Azumi (manga)

Azumi
Cover of Azumi volume 48 as published by Shogakukan
あずみ
Genre	Chanbara
Manga
Written by	Yū Koyama
Published by	Shogakukan
Demographic	Seinen
Magazine	Big Comic Superior
Original run	1994 – 2009
Volumes	48

Azumi (Japanese: あずみ^?) is a manga series created by Yū Koyama in 1994. Its story concerns the title character, a young woman brought up as part of a team of assassins, charged with killing the warlords that threaten the uneasy peace in Feudal Japan in the aftermath of its long Sengoku civil war period.

Azumi was originally published by Shogakukan and serialized in Big Comic Superior, and received an Excellence Prize at the 1997 Japan Media Arts Festival and the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1998. The manga was later adapted to two feature films starring Aya Ueto (2003's Azumi and 2005's Azumi 2: Death or Love), and a video game and a stage play in 2005.

Azumi focuses upon the life of the titular young female assassin. The manga begins an indeterminate number of years after the Battle of Sekigahara. As Azumi begins her duty, the manga introduces its characters into mainstream history. Many of the early missions that Azumi undertakes are the assassinations of the prominent supporters and generals of the Toyotomi Clan, against whom Tokugawa Ieyasu expected to again go to war. The manga 'reveals' that many of the Toyotomi leaders who conveniently died of diseases or accidents prior to the final confrontation between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa were actually victims of assassinations by Azumi and her comrades, thus indicating to the reader when the events were taking place.