Blade of the Immortal, Volume 3: Dreamsong Book

Hiroaki Samura begins to crystalize themes of honor, love, duty and what forces us to live on in this striking volume of the Blade of the Immortal saga. Whereas Volume 2's second immortal storyline gave way to gratuitous bloodshed, the key conflict of Dreamsong is with a fundamentally good, or at least sympathetic woman. There is violence (the art style gets as frantic as it has ever been in the first three volumes), but this time we deal more with why the antagonist is acting, and how much it hurts her to do so. We begin to sympathize with why the people serve the charismatic and cruel Kagehisa Anotsu, as well as just how traumatic Rin's past is.