Samurai Executioner Volume 10: A Couple of Jitte

"Punished is not the man himself, but the evil that resides in him." With Volume 10 we come to the last collection of "Samurai Executioner" manga stories from Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, the creators of "Lone Wolf and Cub." In the last story in this paperback published in the Japanese format, Decapitator Asaemon essentially walks off into the sunset. However, before the first of these fifty-four stories we knew that the executioner would die at the hands of Ogami Itto, the title character of Koike and Kojima's "Lone Wolf & Cub" epic. Consequently, "Samurai Executioner" is a prequel of sorts, and both certainly represent the same carefully researched re-creation of Japan's Edo Period. But we quickly discovered the biggest difference between the two series is that Asaemon is not on a quest that provides a massive story arc into which each story can fit. By the time we come to this final set of stories, we know that not all of them are about the people he has to execute. The title for this volume, "A Couple of Jitte," is appropriate because it refers to Kasajiro, the patrolman who was so proficient with the kaginawa (hook rope), who ended up marrying Shinko, the mysterious woman with "kappa," the turtle-like demon, tattooed on her back. She is asked to join the patrol and two of the six stories here are about them (Asaemon never even appears in the first). There are also the tales of the condemned with their usual final requests, and an interesting last story to serve as the coda for the series: (49) "The Virtue Boat" is about a condemned woman who has let her hair grown down to the ground. Her final request is that she be allowed to hold her hair in her hands so that when Aesamon cuts off her head, he will also cut off her hair. She also asks him to take that hair to Seiji, a boat captain on the Gyotoku Riverbank. Aesamon honors her request, and thinks that he knows the reason for the request. But there is a final twist he does not foresee. (50) "A Couple of Jitte" is the story in which the town commissioner and the head lieutenant talk to Kasajiro about Shinko taking up the jitte (the truncheon carried by street cops). Kasajiro is nervous and a bit jealous about his wife working with him, but she proves herself on their first murder case together. She tries to have him take the credit, but learns that is not what really matters to a couple of jitte. (51) "The Chrysanthemum Head" is the story of an old man named Chrysanthemum Shigezo, who brings a beautiful Chrysanthemum cutting to his execution. He also has a two part request for Aesamon. First, he wants the executioner to cut off the head of the flower before he cuts off Shigezo's head. Then he wants Yamada-sama to grow a second cutting of the Chrysanthemum and when it blooms a year from now to cut off its head as well. Shigezo has always heard that Aesamon must understand those he executes. So there is a lesson to be learned here and along with the executioner we lea