
For my first edition of ANOM, I will be reviewing “Samurai Executioner” by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima. I would’ve read the first one if Newark Public Library had it but of course, they never have all the books to any graphic novel series. This series takes place in “Edo-period” Japan: a time period that was filled with greed, sex, and violence. In this volume, “Two Bodies, Two Minds” We have two stores ….one of them I will tell you about. The first revolves around “O-tsuya” A troubled woman who witnessed her loved ones burn to death home on two occasions. She now works as a geisha in a brothel house who doesn’t talk so much. During a celebration in the village, the brothel home catches fire while o-tsuya is spotted on the roof of the burning building….NAKED! A Sake server scales the building in an attempt to rescue her however; she tries to engage in sexual activity with the server on top of the burning brothel house! It takes a team effort but they eventually get the sex-craved beast down. It is then we learn of the cause of O-Tsuya’s sudden urges, she has a split personality or what’s known in the medical field as “Dissociative identity disorder”. When she’s around the flame, turns into a sex-craving animal. When she isn’t, she’s a very quiet, “to-herself”, Innocent kind of geisha.
