Shi no Kage #1

Shi no Kage #1

Blackbox Comics 2021

Written by Neil David

Illustrated & Lettered by Gus Mauk

Coloured by Michael Yakutis

After the murder of one of his clan’s seven samurai, the young warrior, Hachiro is called upon to finish his training. Bound by a sense of honor to his sister and community, he battles through a gauntlet filled with demons, beasts and his past while his village braces for war.

Here’s another stellar offering from Blackbox and this time it takes place in a feudal Japan where it’s time for a young man to be called by his master to join the ranks of his own Samurai. That means this is as much a journey of self-discovery for young Hachiro as it is this beautiful look into a culture that was started in the 12th Century. The Samurai are somewhat mysterious and romanticised in Western culture and to be quite honest it was a dangerous profession that took cunning, a penchant for violence and blind subservience. Not at all as romantic or glorious as it’s been made out to be so to see this tackle the less westernised version and a more traditional take is a refreshing change of pace.

I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. Right from the opening as we meet Hachiro and his sister Hinata we are given this warm and loving look into the family dynamic as it’s about to change forever. I don’t know what it is about this that captured my mind, imagination as it engaged me but it has that unquantifiable “IT” factor about. One thing we should note is that there are no female Samurai, yes women were expected to defend the city and die honourably and occasionally they rode into battle with the men but there were no Samurai who were women. Now this is something we see liberties taken with and we do see that here as well and we’ll see how this plays into the character development later on. The pacing that we see is fantastic and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story and the journey our hero must take we are drawn into this world of horror and sheer beauty.

I am a huge fan of the interiors here. The artwork, and it is art, is gorgeously rendered throughout. The linework that we see and how the varying weights are being utilised to create the attention to detail that we see is stunning. The creativity and imagination on display is absolutely beautiful and the way that we see the costumes, the faces and the various characters brought to life just boggles the mind. Now I will say that I want to see more backgrounds being utilised because they do enhance the moments and while the composition within the panels brings us depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope we’re still missing that extra something. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective within the panels shows a strong and talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is divine. The choices we see and the how the various hues and tones within the colours are being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is justs rendered incredibly well.

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With how we see the book being structured and how the layers within the story emerge we get to see how everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow. This is an extraordinary tale of one young man’s journey into adulthood and being called upon to fulfill his duty to his master, his village and his family. I cannot tell you how incredibly well this is being done and how highly I recommend that you should be reading this.