Yves AKEPO - Urban Photography

The ending of Shigurui is derided by many reviewers as being far too abrupt and dissatisfying. I completely disagree, and the key to understanding the end is there throughout the manga and is even made explicit in the final scene.

The story’s theme from the outset is the effect of a cruel world on the people within it. When the manga starts you could be forgiven for thinking the source of all evil is Kogan and that his disciples, once set on his path, are trapped in a destructive cycle. But already, we have been introduced to Lord Tadanaga at Sunpu Castle, the insane and selfish lord who sets in motion the final duel. He, like Kogan, is cruel, abusive and depraved. And, as the story continues, we see many peripheral characters who are simply sadistic or evil for the sake of it. If not, they are soon corrupted by those around them.

Thus the scene is set. The world is a cruel and corrupt place and the heroes (a rather oblique use of the term, I admit) are set on escaping from it in one way or another.

Irako and Fujiki come from the same background. Both are poor and of a lowly social class. Both are horribly bullied by the samurai classes and both derive their motivation from this abuse.

The difference is that, while Irako fights against the system, murdering his way up through the ranks to prove that there is no truth in the hierarchy, Fujiki buys into the samurai ideology. He endeavours to rise up in the world through duty and loyalty to the clan that adopted him. Meanwhile, the world continues to corrupt both men. Their decisions lead them both to commit terrible atrocities and become little more than instruments for death, Irako for himself and Fujiki for those around him.

There is much debate over whom Mie loves. Some even go so far as to say that she never loved Fujiki and only uses him for vengeance. I don’t think there is any reason to consider her emotions to be so black and white. The author is fairly open and explicit with her thoughts, and it is clear she has feelings for both men, which change over time.

Mie is no different from Irako and Fujiki inasmuch as she, like them and, indeed, like Iku, needs to escape the horrors of the world around her. Being a woman, she has no recourse to position and social power, so she turns to the two men whom she has the potential to wed. Initially, she hangs her star on Irako, the man who is “not a puppet,” the one who, at that time, has the potential to save her from the life she is living.

But, and this is an important "but”, about halfway through the story and, at the point where the three “monsters” are born, Mie makes a terrifying realisation: Irako is just as bad as Fujiki. His ambition to overturn the system has corrupted him just as much as the system itself has corrupted Fujiki. Both are products of this terrible world and neither will offer her redemption.

“Mie” comes from the Japanese verb “to see” or be “visible”. She is, in the end, the only one of the three monsters who is whole, and perhaps the only one who sees the truth. Irako, who is successful in his ambitions, is unable to see that those same ambitions have turned him into the one thing he was fighting against. In contrast, Fujiki may be able to see the corruption but, crippled by duty, he cannot act.

Hence Irako, the samurai who cannot see, is blinded. And Fujiki, the samurai who cannot act, loses his arm.

Mie remains true to her desire to love whichever man is not a puppet, whichever can rise above the corruption. While this is Irako at the beginning, very slowly, the balance shifts to Fujiki.

By the time he murders Kogan, Irako has become a monster. His behaviour worsens as the story continues. He finds it easier and easier to kill. He takes many lovers, despite Iku’s devotion to him, and ends up murdering several, seemingly for pleasure. Even with Iku, he acts depraved, demonstrated most vividly by the point at which he makes love to her on a desecrated statue in a Buddhist shrine.

In the final chapters, Fujiki undergoes an extraordinary change. He, like Irako, has been completely corrupted by the world around him. This comes to a head both spiritually and physically when he challenges and mutilates a young student on Sasahara’s estate. Sasahara cries “he’s just a child!” and something seems to click in Fujiki’s head. The narrator describes his heart as “festering”. And at the depths of his moral and spiritual corruption, his body gives in and he falls into a coma. This time can be considered a kind of symbolic death and resurrection for the character. Afterwards, he is entirely transformed and reborn for the first time as a man who is able to think for himself.

Having barely spoken throughout the manga, he suddenly pledges his love to Mie. He chooses to marry her - importantly, as it is unclear if he, like her, had had much choice in the matter before. His will to kill Irako, which previously was born of vengeance, now comes from a desire to end his old life and start a new one with Mie, an idea given form in their decision to consummate the marriage on the day Irako dies.

More importantly, by the final match, Irako and Fujiki have, in their own ways, made peace. They are the same, two sides of one coin.

When Iku explains Fujiki’s past to Irako, he at last recognises they share the same motivations. In turn, he delivers the monkey’s head medicine that effects Fujiki’s “resurrection”. Then, even as he is about to kill him, Fujiki comes to an understanding of Irako’s nature: remembering how Irako was sick after being ordered to kill by Kogan - “Irako was sick at the idea of having to kill for others” - Fujiki is said to feel a sudden respect for him.

In fact, there is plenty in the text to suggest that Fujiki had stronger feelings for Irako than he ever let on. His noticing Irako’s lips and eyes, for one, and being defeated in their very first spar, suggest that Fujiki may have felt desire for Irako, which caused him to be distracted. Their passionate rivalry throughout is like that of lovers. When Fujiki passes Irako on the stairs, towards the end of the story, his nose bleeds, usually a sign that a man is sexually aroused in Japanese manga. Finally, in the instant of Irako’s death, the two men are shown naked, not fighting but in an instant of tenderness.

In the end, they are not enemies. Irako must die because the corruption has defeated him. His life of depravity and murder has caused him to become death itself, and he is depicted as a fleshless corpse. His redemption is through death.

Fujiki has already undergone death and resurrection and, no longer a puppet and uncorrupted, is able to deliver a final merciful blow to his rival without vengeance on his mind.

At the instant of Irako’s death, both men have achieved what they strove for: escape from the cruelty of the world. It is an idea given further impact by Iku’s decision to follow Irako into the next world; the text describes her as having achieved Buddhist enlightenment, in keeping with the whole theme of the manga. With Irako’s death, Iku’s final earthly tie has been cut and she is free.

Then the awful truth comes home to the survivors, stated at the beginning of the battle, “everything is a sham; death is the only sincerity.” As the lord starts to shout at Fujiki, forcing him to decapitate Irako’s corpse and promising him a future in the service of Tadanaga, the truth is revealed: the corrupt world demands Fujiki return to being a puppet.

Mie understands that. The instant he stoops to take Irako’s head, the man she loves is gone. The puppet has returned. For the first time too, Fujiki understands this consciously, which is why he is at once drained of life and strength. In those last few frames, Fujiki is just as dead as Mie.

It could not have ended any other way. If Irako had killed Fujiki, corruption would have won. If Fujiki had killed Irako out of vengeance, corruption would have still won. If Mie had gone on living and allowed herself and her husband to serve Tadanaga, corruption would have won.