This is the Edo-era samurai guts. Controversial, tough, angry, highly skilled and lost in a time of peace, the characters of Satsuma Gishiden tell a quasi-historical tale of social caste and brutal reprisal. Readers with a taste for Kazuo Koike's gritty Lone Wolf & Cub will go nuts for master gekiga artist Hiroshi Hirata's tome of samurai struggle. Hirata's art and calligraphy leap off the page during scenes of action, only to unfold upon a full bleed that looks like a fine plate print. It's art at is most expressive, accentuating the classic stoic samurai characters you've come to know, only with a little more true society thrown in to help the reader understand what it was really like to be a warrior without a war. (Source: Dark Horse)

With this book, Hirata set out to draw a passionate critique of discrimination against the Japanese outcaste community, known as the burakumin, around the character of Gennosuke, a young buraku whose mission to avenge and uplift his people through the sword goes horribly and gorily wrong. Though clearly intended as an anti-discrimination broadside, Bloody Stumps Samurai rubbed the Buraku Liberation League the wrong way, leading to copies being confiscated and burned and Hirata temporarily blacklisted. (Source: Retrofit Comics)

Japan feudal period. He came in battle, they began to share his life against an economic commitment. The battlefield where the samurai could fully experience the Way of Bushido, was coming off a less pure than the blood stain.

16th century. A story over two generations, about how a woman makes a man a man.

Proud to be a Samurai, even though I'm destitute Harata Hiroshi chronologies 1970 - 1971

This one-shot is the adaptation of two movies: Zatoichi's Vengeance (Tokuzo Tanaka) and Zatoichi's Pilgrimage (Kazuo Ikehiro). The Ballad of Zatoichi: Zatoichi comes upon a dying man who asks him to give a bag of money to "Taichi." Zatoichi has no idea who this is but when he comes upon a small town harassed by gangsters, he finds that "Taichi" was the man's young son. Along his travels, he also met a blind monk who makes Zatoichi question his murderous lifestyle. In trying to help the town, Zatoichi kills some gangsters and becomes a hero to the boy. He must make a choice of whether to stay and defend the town or to leave and be on his way. Zatoichi's Pilgrimage: After he's ambushed in a small village terrorized by a gang of thieves, the legendary blind swordsman Zatoichi is forced to kill a young man in self-defense. As fate would have it, his travels soon lead him to Okichi, a woman whom Zatoichi discovers is the sister of the young man whose life he stole. In anger, Okichi attacks the blind swordsman, but her conscience gets the better of her, and as she tends his wounds, the two fall in love. (Source: Manga-Updates)

Included Stories: The Great Hell Castle (Chapters 1-5) The Legend of the Great Sumo Soul: Bloody Daruma Warrior The Legend of the Great Sumo Soul: The World's Greatest Headbutt

The story takes place at the end of the Edo's period (around 1860) in Japan. At this time, Japan was divided in two between patriots who wanted to bring the emperor to the government and shogunate forces who protect the head of state, the Shogun. A poor samurai, Okada Izo, is hired by the patriots to assassinate shogunate members, the story follows his story. This manga is based on real facts and was inspired by the movie of the same name.

Japan feudal period. He came in battle, they began to share his life against an economic commitment. The battlefield where the samurai could fully experience the Way of Bushido, was coming off a less pure than the blood stain. The original series had the unfortunate outcome of being published in magazine that was soon to be cancelled. But years later, Hiroshi Hirata writes new stories about his famous character, Hanshiro, an honored warrior that made sure promises sealed with blood at the battlefield were fulfilled.

1606. The city of Kyoto becomes the center of attention when a samurai sets up a peculiar record : making fifity arrows pass through the gallery of a temple. As the record is beaten again and again by talented archers and this challenge becomes the event known as Tôshiya, the feudal lords of the country become desirous to boast with having formed the one archer who will set an unreachable record and hold once and for all the title of the "First under the Sky". When avenging the accidental death of his father, Kanza, a low-rank samurai, becomes sucked into this battle of will, honour and pride, and devotes himself completely to the training for the Tôshiya...

"Mumei no Hitobito Ishoku Retsuden" is a compilation of short stories by Hiroshi Hirata that talks about the lives of real heros but whose names do not appear in history books.

This single volume manga collects five stories of the samurai era that were originally published in Japan between 1971 and 1975 in various magazines.