Hello everyone, welcome to the first Manga Archaeologist entry: Unearthed. This segment of my review space is all about exploring some out-of-print, niche titles that didn’t get the love they deserved during their run, as well as diving into what makes them hidden gems that I think other people should give a chance to. Today we are going to take a look at the manga Kurohime. Kurohime, drawn and written by Masanori Ookamigumi Katakura, ran in Shueisha’s Monthly Shonen Jump from 2000 to 2007, and then moved to Jump Square for the remaineder of its run, concluding in 2011. The series did well in Japan, and even received a video game adaptation of the series for the Playstation 2 in 2006, but was not met with as much fanfare stateside. The series was picked up by Viz Media in 2007, and released through their Shonen Jump Advanced line of manga until 2009, only collecting fourteen of the series’ eighteen volumes in English. With our mini history lesson out of the way, let’s jump into the review, and discuss the qualities this story possesses that make this manga a hidden gem in the medium.
Kurohime follows the titular Kurohime, a “witch gunslinger”, powerful witches that use magical transforming bullets, and explores both her present and past in a wild-west-meets-dark fantasy world. The story begins with an unnamed bandit cowboy robbing a horse-drawn caravan, with his gun pointed at the head of a small boy named Zero. The boy is then saved by a cloaked woman who is introduced as Kurohime, and she leaves shortly after saving him. This event serves as the catalyst for many of the central themes that are explored as the story unfolds. After this event, the narrative shifts to ten years into the future, where Zero is now older, and has been searching for the woman who saved him, as he had fallen in love with her since their initial encounter. He then meets a small girl named Himeko, claiming to be Kurohime. This girl is in fact Kurohime, but in that ten year gap, she had challenged the high gods of the story’s universe and lost, with them cursing her, taking most of her capacity for love, as well as taking away her magical abilities and placing her in the body of a child. From there, Himeko can only become Kurohime if she can feel Zero’s loving feelings for her, and with her curse, this only lasts a few minutes at most. These events set up the narrative of the first of four major arcs in the story.
Kurohime contains a smaller cast of characters compared to other shonen manga, with just a few central characters being the focus throughout a majority of its narrative. A large cast is traded for a style of storytelling that has several flashbacks that are masterfully interwoven to give purpose and depth to the events in the present. These flashbacks and time-skips show a single character with many different designs throughout the different story sagas, as opposed to having the cast grow to levels where characters are hard to develop. Touching more on the story’s character development, with a smaller roster, the main characters get a lot more time to grow and have their stories expanded upon; making use of the story not being as linear as most manga, by way of weaving the narrative together through both the past and present perspectives, the character’s motivations and reasons for events to play out as they do gets a chance to be explored in a unique way. The flow of the narrative allows the reader to see the characters grow in a way that solidifies their goals and motivations. Seeing them throughout these different points in time really lets those elements sink in and makes the backstories explored in the exposés of the past really hit home when they are linked to the story’s present conflicts.
The setting of Kurohime is unique, and is something I haven’t quite seen in another manga. The mix of wild west and dark fantasy really gives the story its own atmosphere that separates itself from the pack of not only other Jump serializations of the time, but gives itself its own unique standing in the world of action manga. There are revolvers, saloons and cowboy hat-wearing gunslingers, as well as castles, swords and a hierarchy of villainous gods in the story’s world, and with the way the world-building is crafted, neither feels out of place with the presence of the other. The setting’s different backgrounds and architectural choices feel more like a smorgasbord of visually appealing pieces of art that compliment each other, not a poorly planned clashing outfit.
Later on in the story, there is a time travel story arc that is approached in a unique way. Without spoiling too much, there are some unique rules to their in-universe time travel that I have not seen in any other story, and that whole segment of that story feels like an interactive flashback, as opposed to just telling that part of the story’s lore and history through memories or a typical flashback. This whole story arc conveyed the idea that while you cannot alter your past, you are free to move forward from those events and not let the negative aspects of your history define you. Another theme of the story is the idea of true, pure love, as the romance between Kurohime and Zero is a major driving force in the story, and how their love that seems one-sided at first blossoms into a devotion that would challenge the laws and stipulations of the universe to make their romance be. Selflessness is another trait that goes in tandem, especially seen early in the story through Zero and his unyielding devotion to the woman who saved his life. These factors really define the romance aspect of the story, and also are some of the motivations for the choices the characters make throughout the narrative.
We have talked about the plot, some of the themes explored, and the setting of Kurohime, so let’s talk about the art side of things. Going back to the seemingly clashing aesthetics of wild west and dark fantasy being used in the story and executing those both extremely well, this leads to some downright beautiful panels full of life and vibrancy, be them a western themed town with a saloon and a town square, a cowboy with a ten-gallon hat and a revolver, or some of the more medieval fantasy design choices, such as the melee weapons, castles or designs of the story’s gods. The art style itself is very easy on the eyes, and also toes the line between what would be considered shonen and shojo. The character designs all fit their personas, and in the cases of the main cast, they have designs that genuinely feel like the character was designed in the early 2000’s, with the high-spiked two-tone hair of Zero, to the elegant-yet-powerful looking bishojo beauties with long-flowing hair and enchanting eyes of characters like Kurohime or Asura, that look like they are beautiful as they are ready for the fights that await them. The story and art both have some very high peaks, and I think anyone who is nostalgic for the art style of the early aughts or just loves the art style of that period in manga is in for a visual treat with each panel of Kurohime. The battles are easy to follow and really capture the action with the way the battles are choreographed. The expressions are very well done in both the most serious, climactic moments, as well as in moments of comic relief, making the emotion behind them feel all the more real and add to the charm of the manga.
For those who may have missed Kurohime during its run, or just want a new story that is more unique and obscure, Kurohime is a beautiful, charming and well woven narrative that delivers in spades on action, romance, supernatural themes, as well as plot twists and revelations. Anyone who is interested in a story that reveals the lore of its world in time, is filled with over-the-top magical gunfights, beautifully drawn characters and a one-of-a-kind world and setting should give Kurohime a shot. Thank you for reading this review, and I hope to have you all along for my next expedition as we unearth more hidden artifacts in the vast world of manga.
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