context to readers unfamiliar with Japanese history
- Many underdeveloped characters are introduced, solely to serve as background or cannon fodder
- Characters have a limited emotional range, lack multi-dimensional personalities
Description
- Original Title: Sengoku Jieitai 1549 (Japan)
- Author: Harutoshi Fukui and Ryo Hanmura
Artist: Ark Performance - Publishers:
- CMX Manga (US)
- Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co. Ltd. (Japan)
- ISBN: 978-1-4012-1438-8
- Cover Price: $9.99 US / $11.99 CANADA
- Age Rating:
OT – Older Teens, Age 16+
for graphic violence and profanity
More about content ratings. - Manga Genres:
- Seinen (Men's) Manga
- Action / Adventure
- Samurai Action
- Science Fiction
- US Publication Date: July 2007
Japan Publication Date: 2005 - Book Description: 176 pages, black and white illustrations
Guide Review - Samurai Commando Volume 1
A modern military commander goes back in time and ends up in feudal 16th century Japan. Accompanied by tanks and soldiers armed with the latest high-tech weaponry, Colonel Matoba kills Nobunaga Oda, a pivotal figure in Japanese history. The repercussions of this event ripple across time and space. Soon enough, a Japanese army task force is sent back in time to stop Matoba.
Samurai Commando: Mission 1549 was originally written as a screenplay, so it reads more like a blockbuster action flick or a first-person shooter video game than your typical manga story. That's great in some ways, but it also has the weaknesses of those films and games. The storytelling is just a means to getting to the slash 'em and shoot 'em battle scenes.
And what scenes they are. Ark Performance spares nothing to give readers vivid scenes of bullets piercing foreheads, explosions with bodies flying, beheadings and dismemberments. The tanks, weapons and armor are depicted with painstaking accuracy. It's a shame that so much effort went toward achieving military accuracy, and so little put into creating compelling, complex characters worthy of this hybrid sci-fi/samurai/action story. Colonel Matoba is intriguing but the rest of the cast offer very little in the character development department.
By choosing to include a monologue from the creator about how amazing his collaborators are versus providing translation or historical notes, the CMX editors missed an opportunity to explain this important period of Japanese history and why it matters that Nobunaga was killed.
I'll be sticking around for the next installment in this two-volume series just to see how it ends, but if you aren't a seinen manga fan or a History Channel buff, you can probably pass on Samurai Commando's manly manga for macho guys.
