is a

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

series written and drawn by Sanpei Shirato. Set in

feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inven ...

, it tells the story of a low-born

ninja A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance, espionage, infiltration, deception, ambush, bodyguarding and their fighting skills in martial arts, including ninjutsu.Kawakami, pp. 2 ...

who has fled his clan. The series combines historical adventure with

social commentary Social commentary is the act of using rhetorical means to provide commentary on social, cultural, political, or economic issues in a society. This is often done with the idea of implementing or promoting change by informing the general populace ab ...

and themes of oppression and rebellion that reflect Shirato's

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

convictions.

Plot

Kamui is a

from the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

who has decided to leave his clan. After doing so he is pursued relentlessly by the members of his former clan; who consider him to be a traitor and therefore wish to kill him. Kamui then wanders around Japan to escape from them by using his intelligence and great abilities to survive. In the course of the series Kamui begins to suffer from

paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy c ...

because of his status as a persecuted man. Kamui then started to believe that everybody wished to murder him and became distrusting of everyone he came across.

Publication

The original series, , ran from December 1964 to July 1971 in the monthly gekiga magazine ''

Garo Garo may refer to: People and languages * Garo people, a tribal people in India ** Garo language, the language spoken by the Garo tribe Places * Kingdom of Garo, a former kingdom in southern Ethiopia * Garo, Colorado * Garo Hills, part of the Ga ...

''. The sequel titled ran from 1982 to 2000 in ''

Big Comic is a semimonthly Seinen manga, ''seinen'' manga List of manga magazines, magazine published since 18 February 1968 by Shogakukan in Japan. It was originally launched as a monthly magazine, but switched to twice monthly on the 10th and 25th begin ...

''. In 1987, two volumes of the second series became one of the first manga titles to be published in the United States (by

Eclipse Comics Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market. It was ...

and

Viz Comics VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ ...

), as ''The Legend of Kamui''. The Viz edition featured lettering and retouching by ''

Usagi Yojimbo is a comic book series created by Stan Sakai. It is set primarily at the beginning of the Edo period of Japanese history and features anthropomorphic animals replacing humans. The main character is a rabbit ''rōnin'', Miyamoto Usagi, whom Saka ...

'' creator

Stan Sakai is a Japanese-born American cartoonist and comic book creator. He is best known as the creator of the comic series '' Usagi Yojimbo''. Career He began his career by lettering comic books (notably ''Groo the Wanderer'' by Sergio Aragonés and Ma ...

Adaptations

The manga was adapted into an

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

series ''The Chronicles of Kamui the Ninja'' (1969) and a live-action film '' Kamui Gaiden'' (2009). was produced by TCJ and

Zuiyo Zuiyo (瑞鷹株式会社 ''ZUIYO Co., Ltd.'', or: ズイヨー ''Zuiyō'') is a Japanese animation company founded in 1969 and headquartered in Tokyo. The studio has produced in the past a variety of series based on Western literature such ...

in 1969. It was broadcast in Japan from 6 April 1969 to 28 September 1969 by

Fuji TV JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Owned and operated by the it is the key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network S ...

. ''Kamui the Ninja'' had 26 episodes with a running time of 22 minutes each one. An episode of the series was dubbed to English released as a VHS bundle by REMCO under their Secret of the Ninja toyline.

References

External links

* 1964 manga 1969 anime television series debuts Action anime and manga Fuji TV original programming Historical anime and manga Manga adapted into films Ninja in anime and manga Seinen manga Shōnen manga Shogakukan franchises Shogakukan manga Viz Media manga Gekiga {{manga-stub