Path Of the Assassin, Vol. 1: Serving In The Dark - Softcover

Kazuo Koike is a prolific Japanese manga writer, novelist, and entrepreneur. Early in Koike's career, he studied under Golgo 13 creator Takao Saito and served as a writer on the series. Koike, along with artist Goseki Kojima, made the manga Kozure Okami (Lone Wolf and Cub), and Koike also contributed to the scripts for the 1970s film adaptations of the series, which starred famous Japanese actor Tomisaburo Wakayama. Another series written by Koike, Crying Freeman, which was illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami, was adapted into a 1995 live-action film by French director Christophe Gans.

Goseki Kojima was a Japanese manga artist known for his collaborations with Kazuo Koike. The team was often referred to as the “Golden Duo.” Kojima’s best-known work was Lone Wolf and Cub. Other titles attributed to Kojima are Samurai Executioner and Path of the Assassin. In 2004, Kojima won an Eisner Award.

Koike and Kojima's third collaboration is, like Lone Wolf and Cub and Samurai Executioner, a period piece. But its protagonists are genuine, not fictional, historical figures: sixteenth-century shogun Ieyasu and his right-hand warrior, Hattori Hanzo. Legendarily, their relationship began when Hanzo was assigned to be Ieyasu's ninja bodyguard. Ieyasu was 16, Hanzo, 15. Koike and Kojima retreat slightly from that encounter to show first the young ninja proving himself by besting his two older brothers in a matter requiring brains more than brawn. After a faulty first meeting, master and servant quickly become friends. The quality of their relationship is unforgettably crystallized by Hanzo's fulfillment of a challenging but enticing task Ieyasu sets him: to demonstrate how to make love to a woman, which neither youngster has ever done. Hanzo succeeds at obliging his master and winning himself a woman whom he pleases. As in Koike and Kojima's other work, there is plenty of sex, earthy humor, brilliantly realized martial-arts action, and humane characterization. Ray Olson
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