Shigurui / YMMV - TV Tropes

Adaptation Displacement: To the point that the source novel, Suruga-Jō Gozen Jiai, had been out of print for a long time before the manga repopularized it - not much later, the same thing happened to two earlier manga adaptations ^note... And that's not even getting into the 1963 film adaptation ^note that's pretty much been forgotten to everyone who's not a diehard fan of the series.
Awesome Art: The art in this series is on par with the likes of Berserk and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in terms of detail and quality, especially in its depiction of martial arts and the human body in motion. This actually serves to make the gory violence even more disgusting and horrific, but at least there's a lot of Scenery Porn and Costume Porn to compensate.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The arc which starred Gannosuke (aka Toad Guy). Apart from the fact that Gannosuke takes part in the tournament, he had little to do with Fujiki or Irako. His crush, on the other hand, became Tadanaga's concubine.
Complete Monster: Even in a world where murder for honor is considered noble, these two manage to firmly take the very bleakest moral standpoint:
- Kogan Iwamoto is a peerless samurai and the heartless head of the Kogan-Ryuu school. When he was younger, Kogan used to show off his techniques by decapitating restrained slaves in the hopes of gaining the right to serve under the shogun family. Even as decades go on and dementia leaves him functional for at most half a day of the year, Kogan remains a twisted parody of a warrior who demands his students kill innocents to display their own sword techniques. Claiming the widow of one of his victims he killed as his favorite prostitute, Kogan considers her his property, and when another man sleeps with her, Kogan sexually tortures both of them out of anger. Even seeing his own daughter as a tool to produce a male heir, Kogan desires for his best student to rape her to ensure his grandchildren will be skilled samurai, mutilating a subordinate for suggesting she be seen as a person and when she steals his sword, angrily orders his men to kill her.
- Tadanaga Tokugawa is a psychopath who uses his position as the younger brother of the shogun to terrorize his people. Regularly violating and murdering the daughters and wives of his retainers, Tadanaga is little more than a Serial Rapist and Serial Killer who is above the law. When one samurai dares to deny Tadanaga's demand to be attended by his wife, Tadanaga forces him to fight to the death against another warrior. Tadanaga also keeps a deformed samurai in his dungeon to rape and cannibalize women while he watches, and delights in sending the shredded body of a girl back to her brother to mock the family. Organizing a tournament in which samurai must fight to the death using real katana instead of traditional wooden bokken just to enjoy the bloodshed, Tadanaga even demands the body of one fallen warrior be humiliated by decapitation.
Nausea Fuel: Plenty, with Kogan's death being a standout example.
Nightmare Fuel: The after-mentioned Eye Scream.
Squick: You will finding something about this series revolting.
- Yamazaki's autofellatio scene in the forest. God, we wish we were making this up.
Tear Jerker: Following Irako's killing spree, we get a shot of the room where Kogan' students used to hang around and have a good time, which is now almost empty. You have to feel a little bit sorry for the remaining two students.
Otsuki: This room has become too large...
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Shigurui is dark in its critique of bushido and its protagonists are extremely dark figures themselves who spend much of the work being loyal to rapist mass murderers. By the time of the ending it's pretty clear things won't be ending well for anyone where the best situation for a character is pointlessly carrying out Tadanaga's orders while his lover kills herself.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Yes, this ran in Champion Red, a shonen manga magazine, despite all the Squick and Gorn.

YMMV / Shigurui

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