So anyway, Jubei's walking along minding his own business when the Stoner there decides to kick him around a little. Never get between a bad guy and his kidnappees, I suppose. Now, here the badass definition gets fuzzy, because clearly Jubei is getting the living snot beaten out of him by this guy. There's just no contest. And he's even being a bit whiny, like, "It's okay! I know the way! Thanks for your time!" and "Ow. Aren't we even now?"
But
relax! Because he's simply using his casual, average-joe attitude to cover up
his incredible whip-yo'-ass with my lightning fast wind ninja swordsmanship
type stuff. See, he's a smart boy, and has his sword on a long string of piano
wire! Ha! What a clever little punk. One flick of the wrist and it's back in
his hand, and he's suddenly got a shot at not being pounded into hamburger!
Yeah! YEAH! He's gonna kick some ass now, yeah, yeah, YEAH!
Well,
sorry to disappoint you, but this guy IS made of stone, and even Jubei's hardcase
wind ninja techniques aren't going to scratch him. But fortunately, he seems
to be crumbling for no adequately explained reason, and when he whips that big
'ol propellor stolen from a B-52 into the air again, something goes very, very
wrong.
...because
he gets it right between the eyes. You know, in the dubbed version of Fist of
the North Star, this happens to another equally bulky baddie, and he states
"I have a splitting headache" before dying. Not Rocky Miavia here.
He just dies. But it's done in a very bloody way, and that's good, I suppose.
So, are you excited? It's only twenty minutes in and we've already had one
cool-ass samurai dude introduced, a whole troop of ninja carved into drumsticks,
a scene of questionable erotic content, and this bloody madness. Ahh. Now we
feel comfortable in our action movie roots. All is well.
But..
NOOO! No! Not him! Anything but him! You are going to learn to HATE this little
freak of nature. He's a government spy of some kind, apparently, and exists
only to slow down the plot with lengthy exposition. You'd think he could be
kind and toss in some knock-knock jokes, but no, every time he shows up it's
probably a good idea to head to the bathroom or fetch some Doritos or something.
Here, he begins explaining some plot involving the Eight Devils of Kiyone (Where's
Mihoshi when you need her?) and the Shogun of the Dark, blah, blah, blah...
etc, yadda... zzz.
Don't worry, we'll meet a few bad guys in the next page, and YES! They are all sexual deviants! So they'll at least be relatively interesting.