Orphan Blade is a comic-book series created by Nick Almand and Jake Mylar and published by Oni Press.
In a world devastated by kaiju, orphan Hadashi's life as a martial-arts apprentice is ruined after an accident causes his right hand to be grievously wounded. Unable to wield a sword, he is kicked out of his master's dojo, but is taken in by Soyako and Katze, and while on a quest to earn money, he stumbles across the Orphan Blade, a bokken which bonds itself to him. This brings him into conflict with the Five Fingers of Death, a mercenary group with similarly cursed weapons.
This series contains examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Hadashi’s master Mifune. All three of his apprentices look pretty ragged, presumably because he spends all his money on sake.
- Author Appeal: So there’s Hadashi, who is always barefoot—and whose name means “barefoot” in Japanese. And his fellow apprentices, who own sandals but go without them a lot. And Katze, whose footwear is basically socks with holes in the heels and the toes. And the Swamp Monster that, for reasons never made clear, makes Katze give him said footwear in return for showing him the path to the companions’ destination. You get the idea.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Reaper in White's weapon, Flesh Harvest, is a huge scythe that brings its wielder back from the dead once for every time it's used to kill someone. However, killing someone with a scythe is a lot harder than it looks, so she accomplishes most of her kills with her knives.
- Carnivorous Healing Factor: The Kasha Mask makes its wearer impervious to pain and allows them to heal from almost any injury by consuming the flesh of others. The downside is that it also bestows Horror Hunger on its wearer.
- Conveniently an Orphan: Hadashi, Soyako, and Katze are all orphans.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Soyako manages to incur the wrath of Tenmaru by killing his mother, Yoko.
- Fingore: Hadashi loses three of the fingers on his right hand after getting attacked by a kaiju. He later regrows one of his lost fingers after stealing the Kasha Mask.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Frau spends the entire final battle naked, as she arrives as only a head, and after regenerating, doesn't have much time to find clothing.
- Good Thing You Can Heal:
- Frau's combat strategies rely heavily on the assumption that the Kasha Mask will allow her to eat the flesh of her opponents, and thus heal her wounds, afterwards.
- The Reaper in White can come back from the dead once for every person she's killed with her scythe, the Flesh Harvest. Unfortunately for her, the scythe isn't a very easy weapon to wield, so she runs out of extra lives before Hadashi manages to kill her.
- Groin Attack: During the fight with the Reaper in White, Katze gets hit in the groin by the butt of her scythe.
- Horror Hunger: Frau's Kasha Mask allows her to heal from grievous injuries and renders her impervious to pain, but in order to maintain that healing factor, she has to consume human flesh.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Five Fingers of Death, a deadly group of mercenaries who all wield cursed weapons.
