Our protagonist is Madara, a young apprentice blacksmith that roams the world along with his grandfather Tatara, offering their services as makers of mechanical limbs. Madara's fate, however, changes when the village they are staying in is invaded by the Mouki, demons sent from the evil Emperor Miroku. After witnessing the death of his grandfather, Madara learns that his own mechanical body contains an immense power of mysterious origins, which he uses to defeat the fiends. Now set out on a mystic quest to end the threat of Miroku once for all, and accompanied by his female friend Kirin and the rebel princes Seishinja and Chaos, Madara starts a journey into the unknown world to face challenges beyond his imagination.
The franchise is best known outside Japan (though still not very much) for its varied videogames. The manga being originally published in a videogame magazine also helped.
Definitively not related or to be confused with Madara Uchiha.
This work provides examples of:
- Body Horror: The demons, particularly in the anime, as you can't have an early nineties OVA without tentacled monsters.
- Cyborg: Madara himself has artificial limbs. Cyborgization seems to be incredibly common in the setting despite its Medieval Stasis.
- Reincarnation: The franchise's works are often tied by their characters being a reincarnation of those from the manga.
- Shout-Out:
- Madara's character arc is officially a Whole-Plot Reference to Hyakkimaru from Osamu Tezuka's Dororo.
- According to the authors, the character of Kageo is based on the false protagonist archetype by Vladimir Propp (they also apparently read up Otto Rank and Shinobu Orikuchi for this), and the reincarnation thing was taken from Yukio Mishima's The Sea of Fertility.
