Lady Snowblood

    (Dark Horse, 2005)
™ and ©1972 Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura

A horribly wronged woman gives birth in prison, having become impregnated for the sole purpose of creating a child to avenge her and her murdered husband. She, of course, wants a boy but instead receives a girl whom she names Yuki (“snow”), and this “child of hell” becomes a master assassin. While plying her trade in a Japan buffeted by outside cultural influences, she searches Japan for the killers.

As might be expected from the creators of Lone Wolf & Cub (and the supposed inspiration of Kill Bill), it’s a remarkably brutal story full of death, rape, and such period sexual perversions as rickshaw sex, the fetishizing of women’s underwear, and girl-on-girl sex shows.

It’s almost impossible for a modern reader to accept someone giving up life to avenge a never-known family, but it makes for a rousing adventure epic. Just as interesting as all the violence is what’s revealed about the exhilarating historical setting—like the proposal to speed up Westernization by banning the Japanese language.

— S. A. Bennett

From the Publisher:

A story of pure vengeance, Lady Snowblood tells the tale of a daughter born of a singular purpose, to avenge the death of her family at the hands of a gang of thugs, a purpose woven into her soul from the time of her gestation. Beautifully drafted and full of bloody, sexy action, Lady Snowblood lives up to its title and reputation. Lady Snowblood is written by Kazuo Koike and is illustrated by Kazuo Kamimura.
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