Beautiful as a cherry blossom, deadly as a samurai!
Samurai Maiden (SAMURAI MAIDEN -サムライメイデン- ) is a Hack and Slash video game developed by Shade Inc. and published by D3 Publisher. The plot is as follows: Tsumugi Tamaori is a 21st century Ordinary High-School Student and a Master Swordsman. Somehow, she finds herself transported to Honnō-ji during the Sengoku period. There she teams up with a trio of kunoichi, Iyo, Hagane and Komimi as they race through the Underworld beneath Honnō-ji and face off against undead warriors lead by none other by Oda Nobunaga.
And when things get tough, the samurai and ninja activate the Devoted Heart technique and lock lips to enhance their abilities!
The game was released on December 1, 2022 in Japan for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch and was released everywhere else on December 8, 2022 for the same platforms in addition to Steam.
Trailer
Samurai Maiden provides examples of:
- Amazon Brigade: Tsumugi’s party is entirely comprised of women.
- Alliterative Name: The Protagonist Tsumugi Tamaori counts.
- Alternate History: When the plot is an ordinary girl from the 21st Century traveling with three ninjas, one of which has a Magitech prosthetic arm, and another is a fox-girl who team up to fight a zombie apocalypse in Sengoku Era Japan, it's kind of obvious that this game is not exactly shooting for historical accuracy.
- Artificial Limbs: Hagane has this on her right arm, which is weaponized bionically and is bigger than her other arm.
- Battle Harem: Tsumugi seems to pick up on when she travels to the Sengoku period.
- Big Bad: Oda Nobunaga is the main villain of the game.
- Bittersweet Ending: Tsumugi and her trio of friends manage to defeat the Demon Lord, sealing him back in the Underworld, protecting the integrity of Iyo's timeline and all its parallel universes, and even granting Nobunaga, Kenshin, and Uesugi peace in death. Thanks to the events of the plot, they've all also begun to heal and move on from their respective traumas with new, more positive views of life. However, because no one but Iyo is meant to exist in that timeline, Tsumugi is forcibly returned to the 21st century and Komimi and Hagane voluntarily return to their universes. Over 500 years later, Tsumugi writes letters to her friends, nothing more to remember them than the photos on her phone, and Tsumugi's sword that Iyo has taken care of and passed down her family till it could return to Tsumugi's hands again.
- Beard of Evil: Nobunaga sports a well-grown beard and is not exactly morally ambiguous.
- Cycle of Hurting:
- Especially in the early game before the defensive moves from Komimi's bond are unlocked and the stun resistance upgrade is unlocked on her weapon, Tsumugi is very vulnerable to being stun-locked and staggered by repeated enemy hits that can result in her being caught in place and taking huge amounts of damage.
- After unlocking the final upgrade to the light attack combo, it's possible to trap boss monsters in an inescapable cycle of staggering via repeated combos and Komimi's hammer attack.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Inversion Incantation, which Komimi knows but refuses to cast. It grants the target a massive increase in power at the cost of diminishing their lifespan. She's not sure how much life it removes from the target and refuses to use it as a result. After the Demon King is awakened, she decides that the situation is dangerous enough to use it anyway but alters it so that the lifespan drain is divided between of all four main characters so as to lessen its harm.
- Demon King Nobunaga: Nobunaga is imagined as a villainous character here and this is not the first time his seiyuu Takaya Kuroda has played the character.
- Dub-Induced Plotline Change: The English version of the game avoids explicitly mentioning Tsumugi being a high school student, instead preferring to instead refer to her with vaguer terms like "21st century woman", "Gen Z girl", and "average young woman" respectively. In addition, a conversation where she talks about terms relating to the Japanese school system
is rewritten to instead have her talk about different age and generational groups instead. - Hack and Slash: This appears to be the genre the game is set in.
- Harem Genre: Yuri Harem to be specific. Tsumugi is seen kissing Komimi and Hagane on the lips as part of the Devoted Heart Technique and
Iyo is seen running around with a Sengoku-era Dakimakura (hugging pillow) with Tsumugi’s face on it. - The Heroine: Tsumugi Tamaori serves as the Audience Surrogate as well as The Protagonist for this game.
- Intimate Healing: The Devoted Heart Technique involves a ninja and a samurai kissing to increase their powers.
- Little Bit Beastly: Komimi has fox ears and a tail as her seiyuu gushes over.
- Luminescent Blush: When they preform the Devoted Heart Technique, Tsumugi and Komimi mutually blush when they kiss and just Tsumugi blushes when she and Hagane kiss.
- Master Swordsman: Tsumugi instantly becomes one when handed a sword despite having never used one before. She's completely confused by this.
- Ninja: Iyo, Komimi and Hagane are all kunoichi.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Before the events of the game, Tsumugi was just a schoolgirl.
- Power Trio: Iyo, Komimi and Hagane are three powerful Sengoku-era kunoichi.
- School Uniforms are the New Black: Tsumugi’s Sailor Fuku serves as her main outfit.
- Warrior Undead: Nobunaga commands an army of zombie warriors.
- You Will Not Evade Me: Hagane gains the ability to grab enemies at long range with her artificial arm and pull them close to you.
- Yuri Genre: This game firmly snuggles itself into the genre, without much Subtext.
