This time I will be reviewing volume five, also the last volume, of Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru. The story is by Masashi Kishimoto with art by Akira Okubo. I already made videos for the first four volumes, but I want to take a little history journey for this short series since this is the last one.
After Naruto ended, I was pretty excited when Kishimoto’s next series was announced. Kishimoto was still in a supervisory role for Boruto, but a whole new science fiction samurai story seemed a lot more interesting. After a lot of building up hype, Saumrai 8 finally began serialization on May 13, 2019 in 24th issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump. Shueisha published the series on the Manga Plus platform in Japan, while Viz Media published the chapter simultaneously on the Shonen Jump platform. Both of the first two volumes were published in Japan on October 4, 2019. The first volume did not come to North America until March 3, 2020, while other countries like Spain, Italy and France got it around the end of 2019.
Now, the problem with this is not, other countries got it first, but it is because the series ended on March 23, 2020 after 43 chapters. This means I unknowingly started reading the series with the first volume, instead of the simultaneous chapters, right before the series ended. If I remember correctly, I am pretty sure I did not realize the series was over until around the third volume came out in English in August of 2020. Anyways the last volume came out in Japan on May 13, 2020, while this last volume, which I am going to talk about now, did come out in English until February 2, 2021.
The first thing to mention about volume five is the weird pacing. There is a definite point where the story continued as normal, and then suddenly the story realized it had to end. This volume picked up with Hachimaru and the crew continue their quest to find the keys to Pandora’s Box after what I thought was a really good fourth volume. However, the focus is shifted briefly at the beginning to introduce new essential characters: Hanaichi, Goku, and Ichigo. Not only are new characters introduced, but a new leveling or power system is explained, too. Both of these seemed a bit odd since it is the last volume, but not as much once the sudden chance in pace hits that obviously had to happen.
Another thing a little disappointing, only because this is the last volume, is the lesser involvement from a lot of the other characters. This volume mainly focuses on the relationship between Hachimaru as a Samurai and Ann as his Princess. All the other characters are mainly just in the background. Even, Daruma takes a big step out of the light once the leveling system is explained. They still have some important surprise moments, but even these are more like brief mentions that kind of makes them less impactful.
After all this, I actually weirdly liked how it ended, only because of how much of a stretch it takes in order to have some kind of ending. Everything was really weird, because of all the things I already mentioned, but something about all of it made me enjoy it. This also may be due to the fact that I really liked the series overall. I am the kind of person that tries to rationalize, or defend, things that do not make sense in stories I like. To me, the ending makes these five volumes seem like just the first step to a much larger journey with a slightly different focus. Also, I feel like this could be a really cool anime film. There of course is not enough for a series, but a beefy movie would befit extremely well.
In the end it is a shame it ended so soon, both for readers and for Kishimoto and Okubo. Kishimoto predicted the series would last for ten volumes, possibly even longer, so we know there was still much more story to tell. Oh well, it is over, and that is that. Kishimoto took over Boruto from Ukyo Kodachi, which seems a bit like having to take a step back and settle for something after a failure, and I am sure Okubo will do plenty other great work. I look forward to anything these two create in the future and hold out a little hope there is still something to come for Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru.
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