PEACE MAKER VOLUME 1

By Nanae Chrono (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-4278-0075-6

Fast-paced and quite manic, this superlative historical manga tells of Tetsunosuke and Tatsunosuke, two brothers who saw their parents murdered.

During the days of the Meiji Revolution their father was a diplomat dedicated to bring peaceful change, but Ichimura’s ways were not to everybody’s tastes and his family paid the price. The Revolution or â€œRenewalâ€ was a series of events and incidents which altered the very nature of Japan in the later 19th century. It spans the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate or Edo period and the beginning of the Meiji Era. It saw the chaotic, irresistible modernization which followed the enforced breaking of Japan’s self-imposed Isolation by the American Commodore Matthew Perry and his â€œBlack Shipsâ€ in 1854.

Ten years later Ichimura Tetsunosuke provokes a battle with a squad of warriors from the Shinsengumi, the unofficial, volunteer police force who have taken it upon themselves to restore order to Kyoto. Although only fifteen he desperately wants to emulate his brother Tatsunosuke, who has already joined this militia of brutal warriors. Both of them are driven to avenge their parents’ deaths.

As a member of the uncompromising Shinsengumi Tatsu has access to many secrets from the Revolution’s early days, and slowly he gets closer to solving the ten-year riddle surrounding the death of the man everybody called â€œthe Peacemakerâ€. But awash in a sea of intrigue, espionage, violence and death it becomes increasingly hard to keep his own hands clean â€“ and his impulsive brother is becoming ever more impatient and unmanageableâ€¦

Steeped in actual historical events this canny revenge thriller blends the beginnings of modern Japan with the death of the Samurai way of life, and even manages to weave a canny mystery and the frantic social slapstick of youthful heroes into a compulsive read that promises great things to come.
This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

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