Blade of the Immortal, Volume 17: On the Perfection of Anatomy Book

The most tenuous volume, at least for me. Burando's experiments fail time after time in what's simply the most disgusting visuals in the series, and if someone called it torture porn, I couldn't defend it. Does it add further weight to the difficulty and mystique of Manji's immortality? Yes, but that's not enough to justify what fills up this volume. It's not the same as the endless battles in some volumes; these are convicts steadily and uncommittedly marching into medical slaughter. The lack of agency and higher frequency of gore makes it feel more like torture porn than I'd wish on this series.

The art remains strong - weaker than Shortcut, but still nuanced and detailed on level with any other manga I've read. But Rin sits around for a month, not searching for Manji, and the Itto-Ryu members she met have no plot progression despite the cliffhanger from Shortcut. The character progression is exclusively those few people (mostly Manji and Burando) who resent the medical experiments more and more. It'd be lying to say I disliked it, for I read through the book in three sittings, only putting it down when the violence became too graphic for me to put up with in the moment. It's still a morbidly fascinating story arc, but it's one that really ought to have wrapped up by now, and feels padded for time. That the padding is visual Body Horror simply isn't for me.

Rin's side-chapters suggest everything will come to a head by the winter. There are people already in motion, even though they've been missing for volumes. There's one character (who I won't spoil) who has doubtless needed these weeks of downtime, and is likely setting up a huge return. That's an uncanny strength of Samura's Blade of the Immortal - even when the current arc feels like it's dragging, there's the perception of payoffs on things set up before it.