Azumi is a manga series created by Yū Koyama that ran from 1994 to 2009, starring a young kunoichi living during the early Edo Period.
The early part of the manga shows her as the sole girl in a group of ten war orphans - all boys - being trained as assassins by Gessai Obata, an elderly man they only know as Grandfather. When he deems them ready to graduate, Grandfather has them pair off with their closest friends... and fight to the death. Following that, Grandfather sends the five survivors, Azumi included, on missions to assassinate the vassals and supporters of the Toyotomi Clan, who oppose the newly-established Tokugawa shogunate and threaten to drag Japan back into civil war. And it only gets darker from there on out, as she starts to question the validity of her mission.
The manga won an Excellence Prize at the 1997 Japan Media Arts Festival and the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1998, and received two film adaptations: Azumi in 2003 and Azumi 2: Death or Love in 2006. It also received a Hack and Slash PlayStation 2 game adaptation in 2005, also called Azumi.
The author also created a Sequel Series with the same title, but written in all-caps Latin letters - AZUMI - which ran from 2009 to 2014. It takes place two centuries later during the Bakumatsu Period, following a different though similar-looking Azumi.
This manga includes examples of:
- Actual Pacifist: Shinjiro, despite being the youngest son of a noble family, is abhorrent towards violence. The one time he draws his sword is to keep Sakon from finding the hut where he's hidden Azumi - who unbeknownst to him had left - and it gets him cut down. By the time he returns, however, he's no longer a pacifist, remarking on how naive he once was and how if you want to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs.
- Ambiguously Bi: Azumi is clearly interested in men, with multiple potential romantic partners she's shown clear interest in, but she has occasionally shown hints of being receptive to feminine advances.
- Anyone Can Die: The manga makes it abundantly clear that anyone not named Azumi can and probably will die at some point, especially if they fall in love with her.
- Arch-Enemy: While they never meet face-to-face, the patriarch of the Yagyu Clan wants Azumi dead and is willing to hire a veritable army of assassins to make it happen — even when she's under Tenkai's protection.
- Assassin Outclassin': Azumi makes a reputation for herself of carving up countless samurai, ninja, and rōnin sent to assassinate her.
- Attempted Rape: Many times, Azumi is confronted by bandits who threaten and/or attempt to rape her. Sakon and four of the ringleaders of the Ise ronin gang come the closest to doing so — the former by taking advantage of her being paralyzed by a poison dart, though he relents at the last moment; and the latter by ambushing her while she was bathing and ganging up on her, though she breaks free and kills them all.
- Badass Cape: Gessai buys a stylish European cape for Azumi that she wears for the rest of the manga.
- Bathhouse Blitz: When Azumi stops at a bathhouse to rest and relax, an elderly couple who joins her turn out to be a pair of ninja sent to assassinate her - forcing her to kill them.
- Becoming the Mask:
- Azumi was sent to assassinate Toyotomi Hideyori, but wound up befriending and later falling in love with him. The scheme was uncovered by his mother, Yodo-dono, who forced Azumi to kill Ukiha.
- Kiku's friendship with Azumi was a charade in order to make her let her guard down... until it stopped being a charade when the assassin fell In Love with the Mark.
- Been There, Shaped History: In chapter 71, Azumi assassinates Tokugawa Ieyasu under the mistaken belief that he was responsible for the death of Gessai. His murder is subsequently covered up with an explanation that he died from illness after Ieyasu's son Hidetada kills Ieyasu's last body double, thereby making it impossible to maintain the charade of Ieyasu still being alive.
- Beta Couple: Shortly following Ukiha's death, Nagata met Yae, a girl whose father and brother were killed when they were mistaken for Gessai, Azumi, and himself. Nagata and Azumi persuaded Gessai to take Yae in and she and Nagata fell in love. When Yae departed to return to her hometown, Azumi persuaded Nagata to go tell her how he felt. Tragically, Bijomaru killed Nagata before he could do so, while Yae was within eyesight, and she never saw it happen — only finding out from Azumi years later.
- Blind Obedience: Azumi and the others were raised to never question their Grandfather's orders, though she later begins harbouring doubts.
- Bullying a Dragon: Despite Azumi developing a reputation as a Master Swordsman and borderline One-Man Army, the Yagyu clan sends countless mercenaries and assassins after her. All this manages to do is get a number of Azumi's would-be love-interests — as well as said mercenaries and assassins — brutally killed, increasing Azumi's reputation in the process.
- Cartwright Curse: Beginning with Nachi, almost all of Azumi's love interests have kicked the bucket and are pushing up daisies. Two she was forced to kill by her enemies, one committed seppuku, one was cut down without her knowledge,note one was raped and beaten to death by bandits, one she cut down in a duel to spare him wasting away from consumption, one turned out to be a sadistic warmonger, one was gutted while trying to perform a Honey Trap on assassination targets, two were cut down in the middle of a pitched battle against a group of ronin, and one was impaled protecting her. Azumi had to threaten to go AWOL to prevent a young lord with anti-shogunate leanings from being put to death by Tenkai, but turned down his proposal out of her sense of duty.
- Chaste Hero: Azumi was so naive as a young teen she didn't even know what the differences between boys and girls were, having been raised in complete isolation from the outside world. She eventually grows out of this naivety, but almost every person she falls in love with or who falls in love with her is killed, usually right in front of her. It gets to the point where Azumi sees herself as cursed and tries to avoid falling in love or even making friends out of fear they'll end up being targeted by her enemies.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Azumi had a huge crush on Nachi, one of her fellow trainees... who she was forced to kill as part of her initiation. She later falls for her fellow companion Ukiha, but is forced to kill him by Yodo no Kata.
- Child Soldiers: Azumi and her companions were trained as ninja before they hit puberty.
- Coitus Uninterruptus: During Azumi's stay at a brothel-inn while Disguised in Drag, Akane — a stoic prostitute who Azumi befriends — invokes this when a ronin hunting for Azumi barges in on them by partially undressing, using her kimono to hide Azumi, and pretending to have sex with her. When the ronin decides to stay and watch, Akane berates him into giving them some privacy.
- Comic-Book Time: The manga takes place across several years during the early Edo Period and shows Azumi's transformation from a preteen girl to a young woman. Exactly how many years have passed is unclear, though the Siege of Osaka in 1615 is an important event.
- Conveniently an Orphan: All of the ten children raised by Gessai Obata were war-orphans.
- Cute Bruiser: Azumi is noted as being beautiful by many characters... right up until they witness her effortless vivisect upwards of a dozen mooks by herself.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Whether it's against bandits, ninja, or trained samurai, Azumi effortlessly dices them apart. It gets to the point where her opponents have to fight dirty to stand a chance against her, and even then they still don't stand a chance.
- Darkest Hour: Azumi's long period of Cold-Blooded Torture and attempted Mind Rape at the hands of Konishi Shizune and Tadane. Her initial escape attempt fails and she heavily restrained, the elderly caretaker of the twins she attempted to save goes mad and tries to kill her in a futile attempt to save herself and she is utterly unable to think of a way to escape while her condition deteriorates rapidly as a result. She would have accepted to die right then and there but fortunately Gacchi manages to save her once the twins leave her unguarded and assured of their success of their plans.
- Decadent Court: The backdrop of the series is the early Edo period, where the newly established Tokugawa shogunate moves against the vassals of its enemies, and various noble houses jockey for the shogun's favor or influence over him. During her time as an assassin and a ronin, Azumi ends up making enemies with a few noble houses, and even when she becomes a vassal of the shogun they continue to send assassins and mercenaries after her.
- Deadly Graduation: Once he decides his ten pupils are ready to start going off on missions, Gessai Obata decides to give them one final test... they must pair off with their closest friend and fight to the death, an exercise intended to erase their ability to feel empathy. Azumi is forced to kill the boy she has a crush on.
- Depraved Bisexual:
- Bijoumaru, the arrogant, sadistic, and very flamboyant iaido master hired to kill Azumi and Gessai. He kills Nagara and wounds Gessai, but is killed by Azumi.
- While working to peacefully resolve a conflict between two noble houses without one being executed for treason against the shogunate, Azumi meets a lascivious kunoichi who openly flirts with her while also having sex with several ronin to avoid having her cover blown. Suspecting that the kunoichi is spying on her, Azumi pretends to have sex with the scion of a noble family who'd been taken hostage to pass a message from his family on to him, and the kunoichi becomes too busy masturbating to pay attention to her spycraft.
- Depraved Homosexual: Kiku and Genta's master is a Dirty Old Man who emotionally manipulates both of them into having sex with him.
- Determinator: Despite crossing the Despair Event Horizon a couple of times, Azumi decides to live for the sake of her fallen comrades.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: As Kinkaku is dying following their Enemy Mine, Azumi catches him. He takes the opportunity to grope her, profess he wanted to rape her, and try to get a Last Kiss, but she pushes him away and he dies.
- Disguised in Drag: After Chiozō is killed protecting her, in Chapter 295 Azumi disguises herself as a man and runs away from Tenkai's temple to do some soul-searching, ending up staying at a brothel/inn while pretending to be mute to avoid giving away her voice. Despite this, she's recognized by some ronin hired to hunt her down, who take a couple of the prostitutes Azumi befriended hostage in order to lure her into an ambush.
- Disposable Woman:
- Kiku, a transgender assassin who falls for Azumi, is taken hostage by a bunch of bandits who rape and murder her after they discover she is biologically male. Azumi goes berserk and slaughters all of them, having been promised that Kiku would be unharmed if she didn't interfere with their plan to rob a gold convoy.
- When Azumi's squad is sent to assassinate Date Masamune, the kunoichi Hatsune is captured while performing a Honey Trap on one of his retainers. While on their way to rescue her, Azumi and co. come across a sack in the middle of the road and open it to find Hatsune's impaled and disembowelled corpse.
- Doom Magnet: Almost all of Azumi's friends except for Yae and Tobizaru, and almost all of her love interests, have been killed due to their involvement with her.
- This is also why at the end she refuses to stay at the hidden village of Azumino despite being happy there, as she knows that those pursuing her will never give up and will eventually find her, putting everyone in the village in danger.
- Do You Want to Copulate?:
- Azumi's first meeting with Sakon consists of him asking if she wants to have sex after she unwittingly follows him to a field where a bunch of people are having A Party, Also Known as an Orgy. Azumi is mortified and immediately turns him down.
- After Azumi — Disguised in Drag as a samurai — purchases the services of a prostitute named Akane to prevent her from falling prey to some abusive ronin, Akane offers herself to Azumi — who turns her down to avoid her cover being blown. Akane is left confused and tries to make Azumi jealous by sleeping with a different client, but eventually figures out Azumi is a woman and becomes her Secret-Keeper.
- Double Weapon: Azumi wields an unusual, custom-made sword with a katana blade on one end and a dagger on the other.
- The Dreaded: Azumi, as she garners a reputation for herself of effortlessly cutting down ninja and bandits sent to kill her.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Almost all of Azumi's love interests are killed off, often in brutal fashions, and the few who aren't killed she's forced to leave for their own safety.
- Dwindling Party: One by one, Azumi's comrades and eventually her mentor are killed, along with almost every love interest she makes. It gets to the point where she starts shunning people so they won't get caught up in her battles.
- Enlightenment Superpowers: Azumi is compared to a bodhisattva later on in the series, and possesses preternatural combat skills.
- Even the Girls Want Her:
- Hatsune expresses attraction towards Azumi, attempting to flirt with her in Chapter 175.
- In Chapter 295, Azumi meets a stoic prostitute named Akane, who becomes attracted to her after Azumi purchases her services so she won't be forced to sleep with a pair of slovenly ronin. Akane quickly figures out that Azumi is Disguised in Drag and helps her hide from the ronin who are hunting for her, even pretending to have sex with her. The ronin eventually figure out who Azumi is and take Akane and a young prostitute hostage for her trouble.
- Evil All Along: Nobody suspected the true mastermind of the Ise Ronins' plot to launch a crusade against the Shogunate was Konishi Shizune and his twin brother Tadane, who played everyone like a fiddle.
- Expository Pronoun: Azumi, having been raised amongst a group of boys without even knowing she was a girl at first, uses "ore" to refer to herself. When she has her first period, Gessai tries to teach her proper feminine etiquette, but to no avail.
- Expy: Konishi Shizune, a half-Japanese Christian who claims to be the reincarnated Son of God, is based on Amakusa Shiro.
- Freak Out:
- Early in the manga, Azumi and her family briefly stop at a town where a wedding is being held. Azumi befriends the younger sister of a newlywed bride, who's around her age, and stays behind. A group of bandits attack the village and begin to Rape, Pillage, and Burn everything. The bride gives herself up to hide Azumi and her little sister, who are forced to watch as she is raped and her husband and father are cut down. The little sister rushes out to stop the bandits and is nearly raped herself, but the older sister attacks the leader of the bandits and is killed. Azumi - who had been angsting over whether to break her Grandfather's order to never reveal her bujutsu fighting style to anyone - snaps, grabs one of the bandits' katanas, and cuts them to shreds to protect her friend. It's after this that she starts questioning the validity of her "Grandfather's" orders, since had she acted sooner she could have saved everyone.
- When Kiku is captured by a group of bandits, Azumi promises not to interfere as long as Kiku is unharmed. The bandits proceed to murder Kiku in the worst way possible, and Azumi massacres them all in a vengeful rage.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Azumi has been forced to fight naked on several occasions.
- Gonk: Many of the villainous samurai, ronin, and bandits are drop-dead ugly, a stark contrast to the heroic characters.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Characters who are enemies early in the manga occasionally reappear as allies - albeit usually temporary ones - later on. Most notably are Inoue Kanbee, a samurai initially seeking to avenge his master - who was one of Azumi's early assassination targets - and Tobizaru, a ninja with a Gag Nose who was Kanbee's retainer and originally tried to assassinate Azumi.
- Heel–Face Turn: Shunjiro Mayumi, a young pacifist samurai with the dream of creating a perfect country, is seemingly killed by Sakon - par for the course with Azumi's love interests. However, he is revealed to have survived and resurfaces a couple of arcs later having become the administrator of the Shogunate's gold mine in Ise, where he has implemented industrialization as the first step to realizing the creation of his perfect country. While he resumes his attempts to woo her, what he doesn't tell her is that he's imprisoned his friend and mentor Tenzo Karasuma and is working with a group of bloodthirsty ronin to instigate a violent revolution and tear down the Shogunate, had the innocent people he'd been travelling with murdered to preserve his secrets, employs slave labour under harsh conditions, and manufactures highly addictive drugs with nasty withdrawal symptoms.
- Historical Domain Character: Many of the nobles and important personages were real-life people who lived and died during the formative years of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold:
- Chapter 118 reveals Yae became a prostitute, but her Emotionless Girl nature turns off her clients.
- In Chapter 295, Azumi goes on the run disguised as a male samurai and ends up staying at a brothel-inn, where she befriends a stoic prostitute named Akane who eventually figures out her secret and helps her maintain her ruse until her cover's blown. Azumi also befriends a young prostitute she witnessed being raped en-route to the brothel and was unable to save without blowing her cover. The two end up being taken hostage by Azumi's enemies, though she rescues them before they can be seriously harmed.
- In Love with the Mark:
- Azumi develops feelings for Toyotomi Hideyori, who she was supposed to assassinate.
- Kiku, a transgender assassin, joins up with Azumi intending to befriend her and then kill her when she lets her guard down. Much to her confusion, Kiku falls in love with Azumi and ultimately can't go through with it.
- Sakon, a ronin hired to assassinate Azumi, propositions her several times and even comes close to raping her, but develops feelings for her after being impressed by her skill and determination. He confesses his feelings for her when he reveals he's dying of tuberculosis, and doesn't want her to die by anyone's sword but his.
- Innocently Insensitive: Azumi tries to pay off the extreme debts that forced Yae into prostitution, but only manages to offend her.
- Klingon Promotion: A rather bizarre example of this is committed by Tokugawa Hidetada, Ieyasu's son and the reigning Shogun. After Ieyasu's murder at Azumi's hands, Ieyasu's closest advisors suggest using Ieyasu's last kagemusha (body double) to cover up the death of the retired Shogun for a while longer in order to further solidify the Tokugawa shogunate's hold on power. However, Hidetada, who resents having held all of the responsibilities of the Shogun for the past 11 years while his father has had all the actual power, will have none of this, and personally butchers his father's lookalike in a rather gory manner, thereby ensuring that his father's death will have to be publicized and he will finally be Shogun in fact as well as in name.
- Knight Templar:
- Gessai Obata, the man Azumi refers to as "Grandfather", staunchly believed the Tokugawa shogunate was doing what was right for Japan and that anyone else taking power was going to plunge the country back into civil war. He maintains this outlook despite having a hit put on him, and only as he's dying does he question his blind faith before realizing it's a setup to manipulate Azumi into seeking revenge against the shogun.
- Tenkai, the Buddhist monk who was employing Gessai, is the one from whom he got this outlook. A devout believer in the Shogunate, Tenkai's philosophy is all about eliminating troublesome elements that could threaten the peace, no matter how sneaky or underhanded he has to get.
- Jidaigeki: The series is set in the death throes of the Sengoku Period and the early years of the Edo Period, a chaotic and bloody time where many former samurai and ashigaru turned to banditry, and the newly established Shogunate purged dissenters and would-be rivals.
- Kill the Ones You Love: Azumi frequently finds herself forced to kill her love interests, starting with Nachi.
- Little Miss Badass: Azumi is introduced as a preteen girl but is able to kick ass and take names like you wouldn't believe. Even as she grows into adulthood, opponents constantly underestimate her and find themselves sliced to pieces.
- Love Triangle:
- Azumi unwittingly becomes caught up in one between herself, Sakon,note and her friend Yae.note
- In the following arc, Azumi finds herself caught up in a love triangle between her old flame Shunjiro and the charismatic but naive Shizune. Tobizaru also becomes infatuated with her, but she is oblivious to this. Shizune turns out to be evil and is killed alongside his twin brother, and Shunjiro bleeds out and falls off a cliff to his death.
- In one arc, two young samurai fall in love with Azumi and end up sacrificing themselves to protect her, to her despair.
- Manchild: Toyotomi Hideyori, who is a childlike, innocent man to the chagrin of his cruel and domineering mother, Yodo-dono. He was so head-over-heels in love with Azumi that when he learns she was an assassin sent to kill him he has a mental breakdown. The one time his mother gets him to man up is when she persuades him to fulfill his duty and commit seppuku after the Tokugawa forces destroy their mansion and Azumi tries to persuade him to leave his past as a noble behind and run away with her.
- Master Swordsman: Several skilled warriors are introduced, but by the time she's on her own Azumi's bujutsu vastly outstrips everyone else, letting her mow down dozens of opponents at once. After slaughtering a large group of bandits, she becomes so renowned that people come to believe she's a youkai. Even the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi is impressed and intrigued by how skilled she is when he sees her in action in Chapter 173, and challenges her to a duel to see whose fighting style is superior.
- Mixed Ancestry Is Attractive:
- Azumi has brown-tinted hair and blue eyes, with characters speculating one of her parents must have been a foreigner, and is frequently extolled as being beautiful in a But Not Too Foreign way.
- Konishi Shizune has blond hair and is dazzlingly handsome, as does his identical twin brother Tadane. This exoticism facilitates his claim that he is the reincarnation of Jesus... and lets the two brothers manipulate everyone into starting a civil war.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: Azumi is noted multiple times to be so slender she logically couldn't stand against the beefcake samurai she fights against and easily dismembers. She continuously proves everyone wrong.
- No Ending: The manga ends after 349 chapters with no real resolution to the narrative's overarching conflicts, concluding with Azumi continuing her travels across Japan while still being hunted by the agents of her enemies.
- "Not So Different" Remark: When telling Azumi why he had the people they travelled with together executed, Shunjiro states that he sacrificed the few for the needs of the many, saying his reasons are the same as Azumi's and daring her to deny it.
- Oblivious Mockery: When Azumi learns that Yae has become a prostitute to pay off her debts, she decides to use the money she'd earned to buy Yae's freedom so that her friend wouldn't have to suffer. Yae is insulted by this, thinking that Azumi is assigning a monetary value to their friendship, and forces Azumi to take her money back.
- One-Man Army: Azumi has borderline superhuman reflexes and combat acumen that enable her to evade attacks and cut down enemies much larger than herself — even when faced with multiple opponents. She develops a reputation for being unstoppable in combat after she slaughters a horde of bandits in revenge for them murdering Kiku, with many of her subsequent opponents and even her allies expressing incredulity that a young woman was able to do so — let alone without sustaining so much as a scratch.
- Raised as the Opposite Gender: Azumi grew up among a group of boys, all of them war orphans, and was completely oblivious that she was a girl until their foster grandfather gave her The Talk when she got her first period.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Every time a group of bandits or ronin show up, chances are they'll be raping, murdering, and pillaging everyone and everything in their path — and not necessarily in that order.
- Relationship Upgrade: After falling off a cliff together, Azumi and Ukiha confess their feelings for each other and kiss. Soon afterwards she's captured and forced to kill him.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Tenkai sends Azumi, Tobizaru, a samurai named Tsudzura, a kunoichi named Hatsune, and two samurai named Utsobu and Kagari to assist the daimyo in eliminating a group of ronin planning to instigate a rebellion by the commoners and ronin against the Shogunate in Ise. Azumi manages to infiltrate the rebel group and ingratiate herself with their ringleaders, but before she can act Tsudzura is pegged as a castle samurai and brutally murdered by a mob of armed peasants as practise for the revolt against the Shogunate, the daimyo's castle is overtaken by the rebels, and Hatsune, Utsobu, and Kagari are found out and drugged by the ronin to expose Azumi's involvement. It should be noted that while Shizune is nominally the leader, he wants the people to live in peace but the ronin under him are hijacking his message to stir up violence and conflict. The one who is masterminding it turns out to be Shizune and his twin brother, who manipulate the ronin leaders and Shunjiro's desire to overthrow the feudal system and instigate industrialized capitalism so that people can profit from their work and not have to suffer under the tyranny of the samurai class, all to drag the world back into civil war for their sadistic amusement.
- Silent Scapegoat: In order to prevent the Awful Truth of Shizune being a manipulative sociopath using the faith of the Japanese Christians in his territory in order to orchestrate a war from being revealed, Azumi willingly paints herself as a Satanic Archetype towards the rest of the populace and kills him, earning her the severe hatred of the entire town. Only two kids, Gacchi and his sister, know the full truth.
- The Sociopath:
- Terasawa Gensai calmly justifies the attempted rape of a samurai's daughter right in front of her father as happening with the consensus and assent of the people of the fief. Only Shizune's intervention stops it from happening.
- Shizune and his twin brother Tadane are revealed to be gleefully sadistic Psychopathic Manchilds, orchestrating a war to amuse themselves, shooting Shunjiro with a prototype pistol and torturing him, and capturing and torturing Azumi.
- Sole Survivor: Of the ten assassins trained by Gessai Obata, Azumi is the only survivor.
- The Starscream: Terasawa Gensai, Kuroda Taketori, Yamaguchi Nobutsuna, Kurisuke, Hayashi Matabee, Miki Uemon, Sagawa Sozaburo, and Todo Shiro seemingly pay lip-service to Shizune's pacifist Christian doctrine in order to gain the support they need to start a new war. They even betray Shunjiro — who had hired them to facilitate his creation of the perfect nation — when Uemon, Shiro, Kurisuke, and Sozaburo attempt to rape and kill Azumi in front of him, though she escapes and kills them.
- Tautological Templar: Gessai Obata raises Azumi and her comrades to believe that everything they're doing is good, and therefore the people they kill are evil deserve to die.
- This Is Unforgivable!: When Kiku is taken hostage by bandits wanting to rob a gold transport, Azumi agrees to not intervene so long as she is unharmed. When the bandits discover Kiku is physically male and rape her anyway before beating her to death, Azumi goes berserk and mows them down while snapping that she'll never forgive them.
- Together in Death: Yae tries to invoke this by kissing Sakon while he's coughing up tuberculosis-laced blood, intending to contract the disease and die herself.
- Tongue Trauma: When Yae is taken hostage by assassins trying to lure Azumi into a trap, she tries to commit suicide by biting off her own tongue so that Azumi won't have a reason to fight against impossible odds, but Azumi stops her.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Shunjiro, once a kind idealist, later becomes a rather corrupt and nasty official who has people murdered by the dozen to protect his 'ideal country' and uses slave labor from those he's addicted to his drugs.
- Trans Tribulations: Kiku is a transgender assassin who aims to befriend Azumi and kill her once she lets her guard down... or at least she did, before she fell in love with her. While Azumi is accepting of her and even starts reciprocating her feelings, Kiku is frequently sexually abused by her master and ends up being raped and beaten to death by a group of ronin once her biological sex is discovered.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior:
- It's noted early on that Azumi and her companions are thoroughly brainwashed by their "Grandfather" into believing that all the people they're killing are bad and deserve to die.
- Kiku's rival in the assassin group she belongs to is a sadistic and lewd little kid named Genta, who uses his youth to catch his marks offguard.
- Underestimating Badassery: Most people scoff at the idea that Azumi, a young woman in her late teens, would be able to massacre between 70 and 100 bandits by herself.
- Unwitting Pawn:
- Azumi and her comrades are thoroughly brainwashed by Gessai Obata, who trains them as ninja and uses them to assassinate the members and supporters of the Toyotomi Clan.
- Gessai Obata was played by Tenkai, who left him to die as soon as he was no longer needed.
- Yagyu Munenori of the Yagyu clan is trying to use Azumi as a pawn to assassinate the retired Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (who despite his retirement is still the effective ruler of Japan) by framing Ieyasu for the murder of Gessai Obata.
- Konishi Shizune is a kind but naive half-Japanese Christian who seeks to unite the people of Ise into a peaceful classless society. However, Shunjiro and the eight ronin commanders working under him have hijacked Shizune's message to start a violent revolution. He doesn't realize he's being manipulated until after Azumi shows up, but she doesn't have the heart to spell it out for him. That is, until Shizune and his twin brother are revealed to be the true masterminds.
- Vague Age: Azumi's age isn't specified, but when the manga begins she's decidedly a preteen. Her missions under Gessai begin around 1611, and at least six years pass over the course of the manga. In the penultimate chapter, when she introduces herself to the people of the hidden village of Azumino, she estimates her age to be 16 or 17.
- War Is Hell: As is its aftermath, as Azumi discovers through great pain and hardship. The first arc of the manga has Gessai Obata's team of ninja assassinating the vassals of the Toyotomi Clan in order to prevent them from dragging Japan back into another civil war, and the bandits Azumi continuously mows down are masterless samurai trying to make a living the only way they can.
- The Warlord: Many of the enemies faced by Azumi throughout the series are bands of rogue samurai who became bandits after the end of the Warring States period, and have set themselves up as petty warlords terrorizing villages.
- Was It Really Worth It?: Initially, Azumi doesn't question whether killing the former daimyo and samurai-turned-bandits is wrong, but once she gains an understanding of the political maneuvering that displaced them she begins questioning her reasoning to kill them and only kills them if they threaten her, her loved ones, or innocent bystanders.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- Tenkai is willing to secure peace by any means necessary, using Gensei Obata and later Azumi as an assassin to hunt down those who would threaten the nascent peace of the Edo period.
- Date Masamune is masterminding a conspiracy to overthrow the Shogunate, but truly believes he is doing the best thing for his fellow lords and the ninja villages whom the Shogunate has impoverished.
- Worthy Opponent:
- Sakon sees Azumi as the only person he can accept being killed by before his disease claims him.
- Miyamoto Musashi himself begins seeing Azumi as this after he sees her sword skills firsthand and desires to cross swords with her, challenging her to a duel and being deeply upset when she misses it.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
- It's implied that Tenkai, the Buddhist monk allied with the Tokugawa Shogunate, has something to do with the assassins sent after Azumi following the Shogunate's consolidation of power.
- It's made to appear that the Tokugawa Shogunate is behind the repeated assassination attempts on Azumi that wound up killing her Grandfather, but it's a secret plot by Yagyu Munenori, the patriarch of the noble Yagyu family wanting to manipulate her for his own purposes.
