The Legend of Kamui: Volume 3 Format: Paperback

The greatest sword-and-samurai epic of all time continues!

The body count continues to rise in this engrossing, swashbuckling third volume of The Legend of Kamui, set in feudal Japan.

Our hero Kamui is fresh off his training and begins to infiltrate the delicate hierarchy oppressing the countryside in order to begin tearing it down, piece by piece. Shōsuke faces off with a new assassin because of what he may―or may not have―witnessed. Ryūnoshin’s vendetta befuddles the chief headman as well as his lord. Meanwhile, Kamui’s fellow outcast Saesa takes on a more prominent role.

Revolution is in the air, and the sound of clashing swords rages on in Shirato Sanpei’s landmark manga epic―the first of its kind. The Legend of Kamui was originally serialized between 1964 and 1971 in the legendary alt-manga magazine GARO. Its literary and historical merit was recognized long before a complete translation was even available. Now available in full for the very first time, Shirato Sanpei’s The Legend of Kamui is translated from the Japanese by Richard Rubinger with Noriko Rubinger.

Shirato Sanpei was born in Tokyo in 1932. His father, Okamoto Tōki, was an oil painter whose artistic endeavors exposed the young Shirato to a variety of perspectives. Okamoto notably instructed Kurosawa Akira in painting and design before the latter became a filmmaker. After a seven-year stint as a kamishibai artist, Shirato would begin working in the kashihon manga market in 1957. Kaze no Fujimaru, an animated series based on an original story by Shirato, began to be broadcast in 1964. This was the first animation for which the young Miyazaki Hayao was in charge of original drawings. The Legend of Kamui debuted that same year in the pages of Garo―a manga periodical founded by Shirato―and now best known as a launching pad for other revered manga talents like Mizuki Shigeru and Tsuge Yoshiharu. Shirato died in 2021.