Details
- Title
- Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu (影武者徳川家康)
- Type
- Manga
- Author(s)
- Tetsuo Hara (dessin), Keiichirō Ryū (œuvre originale), Shō Aikawa (scénario jusqu’au tome 4)
- Publisher
- Shueisha, Coamix
- Volumes
- 6 tomes
- Start date
- 1994
- End date
- 1995
Gallery
6View all imagesKagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu
Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu (影武者徳川家康) is a historical manga by Tetsuo Hara, serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump from 1994 to 1995 and collected in six volumes. Hara handled the art based on a script by Sho Aikawa, adapted from the novel of the same name by Keiichiro Ryu. The first of the epic sagas the mangaka devoted to Ryu's novels set against the backdrop of the civil war, this series directly precedes SAKON -Sengoku Fuunroku-.
Synopsis
Keicho year five, the Battle of Sekigahara. As the unification of Japan hangs in the balance, Tokugawa Ieyasu falls to the blade of an assassin in the service of the enemy camp. To announce his death would risk the collapse of troop morale and the loss of the war.
To save the situation, the Tokugawa camp resorts to an extreme stratagem: passing off Ieyasu's double, Serada Jirosaburo, a wandering man who resembles him in every feature, as Ieyasu himself. Thrust against his will into a role far beyond him, the double must maintain his character in the face of those who might uncover the secret, and carry the destiny of a nation on his shoulders.
A reinterpretation of the Sengoku era
Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu adapts the historical novel by Keiichiro Ryu, which develops the fictional hypothesis that the real Ieyasu died at Sekigahara, replaced by a double who then shaped the course of history. The manga retains this framework while steering it toward the action-oriented storytelling characteristic of the magazine in which it was serialized.
The work is part of a series of adaptations that Tetsuo Hara drew from the novels of Ryu, who passed away in 1989, alongside Hana no Keiji. The relatively short series would find a continuation a few years later with SAKON, which revisits the same historical material from a different angle.
Éditions
Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, from issue 12 of 1994 to issue 13 of 1995. The chapters were then compiled into six volumes under the Jump Comics label.
The work has seen several re-editions in Japan: a deluxe edition in four volumes from Shinchosha, in the Bunch Comics collection, then from Tokuma Shoten a complete edition (kanzenban) in four volumes starting in July 2007, in a larger format with color pages, and finally a bunko edition also in four volumes starting in March 2010. Its rights are now managed by Coamix and it is available in digital format. No French edition has been released, and the story remains unpublished in France to this day.
