Let me be right up front with you: I did not care for Naruto,
nor Boruto. I mean, everything was fine
at the beginning (and who doesn’t love the Sexy Jutsu?), but then it became all
political and introduced too many intricate rules for the ninja jutsus and I
just couldn’t any more. If memory
serves, I didn’t get much farther than the exam arc before I called it quits.
And Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru wasn’t exactly an
easier read. Concepts are introduced
well before (by which I mean “long before”) any sort of explanation of them, so
I had to stop with every other sentence to try and remind myself what a “key”
was or what a “samurai soul” was.
In a bizarre blending of two completely different genres, we
are introduced to the legend of the warrior god Fudo Myo-o, some kind of space
samurai who “saved the stars” a long, long time ago?
Some peas should not be mixed with some porridges. At least, not unless you can seamlessly blend
them together well. And, well, Samurai 8
was just weird in both ways.
We enter on the sick and weak boy Hachimaru, who was
apparently playing the online video game that the whole introduction took place
in (which should be kind of a red flag right there). He lives with his father in the small house
that is all he’s ever known because of all his physical deficiencies.
And there’s also this robot dog called a “holder” that he
built named Hayataro who meows instead of barks for, frankly, some of the only
comic relief to be found in this slog of words.
Anyway, while his protective doctor father is off collecting
parts for his intensive care machine, Hachimaru plays a standard game of fetch
with Hayataro. But, this time, Hayataro
bring back a much larger ball: a daruma doll.
When Hachimaru tries to make a wish on it, the ball opens to reveal a
small, cat-like creature that calls itself Daruma.
It also claims to be a samurai.
It turns out that Daruma was once a proud and honored
space-samurai who was placed in the body of a cat robot. And he was the one who created the game
Hachimaru was playing earlier and distributed it in the hopes of finding a
worthy samurai to aid him in his journeys.
One thing leads to another and we follow the journey of
Hachimaru as he is implanted with some kind of cyborg spine called a “key” that
somehow turns his body into a cyborg and turns him into the real samurai he’s
always wanted to be.
This series, suffice it to say, has some problems. There was the aforementioned “too much show
long before telling” problem, plus we don’t have much idea at this moment where
exactly the story is going. The dialogue
and storytelling is too wordy, plus the action scenes are too hard to keep
track of who exactly has done what and how.
The one good part about Samurai 8 was the character
work. Daruma makes for a good, enigmatic
master for Hachimaru, albeit one who occasionally slips in weird references to
underwear in his lessons. Hachimaru
himself is understandable as a boy who has always wanted to see the world but
can’t (which I myself can relate to for reasons I won’t discuss here), and his
father is realistic and believable as the caring parent with a mysterious past
who doesn’t want his son to get hurt out there.
I myself argue with my father and brother a lot, so I can
see myself in the way Hachimaru yells at his father, but also in how he always
feels bad later on and considers to himself about apologizing.
And Hayataro is the standard loving dog with few comic or
unbelievable eccentricities other than the meowing. Even if he can somehow turn himself into a
giant dog-horse cyborg steed thing that shoots lasers out of his mouth.
Well, I guess Masashi Kishimoto’s talents had to be put to
good (?) use somewhere ever since Naruto ended.
Just don’t expect me to be spending any money on it.
