The Elusive Samurai vol. 1

Longtime readers will know that I was a fan of “Assassination Classroom” by Yusei Matsui.  It re-imagined the “Inspirational Teacher” story as a wacky Silver Age “Superman” tale after a round, yellow, tentacled alien took over teaching the worst class at an elite school.  All so that they could kill him before the year was up.  The series was great fun in its delivery of action and comedy, and it even broke the shonen mold a bit by not being about someone who was going to be the best at something.  After all this, I was ready for whatever Matsui was going to do next.  Which has turned out to be actual history energized with the kind of flash you’d expect from a Shonen Jump title that helps to smooth over its somewhat awkwardly executed narrative.

Takatoki Hojo is the son of the regent shogun of the Kamakura Shogunate.  While it’s expected that he’ll eventually succeed his father and become shogun himself, it’s not something that this ten-year-old is all too keen on at the moment.  He’d much rather do his own thing, and he’s very good at escaping and eluding those who would actually try to instill some samurai-esque virtues in him.  

Fortunately, the shogunate has someone like Takauji Ashikaga fighting for them so that Takatoki can do whatever he wants.  Takauji is a gifted and charismatic warrior beloved by all, which is why it’s such a surprise when he leads a bloody revolt against the shogunate.  Takatoki’s entire family is murdered and the only reason he survies is because of his godlike agility and the intervention of the (allegedly) godlike priest Yorishige Suwa.  Yorishige has sworn to help the boy because his godlike powers allow him to see the future, where he’s witnessed a much better one than you’d expect for our protagonist at this time.

Takatoki, Takauji and Yorishige were all real people, though only the former two have entries in Wikipedia.  I’d say you should avoid looking at them for fear of spoilers… but I have a feeling that this story is going to diverge pretty significantly from the historical record.  Otherwise we’re going to be getting a story that is likely going to be a bit too dark for a Jump series whose title doesn’t rhyme with “Rainsaw Can.”

What we do have here is a shonen protagonist who’s a bit unique by the genre’s standards.  His skills don’t lie in direct combat, but the avoidance of it.  The series makes it clear early on that Takatoki is incredibly skilled at escaping from any situation.  Be it the efforts of persistent tutors to teach him something, or bloodthirsty samurai looking for an heir to kill our protagonist will find a way to get away from them.

This is noteworthy because this skill runs counter to the samurai ethos of the time.  Warriors gained fame and status by defeating their opponents, not by running away from them.  Takatoki acknowledges this fact early on, noting that it would’ve been better had he died with the rest of the family.  Yorishige then finds an… interesting way to provoke his young ward’s survival instinct and the course of the series is set.  Takatoki is going to be a hero who wins his battles by running away from them.

How does that work out for this volume?  Kind of awkwardly if I’m being honest about it.  There’s this feeling throughout the volume that Matsui has assembled all of the pieces for an interesting shonen series, but hasn’t quite put them together yet.  The stories that follow the opening chapter involve Takatoki dealing with his no-good uncle who betrayed his cousin, learning to have a little faith in Yorishige despite his super-shifty appearance, teaming up with some of his new companions to kill a local “god,” and finding out about the threat presented by the new local governor.  None of these are bad, yet they don’t offer any major surprises either.

I also don’t think that they find a way to utilize Takatoki’s main skill in a way that’s particularly interesting.  While I like the idea of a protagonist who is able to win by running away, it’s one that’s more interesting in concept than practice at this point.  This is due to the fact that most of the fights involve Takatoki distracting the threat at hand so his companions can get the kill, or vice versa.  There’s nothing here yet that really sells the concept that Matsui has presented.

Another issue is that the characters all feel a little bland at this point.  Despite being the focus of the series, Takatoki spends a lot of this volume reacting to things in ways that are expected, yet also a little familiar.  The most distinctive thing he does in the volume is a bit of foreshadowing at the beginning where he says to his army, “Let’s run away!”  While the rest of the volume lays out why he would say something like that, it’s not done in a way that gives him much agency to be his own character.

Then you’ve got Takatoki’s three companions, Kojiro, Ayako, and Shizuku who are all distinguished by their roles at this point.  That is to say:  Swordsman, strongwoman, and passive-aggressively-snarky, respectively.  Yorishige does make the biggest impression in this volume due to his outsize personality, and persistent creep-face which comes off as a really ham-fisted way to have Takatoki not trust him just yet.  As for Takauji, we’re not given much indication as to why he does what he does here.  Save for one panel where it’s hinted that the reasons behind his revolt are less driven by power and more by some supernatural reason.

There’s also the matter of some wildly contrasting tonal shifts in this volume as well.  This is a (relatively) more grounded setting than what we saw in “Assassination Classroom,” yet the execution is just as wacky.  While this isn’t a problem when Matsui is having the characters crack jokes and make some crazy expressions while they indulge in normal conversation or exposition, it’s really awkward to see it happen in the wake of the scenes of slaughter in the opening chapter, or when they have to kill a really bad guy in the following chapter.

Still, this is the first volume and there’s always the possibility that Matsui will be able to pull things together as the series goes on.  Which it still is at the time I’m writing this.  While “Assassination Classroom” was a big hit, I was expecting the buzz from that series to follow Matsui to his next project.  Given that the rollout for this title has been really quiet, I was worried that the series was a lame duck and had already been canceled in Jump.  That it hasn’t does imply that things are going to get better in subsequent volumes.  As it is now, I can only recommend “The Elusive Samurai” to those who were big fans of Matsui’s previous work, were dying to know what he was going to do next, and are willing to forgive a narrative that isn’t firing on all cylinders yet.