Product Description: Purgatory Kabuki is a samurai action story set in the underworld of the afterlife. For reasons unknown, former samurai Imanoturugi is obsessed with leaving the afterlife. To die in battle is a samurai's greatest honor. Yet, he must claim 1,000 swords from the fallen warriors who now share residence in the dark underworld. By these means alone, this highly skilled blades master will be allowed admittance back into the living world. But to what end? Upon what stone purpose does he sharpen his edge? The story borrows heavily from various Japanese legends and myths. A skillfully mixed bag of action, suspense, classic ukiyoe style art and intrigue...
nice seasoning but no meat I bought this manga because the cover and art work inside were unlike anything I've seen before as far as art styles go. As soon as I started the manga I though "not very much dialogue, but hey it'll probably have loads of action!"
I was right about the action, but as far as story goes, I couldn't follow it because, well, there was not very much story to follow. 75% of the time I didn't know what was going on. Sure it's volume 1, and there is still more story to expand on in later volumes, but this volume didn't give a clear description of what the story was.
With the confusing story, I naturally was confused with the characters' relationships, I had to resort to reading the bios on the back and re-reading parts of the manga.
I give this manga two stars just for the beautiful, original art-style but other than that, there's not much more to it.
Awesome I bought this at Borders and was amazed by the intricate details and consistency. Sometimes when buying manga, the front cover is a lot better than the inside, but in this case, it was all beautiful. Action packed, interesting characters and what I loved the most, other than the artwork, was the fact that there was very few dialogue. I think characters in most mangas tend to rant about inane details, but Purgatory Kabuki says only what it needs to say and nothing more. I only wish that it was a bit cheaper for such a thin book, but since when was manga cheap? Highly recommended and worth every cent!