Blood of a Thousand (Blade of the Immortal, Book 1)

Manji, a ronin warrior of feudal Japan, has been cursed with immortality. The curse of the bloodworm is what keeps him alive--slit his throat or stab him in the heart and these mystical worms will force his body to heal. This immortal curse will not be lifted until Manji has killed one thousand evil men! If you like samurai action, Hiroaki Samura's "Blade of the Immortal will keep you on edge.

Blade of the Immortal is a pure, unadulterated samurai epic told in a very moody black-and-white comic book. Artist Hiroaki Samura uses pencil drawings combined with pen-and-ink work to create this punk samurai feast. We don't know much about Manji except that he has been given the gift of immortality by an old witch in the form of the "blood worms." He makes a deal with her to end his immortality if he can kill 1,000 criminals. Soon everyone wants to hire him as an assassin, but it becomes increasingly difficult to tell who the real criminals are. Another interesting aspect of this book is the integrity of the "translation" of the art: because Japanese is read right to left and English is read left to right, most Japanese comics that are translated into English first have the art photo-reversed or mirror-imaged. Hiroaki Samura requested that this not be done. And so, for the most part, all of the panels were arranged in reverse order. Additionally, some of the dialogue and sound effects were left in their original Japanese calligraphy (with translations provided in caption boxes).