History YMMV / Shigurui

* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: The art in this series is on par with the likes of ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' and ''Franchise/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' in terms of detail and quality, especially in its depiction of martial arts and the human body in motion. This actually serves to make the gory violence even ''more'' disgusting and horrific, but at least there's a lot of SceneryPorn and CostumePorn to compensate.

* TearJerker: Following Irako's killing spree, we get a shot of the room where Kogan' students used to hang around and have good time, which is now almost empty. You have to feel a little bit sorry for the remaining two students.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: The art in this series is on par with the likes of ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' and ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'' in terms of detail and quality, especially in its depiction of martial arts and the human body in motion. This actually serves to make the gory violence even ''more'' disgusting and horrific, but at least there's a lot of SceneryPorn and CostumePorn to compensate.

* CounterpartComparison: A quiet and reserved warrior forms a friendship with a beautiful and ambitious warrior. The latter, however, makes a very wrong choice because of his ambitions and ends up brutally mauled. He overcomes his new-found handicaps and slaughters everyone involved in his ordeal. The reserved warrior becomes mad with the ambitious warrior and swears to kill him. The first time he tries it, he loses a hand. That sure sounds a lot like ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', but the source novel for ''Shigurui'' was published in 1964, 25 years before ''Berserk'' debuted. (That said, Takayuki Yamaguchi is a ''Berserk'' fan who included some homages to it in his previous work, ''Manga/ApocalypseZero'').

* CounterpartComparison: A quiet and reserved warrior forms a friendship with a beautiful and ambitious warrior. The latter, however, makes a very wrong choice because of his ambitions and ends up brutally mauled. He overcomes his new-found handicaps and slaughters everyone involved in his ordeal. The reserved warrior becomes mad with the ambitious warrior and swears to kill him. The first time he tries it, he loses a hand. That sure sounds a lot like ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', but before you say it's a WholePlotReference, remember that the source novel for ''Shigurui'' was published in 1964.

* AwesomeArt: The art in this series is on par with the likes of ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' and ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'' in terms of detail and quality, especially in its depiction of martial arts and the human body in motion. This actually serves to make the gory violence even ''more'' disgusting and horrific, but at least there's a lot of SceneryPorn and CostumePorn to compensate.

** [[EvilMentor Kogan Iwamoto]] is a peerless samurai and the heartless head of the Kogan-Ryuu school. When he was younger, Kogan used to show off his techniques by decapitating restrained slaves in the hopes of gaining the right to serve under the shogun family. Kogan's cruelty does not diminish even as decades go on and [[AxCrazy dementia]] leaves him functional for at most half a day of the year. Taking the widow of a man he killed as his favorite prostitute, Kogan considers her his property, and when another man sleeps with her, Kogan sexually mutilates both of them out of anger. [[AbusiveParents Viewing his own daughter]] as a tool to [[BabyFactory produce a male heir]], Kogan wants his best student to rape her to ensure his grandchildren will be skilled samurai, and when she steals his sword, he angrily orders his men to kill her.
** [[TheCaligula Tadanaga Tokugawa]] is a [[AxCrazy psychopath]] who uses his position as the younger brother of the shogun to terrorize his people. Regularly violating and murdering the daughters and wives of his retainers, Tadanaga is little more than a SerialRapist and murderer who is above the law. When one samurai dares to deny Tadanaga's demand to be attended by his wife, Tadanaga [[InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath forces him to fight to the death against another warrior]]. He keeps a deformed samurai in his dungeon to rape and cannibalize women while he watches, and sends the shredded body of a girl back to her brother to mock the family. Organizing a tournament in which samurai must fight to the death using real katana instead of traditional wooden bokken, Tadanaga demands the body of one fallen warrior be humiliated by decapitation.

** [[TheCaligula Tadanaga Tokugawa]] is a psychopath who uses his position as the younger brother of the shogun to terrorize his people. Regularly violating and murdering the daughters and wives of his retainers, Tadanaga is little more than a SerialRapist and murderer who is above the law. When one samurai dares to deny Tadanaga's demand to be attended by his wife, Tadanaga [[InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath forces him to fight to the death against another warrior]]. He keeps a deformed samurai in his dungeon to rape and cannibalize women while he watches, and sends the shredded body of a girl back to her brother to mock the family. Organizing a tournament in which samurai must fight to the death using real katana instead of traditional wooden bokken, Tadanaga demands the body of one fallen warrior be humiliated by decapitation.