Manga Review: The Elusive Samurai Chapter 2

The Elusive Samurai Chapter 2

VIZ

Mangaka: Yūsei Matsui

Tokiyuki’s journey continues! After discovering the death of his brother, Tokiyuki resolves to avenge him. To do this, he must track down and kill his traitorous uncle.

This chapter, unfortunately, was a step down for me from the previous one. While it had a lot of important exposition for setting up the upcoming conflict, the “action” in this chapter was nonexistent. Chapters like this may be necessary but it doesn’t mean they have to be boring.

Matsui also relies a bit too heavily on the whole “game” aspect he set up in the first chapter here in my opinion. Calling Tokiyuki’s current struggle a grand game of “hide-from-the-demon” was a fun concept and made sense for Tokiyuki’s nature, I feel like the constant usage of games and things within the manga will get tired sooner rather than later. In this chapter alone, characters play with a board game and use a dice game to express the current situation. These constant metaphors push the “game” element way too much.

Besides my gripes, I’m still endeared to these characters. We still haven’t gotten to know Suwa’s subordinates well at all, but Suwa and Tokiyuki are both characters I already like. Suwa especially is the type of silly mentor figure that I really enjoy.

Matsui’s art is the highlight of this chapter for me. As I’ve said before, Matsui excels at drawing creatures and demented humans. Here he gets the chance to do just that, and I think that style allows him to express the cruelty and evil of humans in a fantastic way. His strangely inhuman style of drawing also works for comedic purposes, and Suwa often wears a haunting expression to Tokiyuki’s dismay.

While there are things that disappointed me with this chapter, the next one promises action and that excites me. Based on Assassination Classroom, I know Matsui can juggle a large cast of characters and make each one of them interesting in their own way so I have faith that these unassuming side characters will become fully fleshed-out characters in due time. The Elusive Samurai is a series I feel will hit its stride eventually and become something I look forward to every week, I just hope that stride comes sooner rather than later.

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