I had a surprising amount of fun with this title! It's a mix of Japanese history, action, and godly(?) fourth-wall breaks! One of the cooler things I found while reading this title was the author's use of history with some of the more more well-worn tropes. A young lord's clan is killed off and he seeks vengeance (if he feels like it)? Neat! The back of the book giving more historical context for the setting, characters used, and and their motives? Very neat! I hope the trend continues!

Thank you NetGalley and ViZ for the digital review copy of The Elusive Samurai.

I absolutely loved this manga. I hadn't heard of the title before, but the cover is attractive and enough for me to pick it up and flip through. The art is well done and highly detailed, with large action panels drawing your attention.
Now for the story - having all the historical context given in the book helps tell the tale of the Elusive Samurai. He is endearing despite his faults, and I genuinely want to know what happens next. It makes me want to look up more about this time period! The storytelling is fantastic and the art helps carry the story.
Can't wait for the next volume!

I have no idea what to make of this series. Set up as a shonen-ified historical fiction series, Matsui takes readers to Medieval Japan, where 8 year old Tokiyuki's whole family has been killed. As the lone remaining heir to the Hojo clan and the only one standing in the way of the traitor Takauji's complete takeover of Japan, Tokiyuki is urged to flee and fight another day. In fact, the whole gimmick here is Tokiyuki is so good a running away, it'll save his life and eventually, Japan. The few fights we see him in, he remains on the defensive, constantly dodging until an opening presents itself. A lot of this volume is spent on setting up the plot and characters, so not a lot of development happens, but it shows glimpses of a standard shonen premise. I'm not familiar with Assassination Classroom, so I don't know if this is just Matsui's style, but the art was very distinctive, though sometimes off-putting. The faces some of these characters were pulling felt out of place for the kind of story being told, and often were used to break tension, to varying success. This feels like a pretty unique story plotwise, i'm just not sure i'm sold on the actual execution just yet.

A quirky read about a young shogunate prince named Hojo Tokiyuki whose whole family and clan has been betrayed and murdered by someone within their ranks. Hojo is only good at running away and manages to escape with his life. He is destined, however, to become a great hero and avenge his people by honing his currents skills and learning some new ones. The story was silly, but had great action scenes. It's not something I'd typically go for, but I'd be interested in reading the next volume.