Having completed it's mammoth task of publishing the entire 28 volume run of 'Lone Wolf & Cub' (incidentally the single greatest piece of storytelling in the history of words and I don't care if you disagree because you're wrong). Dark Horse Comics turns it's attention to the precursor to that work, the story of Asaemon, the decapitator of prisoners and tester of the shogun's swords.As anyone who has read LW&C would expect this is a beautifully researched and realised excursion into the world of Edo period Japan. Koike's painstaking research, flawless characterisation and monolithic plot building mix seamlessly with the power and clarity of Kojima's lines to enable the reader to feel, to smell, to hear, to taste and to touch, and be touched by, the stories. The one flaw to this series lies in the fact that unlike LW&C there is no over-arching storyline to power it along, instead we simply have a collection of loosely related storylines that are simply wonderful to read.
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