Lady Snowblood, Volume 1

This manga was one of Tarantino's inspirations for his epic movie Kill Bill. The story features Lady Snowblood, a woman whose sole aim in life is to punish the people who dishonored her mother. Her story is told in simple but captivating images and the action is so fast-paced it's hard to put the book aside. ( )

Filled with sex, blood, guts and general mayhem, Lady Snowblood is definitely something of a guilty pleasure. Koike and Kamimura play to the reader's most prurient desires, and the manga is accordingly filled with torture and sex (often yuri) which often lacks a plausible basis in the "realism" of the narrative. The structure of the latter is also somewhat strange, insofar as some episodes bear direct relevance to the overarching story (Yuki's search for the three men and one woman who killed her family) and others are entirely tangential "assignments" that she takes as a freelance assassin. As a result of this oscillation the quality of the sub-stories varies wildly, from suspenseful and compelling to inane and pointless. Despite all this Lady Snowblood does a fantastic job of depicting Meiji-era Japan with a mixture of historical realism and stylized action. Kamimura's compositions are for the most part excellent, emphasizing the grace, beauty, and menace of the rather amoral protagonist. The series of four books is ultimately insubstantial, but a huge pleasure to read nonetheless. ( )