Who Is Rin Asano?

The heir of a murdered school, and the client who drives the whole story.

Rin Asano is the only child of Takayoshi Asano, master of the Mutenichi-ryu dojo. The Itto-ryu, the rogue school absorbing dojo after dojo, came for hers: her parents were killed, the school destroyed, and Rin left as its sole heir with a moderate talent for the sword and an absolute refusal to let the matter rest. She does the arithmetic every revenge story requires and hires the one bodyguard who cannot be killed doing the job: Manji.

What makes Rin more than a client is that the series keeps auditing her quest. She begins naive, certain that vengeance is a clean transaction, and the nineteen-year run is as much her education as Manji's penance: the manga is, in its editor's words at Dark Horse, as much young Rin's tale as the immortal Manji's.

Blade of the Immortal volume 5 Japanese cover, Afternoon KC — **VOLUME 5**Volume 5 of the Japanese tankobon, Afternoon KC. Samura painted all thirty covers himself, and they were never redesigned.

HER OWN WEAPONS

Not a standard dojo kit

Kutoneshirika

Rin's main blade is a Chinese sword carried in a toju scabbard, an unusual choice for the heir of a Japanese school and a sign of how far outside the dojo world her road takes her.

The tanto

A dagger for close work: the weapon of someone who expects to be grabbed, ambushed and outmatched, and plans accordingly.

The Ogunchu

Her throwing knives give her range she cannot win in a duel. Anotsu himself delivers the verdict that stings: armed like this, she resembles the Itto-ryu more than her own school.

THE ARC

What changes across thirty volumes

The hiring

Rin buys a bodyguard the way her class buys anything, with money and certainty. The early chapters run on the friction between her formality and Manji's contempt for it.

The doubts

Travelling with her enemy, questioning witnesses, burying the dead: the quest keeps presenting her with the bill for vengeance, and she keeps almost paying attention.

The standing

By the final volumes Rin is no longer cargo. The last chapter of the manga is titled Manji and Rin, in that order but with both names on it: the client has become the co-author of the ending.

Who Is Rin Asano?

HER OWN WEAPONS

THE ARC

THE FIRST WORD