In this world where we are beset on all sides by the Shaolin shadowboxing and the Wu-Tang sword style, is there No Need For Bushido? I climbed up to the Thirty-Sixth Chamber to consult with my Master. He greeted me warmly and poured me a cup of green tea. “Your heart seems troubled,” he said calmly, his voice like the gentle wind caressing the leaves in summer.

“I am torn,” I said. “On the one hand, my soul tells me to hate this comic. The female character named Ina fills Three out of the Six Webcomic Cliches as defined by Master Croshaw: Female Characters Are Hot, Female Characters Are Violent, and Female Characters are ‘Straight.’ Not unlike her other sisters in Hammerspace (such as Akane Tendo and Naru Narusegawa), her constant mood swings began to wear on my soul. The other characters are also cliches: the clueless yet startlingly adept samurai; the not-quite-stoic blind Taoist priest; and the brooding guy with the big sword. If I tried hard enough, I should be able to find their exact duplicates in Inu-Yasha or Rurouni Kenshin.

“Then there is the humor. It is cornier than a KFC Famous Bowl. The jokes about being in Canada or the samurai mistaking everyone for a girl cause my eyes to roll in exasperation. And ‘Holy Shnkikies’? That pale attempt at a catchphrase incites within me nothing less than a boiling rage directed at the True North. This is humor I may have found funny in Grade 3 when Knock-Knock jokes were good for a laugh. However, judging from the copious bloodshed and slight instances of nudity, I gather the under 10 set are not Alex Kolesar and Joseph Kovell’s primary target audience.”

The Master cupped a small dash of sesame seeds in his palm. “Yet,” he said, “for every ying, there is a yang. You admit that the comic does have its moments. Tell me, my son, what do you like about No Need for Bushido?”

“Well,” I said, “I actually thought the relationship between Ina and Yori was pretty sweet. What can I say? I’m a big softie at heart. There is nothing quite like the relationship between the dorky samurai and his lady love. Despite being walking cliches, I actually found myself liking the characters quite a bit … which is probably why writers stick to these cliches in the first place. The guy with the big sword, Ken, may be my favorite, just for being an unrepentant jerk with a love for theater. I guess he reminds me of myself sometimes.

“Plus the comic does a good job if mixing comedy elements with serious elements. I found some of the more dramatically inclined moments difficult to read and grasp, what with the warring clans and the vows of vengeance. At the beginning, there’s walls of text explaining it all. Eventually, though, the art gets polished to the point it can carry the brunt of the story, and the dialogue gets easier to follow. I also appreciate that the different elements were present from the beginning. It felt natural when Bushido transitioned from comedy to drama to action sequences.”

“I see,” said the Master, as birds lighted onto his palm to feed. “I sense there is something else you are not telling me.”

“This review might not be totally fair,” I said. “For you see, No Need for Bushido is about 350 pages long. We were asked to review it over the busy Fourth of July weekend, which for the most part I spent under the stars and very far away from city lights. I read the first 150 pages straight, then skipped around until about the last 70 pages. The rest I tried to fill in from Wikipedia. Curiously, the ‘Plot Details’ section also omits the parts I hadn’t read. The art evolves drastically in six years. It changes from being a crudely drawn cartoony images to a highly polished imitation of anime. Both styles do have their strengths: the early stuff better serves the comedy, while the late period feels more suitable for kinetic action sequences. Since No Need For Bushido dabbles in both, either style feels appropriate in their own way, though the recent style is far easier on the eyes. Don’t you think so, Master?”

“How should I know?” the Master said. “You just made me up for this ridiculously gimmicky review.”

“Oh,” I said, enlightened. “Well, despite not having read every single page of the comic, I feel confident splitting the difference with Bushido Muyo.”

“Hmm?”

“Um, I mean No Need for Bushido.”

Rating:

No Need for Bushido
by Alex Kolesar and Joseph Kovell
http://www.noneedforbushido.com/

review by Larry “El Santo” Cruz

(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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