Yaguruma Kennosuke | Title page #1 | Taku Horie

Pencil & ink on paper | Size : 25,5 x 35,8 cm | very good condition

Yaguruma Kennosuke | Taku Horie’s Hybrid Samurai Epic

Yaguruma Kennosuke (1957) stands as Taku Horie’s first true masterpiece, a fusion of samurai heroism, mechanical fantasy, and post-war imagination. Serialized in Shōnen (Kobunsha), it follows the eponymous swordsman and gunfighter Kennosuke Yaguruma in his battle against the “Emperor of the Night,” a villain commanding bizarre mechanised castles and gadget-armed underlings.

Artistically, Horie’s dynamic compositions and cinematic layouts convey movement and tension with unusual sophistication for the period. His wide splash panels and angled close-ups heighten the drama, situating the reader within the rhythm of combat. The bold visual language anticipates the kinetic style that would later define 1960s shōnen manga.

Yaguruma Kennosuke reimagines the samurai hero through the lens of modern gadgetry, bridging the moral clarity of prewar adventure tales with the mechanised fantasy of post-Tezuka boys’ comics.

Yaguruma Kennosuke remains a crucial artifact in the evolution of Japanese storytelling. It is both an echo of the past and a blueprint for the manga future: a vibrant, hybrid epic where tradition and technology collide under Horie’s deft hand.