Hachimitsu: Blade for Hire is a shōnen-inspired action-adventure comedy Furry Webcomic written by Anaugi, which began in 2020 and is updated weekly (albeit with the occassional hiatuses between chapters, which can last for a few months at a time).
The comic follows the titular Hachimitsu, a Shiba-Inu samurai-for-hire who likes money and cutting up things that move. One job in particular has her run into sheep witch Gwynn Shepard, the most recent member of a long line of nomads who specialize in recording the locations of treasures and secrets around the world into a magic journal. After Gwynn hires her for a job, Hachimitsu soon chooses to become Gwynn's bodyguard during her road trip to rewrite her clan's book.
The comic can be read on Tapas starting here
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Tropes include:
- An Arm and a Leg: Quite a few of them, in fact. During the first chapter ("A Farewell to Arms"), Hachimitsu cuts off the arms of Lord Kintaro's guards.
- A Dog Named "Dog": After Gwynn squishes a lizard into her book to get a talking paper dragon inside it, she asks Hachimitsu on ideas for a good name for the dragon. Hachimitsu, straightforward as always, decides his name should be "Dragon", though she instead writes down "Dagron" by accident. Gwynn promptly laughs her ass off.
- Blood Knight: Hachimitsu. Her first lines in the comic are her declaring to her client that she'll cut the arms off everyone but her target for the job. Not for any tactical reason, mind you; it's just how she prefers to do things.
- Boob-Based Gag: A frequent source of humor, especially regarding Hachimitsu’s own enormous bust that tends to leave other people in awe of them.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Being around Gwynn slowly but surely makes Hachimitsu less cold and and more open to others.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The island nation of Ashura is a stand-in for feudal Japan. Gwynn's map in Chapter 4 shows its shape to be similar to real-world Japan's, and shows the landmass Coenton is on to be similarly-shaped to North America, indicating it might be a stand-in for the United States.
- Fourth Wall Psych: In Chapter 4, Gwynn explains to Hachimitsu their plans to fly over to Coenton, and how they're currently in the island nation of Ashura. Hachimitsu explains that she already knew that, but Gwynn points at the reader to express that they didn't know that. Then the camera turns around to show she was actually pointing to a random trio of otter kids.Otter kid: We knew that.
Gwynn: Oh. (Beat Panel) Go away. (shoos them off) - Ironic Name: The phrase "Hachimitsu" (蜂蜜 or はちみつ) means "honey" in Japanese. Despite what the name would imply, Hachimitsu herself is decidedly not a sweet person, and her character bio makes it explicit that she hates sweet foods.
