Masahiko Murakami

Dull as dirt, this book seeks to extol the Buddhist priest Nichiren but ends up making him look like a bit of a self-righteous jerk. To amp things up, the creators toss in a masked female assassin, a bunch of soldiers and several villains of the mustache-twirling variety. To make the story more relatable to kids, they shoehorn in a couple of young characters that would look more at home in a Dragonball or Pokemon book. To make the book boring, they spend a bunch of time discussing which Buddhist sutra devote worshippers should be chanting. Characters are constantly telling us how wonderful Nichiren is, but the creators really do little to show him doing anything concrete or worthwhile. Instead we get scenes of Nichiren grandstanding in a childish squabble with another priest, telling him basically, "Nyah, nyah, you can't make it rain and should quit being a priest," but doing nothing himself to relieve the suffering of the populace in a time of drought. I'd never heard of Nichiren before reading this book and would be happy to never hear of him again after finishing this book.… (más)

Historical story in manga form and quite well done I think. If you are in anyway interested in 13th century Japanese religious/political dealings and a monk "going against the grain of the times trying to set things right" as the centerpiece... then this is for you. I suppose this would be the equivalent of history in comic-book/manga form.

Art-wise it does have some nicely detailed backdrops that is prevalent in manga. Story wise I could follow it quite well (though as always that slight disjoint as a result of being a translation).

And here there is a whole wikipedia article on Nichiren.… (más)