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Review of Soukou Akki Muramasa

SubjectSoukou Akki Muramasa
ByHelpfulness: 4
Vote: 9
sho52 on 2020-12-27
ReviewGreat philosophical exposition/fable on the theme of "good and evil" that will stay with you for a lifetime. Guess your reception would depend a lot on your own worldview, though it resonated very deeply with me and reaffirmed my outlooks a lot. Only the neutral and objective way is the way to understanding the truths of matters. Of course each side in a conflict would claim that "justice" is with them and the other side is "evil", while there is simply no such thing as "just" or "evil" in the world. No other work etches this point in your bones as deeply as 装甲悪鬼村正.

It also has a tear-inducingly tragic yet completely free-spirited, dominating and breathtakingly beautiful character that stays in your mind for a while in the form of Hikaru, with ace voice acting. She is probably the epitome of the word 無我夢中, and of a certain type of 物哀れ Japanese asthetics, the blaze of life shining unreservedly at its brightest near its end. Chachamaru and Ichijou are also well depicted characters IMO.

Couldn't give it 10/10 because IMO it drags on too much at times. Most of the point would have been made at the conclusion of the "hero arc" which is at most 40% of the length, and I would even say that the whole "revenge arc" and the character of Ootori are completely extraneous. The third arc is touching and deepens the theme, while the epilogue again feels a bit extraneous. Still, it's second only to Muv-Luv Alternative in terms of lifelong impact in my book so far.

Shame that this is unlikely to ever get an official English translation. I don't want to speculate on the reason too much. If it's due to censorship fears from the publisher, it's as thought-provoking as a VN can be, and should be viewed in the realm of serious literature, and I wonder if a text-only novel, even when describing similar themes and scenes e.g. killing children (which easily happen during actual wars), would so easily be in the crosshair and evoke hesitation from publishers. Maybe the censorship tradition/"red line" does differ between text-only media and VN, which is sometimes treated more similarly to games/audiovisual media, which would be unfortunate. Or maybe the publishers are simply worried that its serious nature would lead it to tank in sales numbers for casual readers, or lead to the western audience not easily swallowing its message. Hopefully somebody could still produce a translation one day, even if unofficial. Such a unique piece of art deserves to be read.
4 points
#1 by 730
2021-01-12 at 03:18
< report >Nice review. Surprised to see someone else that feels similarly regarding 英雄編 vs 復習編. The latter feels very strange, with themes that don't feel too clear (especially because, unlike most other characters, Kanae seems to be an outright psychopath) while the former just goes and starts hammering in the main point of the story (finished off by the final route).

However, I've found that as time goes on (and after reading a handful of the long reviews over at erogamescape) I come to understand new things about Muramasa little by little.
For example, the epilogue. It might feel extraneous at first like you said, but it's actually the most perfect conclusion there could be. Muramasa initially seems to have a perfect, emotional, complete ending, like it comes with gift wrap and everything. There's a big final battle, Kageaki perfectly unites with Muramasa and all, but realizes he has to deal the final blow himself and backs off for a bit. There's the big reveal which has been foreshadowed since like Chapter 5, and Kageaki uses the central plot device and "curse" as a means to end it all, but turned on its head, since he not only uses it to kill, but to show love. And should die in the process at the very end, ending his pain and fulfilling his wishes, roll credits.

Except he doesn't die, and we're shown his depressing life, after his journey ended, completely devoid of purpose but also feeling guilty because the whole world has gone to shit and it's basically his fault. What's worse, his dad refuses to let him die and protects him from justice, so he's living in constant torture and guilt. This is beautiful because, in a normal story, you'd expect a beautiful perfect ending like the first one, but Muramasa does its best to turn all these kinds of expectations around across the story.

This is basically punishment for Kageaki for being a killer, but not in the way he expected (being judged and sentenced to death), which is obviously something he knew he deserved. Letting him die would've been to let him off far too easily, so instead he has to keep living in pain.

Then when he decides to run off and maybe live a regular peaceful life in a faraway place, Sorimachi comes in, stuff happens, and basically Kageaki ends up becoming the 武帝. This conclusion is kinda bewildering at first, but you can think about it this way: Sorimachi is kind of like "Providence", he's this force that is not going to let Kageaki stray off the path he himself went into, no matter what, he wants to make him hold responsibility (this is touched on before; he hates him doing stuff いやいやながら, and now it's too late, so he's gonna force Kageaki to keep doing those same things). As such, what he makes Kageaki do, is to make him keep being what he's been this whole time, a killer. As evidenced in some parts of the story, like the climax of Chapter 5 where he kills the dude that was going to kill Subaru, and the 兜割り flashback thing, Kageaki actually enjoys the act of killing itself (hence the whole 悪鬼 thing and the evil smile), but he still feels bad about it, which is why this is punishment. This time though, he fully embraces this 悪鬼 side, and commits to something instead of doing it いやいやながら.

Now the best thing about all of this is the premise of the 武帝, which is perfectly wrapping up the whole theme of 善悪相殺 that this entire VN is all about. If people won't stop fighting, then we'll show them through action the truth behind what they're doing. Something that is likely to be misinterpreted as "evil", as past attempts at spreading the teaching of 善悪相殺 have shown. Kageaki has fully acquired 善悪相殺, and now his job is not to experience it and learn about it, but to spread it to the world, thus his character development concludes perfectly in here. Not only that, but you might notice that in a way, he's inheriting Hikaru's legacy, 天下布武 (although she was doing it for purely personal reasons), something that Kageaki fought to defeat, but now he has become, because she was right in the end, somewhat.

Another very nice thing in the Epilogue is that the 武帝 is Kageaki's own solution to the problem of 善悪相殺, because, as shown during the Epilogue, the only way he knows how to or is able to solve things through is violence, so he simply has no other choice but to keep killing people. But he leaves the "correct" method behind with that little girl Hikari, for someone that can solve things through means other than violence, 和を以って尊しとす (it's not for nothing she's shown repeating that after the final scene ends).

On another note, I think a (good) English translation is almost inherently impossible, not because of the content (which is heavy in many ways for western audiences as it is), or because of the exceedingly Japanese spirit of the work (something that probably puts off any translator that sees it since you'll just have to take away all of the charm), but because the ENTIRE story is a consolidation of a single yojijukugo. So while you might be able to translate or explain through a glossary and such some complex Japanese language and culture aspects, you will never be able to use that yoji. Sure, you can rephrase it in a million different ways and more or less manage to get some of the messages through, but it will never ever have the conciseness, simplicity, beauty, and depth that the yoji provides, which is so nuclear to every aspect of the story in such an amazing way that stripping it away would simply transform this VN into something that isn't Muramasa anymore. I'd like other people to read it too, but at the end of the day, the experience they would get would probably be diluted beyond recognition, so I guess it's better in the end.
#2 by 730
2021-01-12 at 03:27
< report >Oh by the way, if you haven't read Hanachirasu yet I highly recommend it. It's Ittetsu's only other work and it came a few years before Muramasa. It's short and not a super epic philosophical grand adventure, but it's extremely good in its own right, and does the same thing Muramasa does where it turns fundamental storytelling tropes on their head, though instead of the Hero's Journey it's more about revenge stories this time.
And the combat is one of the best most かっこいい and satisfying and thrilling things I've ever seen. If you liked the sword fight in Chapter 5 of Muramasa, it's basically that but it's a whole short VN.
#3 by 730
2021-01-12 at 03:39
< report >Also you can use this patch over an install of the English version to make it into Japanese (the original Japanese version doesn't work very well in Windows 10 if at all). You might not be able to load from the main menu though, if you close the game then open it again and want to load, you have to start a new game, then once inside go into the load menu and load the game you want.
#4 by sho52
2021-08-04 at 23:30
< report >Thanks for the long response! I must have missed it. Yeah, when you put it this way, this is one final subversion that the story was able to offer. It makes sense. I still think the idea of 武帝 sounds quite presumptuous, but I can get how this is the author's way of drawing a grand conclusion to the story, beyond the quite personal 恩と仇 going on between Kageaki and Hikaru. I don't have the habit of reading a lot of other people's reviews, but I guess I can totally do it more often.

I think you're not along in your feelings about the second route. AFAIK Kanae's popularity is quite low in the JP popularity votes? Maybe the author simply has a personal thing with the theme of "revenge".

Regarding Sorimachi, I always had the feeling throughout my readthrough that this character seems to be somewhat the author himself (he's pretty evil though that's for sure). I'm not sure if it makes sense that once somebody is on a path, he'd have to stay on a path all his life, instead of being able to mend his ways. I think the scene with Sorimachi (as surreal as it is), drives the theme home once more since Kageaki is now the direct recipient of all the 理不尽 that he enacted on the others. I think it's of course also a natural trigger for Kageaki to finally become 武帝, thus conveying a grander message as mentioned above.

I don't think the 兜割り scene means Kageaki enjoys killing though. The maniacal laugh surely was a result of the drugs he took and the horrible/confusing feeling of having had sex with his mom at such a young age with everything happening so fast and him not totally understanding it at all.

Apparently there is an English version coming out this month already by JAST, which I'm quite surprised about :) I've been shilling this to my friends second only to Muv-Luv Alternative, and I guess even a diluted experience could still be much better than not knowing this novel at all, since I have rarely seen western art conveying similar messages (might have something with the Japanese WWII experience, or just something about East Asian philosophy in general). I would like to see how the translation turns out.Last modified on 2021-08-04 at 23:43
#5 by sho52
2021-08-04 at 23:31
< report >And thanks for the recommendation of Hanachirasu. AFAIK yorhel actually also rated this 10? which quite intrigued me. The sword fight parts I was honestly not super into (they were definitely very nice and I can see the effort that went into them though), since I usually focus on the overarching plot of a VN, but I'm quite interested in the "turning the tropes on their head" thing so I'd give it a go some time :)Last modified on 2021-08-04 at 23:39