Lady Snowblood (manga)

Lady Snowblood (Shurayuki hime) is a manga written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Kazuo Kamimura. It was first publish in the 1970s and rencently published in English by Dark Horse Comics. The manga featured a title character who is seeking revenge for her mother while making a life as an assassin. 1973, the manga was adapted in two a move with the same name, starring Kaji Meiko as lady Snowblood. This movie later became an inspiration for Quenten Tarantino's famous Kill Bill.

The English verions of the manga (obviously, I can't have read the Japanese version, can I?) consists of 4 volumes, each contains 3 - 4 episodes. The episode usually self-contained, while still contributing for the main story.

The manga dated back to the 1970s, so the drawings is of the old style (Tezuka's manga is a good example for this style). The graphic is not eye-catching (though still enjoyable) has a feel of water-color painting. There are also errors on human anatomy and perspective. The pictures are almost refrained in their frames, and no flashy screen tone or effects are used at all. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it makes the pace slower and the story less intense than I had hope (or maybe because I watched the movie first?). The manga contains many gore, violence and sexuality (including homosexuality) and the graphic surprisingly is very well used.

The only reason that I want to talk about this manga is because of its movie adaption (I usually like to track down the origin of something). This manga is the start of everything: Lady Snowblood manga -> Lady Snowblood film -> Kill Bill

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Snowblood