If you were one of the folks his past weekend trying to win either of these original press kit photos from the ninth entry in the Shinobi-no-Mono series, Mission Iron Castle, my apologies for being the source of your disappointment. I swung a heavy wallet at these cuties: Michiyo Yasuda and Yoko Namikawa sporting the finest in night gear coture.
Particularly fond of these as they are the source imagery for the superb collage poster, a two-sheet version of which hangs on the wall at VN HQ.
And if you haven’t seen this masterpiece of grim, noirish shinobi espionage, do so, it is truly one of the best ninja movies ever made.
Dark Horse’s expanded English-language version of the Blade of the Immortal artbook we first reported on here is now out, and priced under $30! Here’s a few more fleeting glimpses:
These are just details of full-page, superbly repro’d art from the genius that is Hiroaki Samura. The Dark Horse release (reportedly 30 pages longer than the Japanese original) is highly recommended, so go out tomorrow (new comic day!) and support your local comic book store.
Found these caps years ago in a sadly defunct blog (German if memory serves?), but they also floated around various newsboards for a while. The Female Convict Scorpion and Wandering Ginza Butterfly star had a stint on the long-running Oedo Sosamo TV series, and man did those expressive eyes ever work in a hood! Wow…
For the unfamiliar – and as a major lover of 70′s and 80′s Japanese action TV I HIGHLY recommend you become familiar - the Oedo Sosamo / Onmitsu Doshin property spans around 18 years of prime-time TV, TV specials and theatrical releases. Think of it like a chambara version of The Untouchables or even The Mod Squad, with a who’s-who of genre stars filling in roles of shadow-skilled secret police patrolling feudal Edo. Kaji was just one of many kunoichi cuties and blade-weilding honeys featured.
The female’s role in the team would always be disguised info gatherer and undercover intelligence, but when the gloves came off, they’d have short sword in hand ready to throw down.
Needless to say, if a female villain ever showed up, it was the kunoichi’s job to take her out. You don’t want your handsome leading men cutting women in half, no matter how much they might deserve it.
As we saw yesterday, Marvel always seemed more interested in jobbing out hundreds of ninja to the claws of Wolverine than they were in developing a lasting ninja hero of their own. There were, however, several shinobi super heroes in the independent and smaller publisher ranks, including several female characters.
First Comics’ Whisper (created by Stephen Grant and Rich Larson) was a female agent in a rather areobic/jazz dance-styled spandex outfit the influence of which can still be seen today. The title ran 37 issues from 1983 to 1991, well past the ninja craze’s expiration date, and had some great, thoroughly 80′s, covers.
See a whole pile more of these covers here and here.
And note the similarities between Whisper and some of Marvel’s subsequent spendex kunoichi from the 90′s and even last year:
I’ve been a longtime fan of the Italian photo blogs Blonde Zombies and Asian Drillpop, and now the same publisher has unleashed a new stream – Ultra Guro, which seems Japanese and vintage HK themed. Some nifty sword girl imagery there already:
I’ve loved Hiroaki Samura‘s out-of-the-box manga Blade of the Immortal for it’s entire loooong run, but the latest volume (still coming out in trades from Dark Horse) starts a new storyline featuring some masked goons rather familiar to fans of vintage shinobi-cinema and tokusatsu TV…
In addition to these thoroughly disposable suppa, the new story features two young info-gathering kunoichi, and the armed-’n-armored daughter of doomed government official. The series has been swordswoman heavy since day one, and Samura loves painting up his girls for eye-catching covers. These are my faves:
This series is all about exotic costuming, beauty in combat, and surreal weaponry. It can be challenging to read, especially some of the key action pages (depending on how good or bad the repro is from the Japanese originals), but it is definitely worth sticking with. Some of the grotesque places this book has gone in the past two years has been shocking.
Blade of the Immortal is enjoying some renewed fan interest due to the just-release anime adaptations, and an art book of the creator’s illustrations is being translated and released here in June. There’s a nice review of this must-own volume, in its original Japanese form, here.
I’m not a video game guy in the least, but man do I love the elevated place lady ninja have in that realm. If only movies followed suit more often…
Taki is a twin short-sword wielding kunoichi from Soul Calibur, famed mainly for her ridiculous gravity defying breasts. Seriously, a Russian auto-show model or Tamba Bay strip-club pole dancer would look at this girl and say ‘give me a break honey…’ But, such is the freedom of the pixelated world, and why not cater to your core audience?
Sixth-scale figure specialists Triad Toys have a superb quality 12″ licensed figure of Taki available, and there’s a great review by Michael Crawford via MWC Toys here. I love the 1:6 format, and kitbash stuff as often as my wallet will afford (which is not often). This one’s on my short list.
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