Hakkenden by Abe Miyuki

[insaneneko]

Last night I received from a friend the first volume of Abe Miyuki's new manga, Hakkenden. I adore Abe-sensei's artwork, but wasn't sure what to make of her doing a take on the Hakkenden story when I first heard about it. I read it without having any background on Hakkenden, and...I still don't know what to make of it, but...I WANT TO READ MORE!!!


The story is set in some remote village, in some time period that seems like the past but has those wonderful anachronistic elements that manga and anime love to throw in. There are three children living at a church on the outskirts of the village. The church and its inhabitants aren't well-received, and two of them don't go to school.

The children are Inuzuka Shino, Inukawa Sousuke, and Inuzuka (I think?) Hamaji. They are the survivors of another village which had supposedly been devastated by an epidemic. The village, Ootsuka, had been burned with all the bodies in it to prevent spread of the disease.

We find out that Shino and Sousuke had in fact died five years ago, but they were brought back to life because Shino, given the choice, decided to live by bonding to the sword Murasame. He has stopped aging because of this. Murasame resides in his right arm, but is often accompanying Shino as a crow. Sousuke had bonded with a dog that had also been killed. Consequently, he can revert to dog-form at will.

While Sousuke goes to school and has a (sort of) normal life, Shino likes to run around in the Forbidden Forest (okay, it's not really called that, but it's a forest and it's a place Shino is supposedly forbidden to enter...I couldn't resist) alone. He hangs out with Murasame and the non-human inhabitants of the forest. He acts very much like a stupid loud kid, but we know that he's actually about Sousuke's age and has more wisdom and knowledge than he shows normally.

The Church has been looking for the whereabouts of Murasame, and had lost their last lead when Ootsuka was destroyed. Only flashes of this part of the story has been shown so far. Finally, after five years, some elements in the Church have taken notice of a boy who doesn't age and a boy that turns into a dog. They are summoned by the Church. The first group sent to get them are dispatched by Shino and Murasame, but then Hamaji is taken, forcing them to go to the capitol to get her back. On the way they meet Inuyama Dousetsu, another guy who's alive because of a non-human (in his case a yukihime). They get to the capitol and are met with some representatives from the Church who want to escort them there...but they are interrupted by hotyoungangsty-lookingbishie mysterious guy Satomi Riou. He's somehow in charge of the Ootsuka village incident within the Church, but

There are lots of things that don't make any sense, but it's a promising beginning of a story that looks like it will be very loose on the Hakkenden story. I'm not 100%, but I don't think there was a Church involved in the original? XDXD

And for a couple of pics:

First, hotyoungangsty-lookingbishie, i.e. Satomi Riou:



And young Shino making his choice to live. I love characters that are so straightforward and pure when making terrible choices. ^_^ He's dressed like a girl because their village had a custom of dressing boys as girls and girls as boys until they are 15 in the belief that it'll make them tough. In any case, I love the blood and the hair whipping about and the big eyes looking straight ahead:



I'd keep reading this just for Abe-sensei's art. I'm glad the story has promise. ^___^


The publisher has some sample pages from the second chapter up for viewing.