Title: Samurai 8: Hachimaru Den Vol. 2
Author: Masashi Kishimoto (Story), Akira Ookubo (Art)
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Digital
Pages: 199
Genre: Shonen, Battle, Sci-Fi
Publication Date: May 5, 2020
The Story
The second volume of Samurai 8 introduces us to Ann who is a princess in training and is undergoing methods to locate locker balls. She lost her locker ball and it is believed that Hachimaru found it and used it to become a samurai. Ann is sent alongside Hagamichi to locate Hachimaru and bring him back to Akari Castle. They locate him and that’s when Hagamichi realizes he is in the presence of Daruma. They agree that Daruma is the best teacher for Hachimaru and one of his firsts tests is to go find a locker ball with Ann.
While he’s out, a samurai by the name of Ata is looking for someone named Hachikaku. He traces him to Earth where he does an incredible job flying straight through the moon and landing on the planet’s surface… of course, this is after a paltry battle with the planet’s protector samurai. When Ata locates Hachimaru, we end up with a pretty intense battle along with revelation after revelation after revelation in quick succession. Once the battle is over, it becomes evident what Hachimaru’s mission is. Together with Ann, Daruma, and Hagamichi, the four of them begin an adventure…. But first, they need to stop the now-broken moon from falling into Earth.
I know, priorities, right?
I can hardly believe that this is the second volume of the series. While I applaud all of the backstory and revelations, I couldn’t help but feel that these came WAY too fast. There was no build-up, no mystery, nothing. Compared to Kishimoto’s Naruto series, everything we received here would have normally taken him about 100 chapters to reveal in total. I don’t know if this was by design so that Kishimoto could focus the bulk of the series on Hachimaru’s upcoming adventures or if this was a rush job because he knew that he wanted to make this a short 10-volume series?
Either way, things definitely felt rushed and while I have no problems with the content itself, it was the timing and the delivery of the content that was extremely poor. Don’t let that negative comment detract you from the story, though. Even though rushed, I could understand everything that happened and I could easily imagine how this could be compelling if it had more time to develop.
Characters
Hachimaru underwent a rapid transformation in personality here. He starts off the volume just like last time. He’s stubborn, wants to take the quick path to gain strength, won’t listen to his lessons, a little too forward and loud-mouthed, etc. etc. By the end of the volume, he toned down his attitude, became serious, and finally understands what it means to be a samurai and the importance of protecting his princess… in this case, Ann. Usually, these things take a while but the transformation here felt a little bit forced. I mean, given the circumstances with how it happened, one could easily understand the reasons for it but to have all of this happen just after two volumes? Yeah, that’s just a little too fast.
Still, it makes you wonder if this is how Hachimaru will be from now on or if he’ll pull the classic shounen trope and be back to normal in Volume 3?
Ann is a mixed bag. First, she was nervous about going, then she was excited when she laid eyes on Hachimaru, then she went into a poor excuse for a tsundere, then right back to warming up to him and getting on friendly terms. Oof. Can you talk about all over the place? Again, this is something that would have worked with a slow burn but when you get to see this transformation over the course of just 7 chapters, it doesn’t really come across as meaningful or impactful.
Daruma has a LOT of power. His attack on Ata was something to behold and it was solid proof of who he is/was as a character. To have his name revered by so many samurai has been validated and justified here in this volume. Don’t even make this cat angry!
We learned a lot about Furuta’s past and how he was a scientist involved in the creation of artificial samurai keys to open Pandora’s Box. Through Ata and Ata’s relationship to Daruma, Hachimaru, and even the two warring clans, it opens up a whole new universe just centered around one entire character. I bet you know what I’m going to say in terms of critique here so we’ll just leave it at that.
Final Thoughts
To keep an open and objective mind, this volume was great in the sense that it gave us many revelations and answers to questions that the first volume brought up. As I said multiple times, the pacing and the timing of these answers was just WAY off. Everything came unnaturally quick and these revelations would have been massive bombshells in later chapters or volumes but, instead, here we are in the second-ever volume of these series and it feels like we’ve had about four story arcs worth of mysteries solved and dropped onto our laps all within the span of a single, solitary chapter.
Of course, I’m not a mangaka that works with an editor. I cannot speak for the inner workings nor the behind-the-scenes situations that happened to cause this. Was it Kishimoto’s will to reveal everything this quickly? Did his editor tell him to make a huge, impactful, series of chapters because, perhaps, the initial chapters were struggling? Was it an attempt to gain votes with the readers? I don’t know. It could be a number of things but with the way Naruto was handled, this doesn’t seem like it was by design. Even if Kishimoto wanted a shorter, 10-volume series, that’s still about what? 80-100ish chapters or somewhere in between? There would have been plenty of time to draw this out but the fact that Samurai 8 was cut short after only 5 volumes and 43 total chapters, this tells me that we’re in for a hyper-fast ride.
In fact, and this is scary to even say, that after just the second volume, I feel like Hachimaru’s first adventure is going to be the start of the final story arc.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy what’s happening but when you have to use your imagination to pretend that after just 15 chapters that we experienced about 100+ chapters worth of material, you know there’s a bit of a problem going on here.
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
