''Kogaratsu'' is a

bande dessinée (singular ; literally 'drawn strips'), abbreviated BDs and also referred to as Franco-Belgian comics (), are comics that are usually originally in French and created for readership in France and Belgium. These countries have a long tradition ...

series created by the Belgian

comics creators developed specialized terminology. Several attempts have been made to formalize and define the terminology of comics by authors such as Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, R. C. Harvey and Dylan Horrocks. Much of the terminology in English is under ...

Bosse (pseudonym of Serge Bosmans) and Michetz (pseudonym of Marc Degroide).

Overview

''Kogaratsu'' is about a

mercenary A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather t ...

named Nakamura Kogaratsu. Caught in a fratricidal war, and confronted with superstitious farmers, Kogaratsu lives the way of the

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

: his honour, his weapons, and his love are the things dearest to him, in that exact order. And in the tumultuous Japan of the 17th century, honour is the small margin between life and death, wielding a weapon is a calling, and love is a weakness.

Publication History

It was first published in the French '' Spirou'' magazine in 1982. The success of the series, written by Bosse and illustrated by Michetz, inspired then-illustrator and script writer Bosse to give up illustrating in order to focus solely on script-writing. Fourteen volumes of ''Kogaratsu'' have been published by

Dupuis Éditions Dupuis S.A. () is a Belgium, Belgian publisher of comic albums and magazines. Based in Marcinelle near Charleroi, Dupuis is mostly famous for its comic comics album, albums and magazines. Initially a French language publisher, it now ...

beginning in 1985: 0. "Volume Zero", a short story collection, titled ''Le Pont de nulle part'' () was published in 1991. #''Le Mon au lotus de sang'' (1985) () #''Le Trésor des Étas'' (1986) () #''Le Printemps écartelé'' (1988) () #''Le Dos du tigre''(1992) () #''Par-delà les cendres'' (1994) () #''L'Homme sur la vague'' (1995) () #''L'Autre moitié du ciel'' (1997) () #''Sous le regard de la lune'' (1999) () #''La Strategie Des Phalenees'' (2000) () #''Rouge ultime'' (2002) () #''Fournaise'' (2008) () #''Le protocole du Mal'' (2010) () #''Taro'' (2014) () A multi-volume compilation, ''L'Intégrale - Tome 1,'' was published in 2010. ()

Translations

English

The only English translations to date are that of the first volume. UK-based

Acme Press Acme Press Ltd. (styled as ACME Press), later known as Acme Comics, was a British comic book publisher active from 1986 to 1995. The company's initial publication was ''Speakeasy'', a monthly fanzine of comics news and criticism. Acme published a ...

published it in 1987 as ''Kogaratsu: The Lotus of Blood'' (), and three years later the US-based

Catalan Communications Catalan Communications was a New York City publishing company that existed from 1983 to 1991. Operated by Bernd Metz, it mainly focused on English-language translations of European graphic novels presented in a series of high-quality trade paperba ...

published it as ''Kogaratsu: The Bloody Lotus'' () under their ComCat Comics imprint. Catalan had planned in 1991 to publish the next two volumes, ''Treasure of Eta'' () and ''Spring of Betrayals'' (), even obtaining ISBN numbers for them. However, the company entered bankruptcy the same year and the volumes never materialized.

Dutch

Dutch versions of all 14 volumes have been near-concurrently published by the same

. #''De bloedlotus'' (1985) ( #''De schat van de Eta'' (1986) ()

German

German translations have been issued by Finix Comics e.V. They count the prequel/Volume Zero as number one, pushing the subsequent volumes' numbering down by one. (For example, the volume ''Taro'' is the 13th French but 14th German title.) *(volume 12) ''Glutofen'' (2014) () *(volume 13) ''Das Protokoll des Bösen'' (2015) () *(volume 14) ''Taro'' (2015) ()

Spanish

Spanish multi-volume compilations have been issued by Ponent Mon Comic. *(compilation 1) () *(compilation 2) () *(compilation 3) ()

References

External links

* (Dupuis) * (Acme Press) * {{cite web, title=Kogaratsu, url=https://www.stripinfo.be/reeks/index/177_Kogaratsu, website=StripInfo.be, language=nl; includes other language editions Bandes dessinées 1982 comics debuts Comics characters introduced in 1982 Male characters in comics Dupuis titles Action-adventure comics Adventure comics Action comics Martial arts comics Historical comics Comics set in Japan Fictional Japanese people Belgian comics titles Belgian graphic novels