"To end his eternal suffering, he must slay one thousand enemies!" Manji, a ronin warrior of feudal Japan, has been cursed with immortality. To rid himself of this curse and end his life of misery, he must slay one thousand evil men! His quest begins when a young girl seeks his help in taking revenge on her parents' killers… and his quest won't end until the blood of a thousand has spilled!
[Official English](https://digital.darkhorse.com/series/373/blade-of-the-immortal)
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- **Won the 1st Japan Media Arts Award Division Excellence Prize**
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AnimeNewsNetwork Links:
[Anime](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=9691)
[Live-Action Movie](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=18861)
A compilation of noteable submissions to the Afternoon Four Seasons Awards from 1987 to 2000 from major artists from when they were still newcomers.
**Note:** Do not confuse this for the [Afternoon Four Seasons Awards CHRONICLE 1987-2000 Selections](https://kc.kodansha.co.jp/title?code=1000000684) from 2013, which cut 23 of the 48 oneshots but still spread the remaining 25 across 4 seasonal volumes.
**Chapters:**
**Spring:**
1. Tsuchida Seiki - Miseinen (1987 Four Seasons Prize)
2. Takahashi Tsutomu - GOTAVOICE (1987 Spring Semi-Winner)
3. Matsumoto Taiyou - STRAIGHT (1987 Autumn Semi-Winner)
4. Irie Noriko - Neko no Te Kashimasu (1987 Winter Four Seasons Grand Prize)
5. Ohtagaki Yasuo - Ronin Heartbreak! (1988 Summer Honorable Mention)
6. Sudou Masumi - Shounen-ou ni Shiroi Kumo (1988 Autumn Semi-Winner)
7. Akizuki Risu - Oku-sama Shinkaron (1988 Autumn Honorable Mention)
8. Nakayama Masaaki - Ridatsu (1988 Winter Semi-Winner)
9. Arai Hideki - 8-gatsu no Hikari (1989 Summer Four Seasons Grand Prize)
10. Hiromoto Sinichi - Western Carnival (1989 Summer Honorable Mention)
11. Enomoto Shunji - Golden Lucky (1989 Autumn Honorable Mention)
12. King Gonta - A Mess on a Weekend (1989 Winter Four Seasons Grand Prize)
13. Irie Kiwa - Haikibun! Sakanahime (1989 Winter Four Seasons Prize)
14. Hiramatsu Minoru - Ma, Ikka! (1989 Winter Honorable Mention)
15. Aoki Yuuji - Higan to Shigan no Ma De (1990 Semi-Winner)
16. Taguchi Masayuki - Shouteki Ningen (1990 Autumn Four Seasons Prize)
17. Sugawara Masayuki - Home Range (1991 Summer Semi-Winner)
18. Matoba Ken - Mei Tantei ni Hanarenai keredo (1991 Summer Semi-Winner)
19. Yasuda Hiroyuki - MOZOO (1991 Autumn Honorable Mention)
20. Oda Hideji - Sakana (1991 Winter Honorable Mention)
**Summer:**
21. Matsunaga Toyokazu - Killing Paranoia (1992 Summer Four Seasons Grand Prize)
22. Ohara Shinji - Boku wa Otouto (1993 Spring Four Seasons Grand Prize)
23. Kuwahara Shinya - YOKO vs (1993 Spring Four Seasons Prize)
24. Samura Hiroaki - Mugen no Juunin (1993 Summer Four Seasons Grand Prize)
25. Kuroda Iou - Ka, Nanten, Kuma (1993 Autumn Four Seasons Grand Prize)
26. Toume Kei - KUROGANE (1993 Autumn Four Seasons Prize)
27. Igarashi Daisuke - Obayashi ga Hikoeru Hi & Imada Fuyu (1993 Winter Four Seasons Grand Prize)
28. Yoshikai Kanji - Kodoku no Oto (1993 Winter Semi-Winner)
29. Ashinano Hitoshi - Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (1994 Spring Four Seasons Prize)
30. Komai Yuu - Sonna Yatsua Inee!! (1994 Spring Honorable Mention)
**Autumn:**
31. Aramaki Keiko - GENOMES (1994 Summer Four Seasons Grand Prize)
32. Kio Shimoku - Ten no Ryouiki (1994 Summer Four Seasons Prize)
33. Abe Yoshitoshi - Ame no Furu Basho (1994 Summer Semi-Winner)
34. Kiba Kouichi - JAGUA (1995 Summer Four Seasons Grand Prize)
35. Nihei Tsutomu - BLAME (1995 Summer Special Prize)
36. Endou Hiroki - Kitto Kawaii Onnanoko dakara (1995 Autumn Four Seasons Prize)
37. Kitoh Mohiro - Vendémiaire no Migite (1995 Autumn Semi-Winner)
38. Asada Torao - Spoonman 3.18 (1996 Autumn Four Seasons Grand Prize)
39. Wakana Shouhei - Kamen Tenshi (1996 Autumn Four Seasons Prize)
40. Shinemon - Lunch no B (1996 Summer Honorable Mention)
**Winter:**
41. Hayashida Q - Sofa-chan (1997 Autumn Semi-Winner)
42. Kimura Kon - Koube Zaijuu (1997 Winter Four Seasons Prize)
43. Shinofusa Rokuro - Yasashii Kodomo no Tsukurikata (1997 Spring Honorable Mention)
44. Higuchi Asa - Yuku Tokoro (1998 Spring Four Seasons Prize)
45. Manabe Shohei - Yuuutsu Suberidai (1998 Summer Four Seasons Grand Prize)
46. Urushibara Yuki - Mushishi (1998 Winter Four Seasons Grand Prize)
47. Kumakura Takatoshi - Gurade (1999 Summer Semi-Winner)
48. Toyoda Minoru - Love Roma (2002 Spring Four Seasons Grand Prize)
**Selected Descriptions:**
Kio Shimoku - Ten no Ryouiki
A brief insight into the life of a young graduate student looking for work who finds himself in bed with a mysterious girl he has never seen before.
Abe Yoshitoshi - Ame no Furu Basho
Eshikawa is a man who has lost sight of his life and stumbles through it, with no clear meaning or purpose. One day, he is informed that his ex-girlfriend committed suicide, which sets his brain on retrospect mode. He goes on a journey of self-revelation and contemplates upon the myriad of human emotions, the joys and sorrows of normalcy.
Kiba Kouichi - JAGUAR
As a woman is returning home one night, she runs into a man who was just in a car crash. As he's dying, he asks her to throw a certain package into the sea.
Hayashida Q - Sofa-chan
Hayashida Q's debut work about a female couch spirit.
___
**See Also:**
- [MDList of Afternoon Four Seasons Award–winning oneshots](https://mangadex.org/list/d7b883be-732f-4d5b-8d92-818fa3c62555/afternoon-oneshot-four-seasons-award-winners)
- [blog post covering this series](http://sportable.seesaa.net/article/246888518.html)
- [Wikipedia article about this series](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%95%E3%82%BF%E3%83%8C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%B3%E5%9B%9B%E5%AD%A3%E8%B3%9ECHRONICLE)
- [Wikipedia article about the contest, including a list of winners](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%95%E3%82%BF%E3%83%8C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%B3%E5%9B%9B%E5%AD%A3%E8%B3%9E)
Wergelder: in Germanic law, the money paid by a murderer or his family to the victim’s family in atonement. A mysterious deal goes down on a remote island known as a red-light pleasure district. An insane fight between a blonde sniper and an assassin in a Chinese dress brings up questions about who the players are in this deal. A group of misfit yakuza gets caught in the crossfire while trying to get in on the deal, or at least find out what’s being dealt. At the center of it all is a woman who has been wronged in the worst imaginable ways. She will have her revenge. Eisner award-winning creator of Blade of the Immortal Hiroaki Samura presents a new badass thriller with some very bad ladies!
Set in the Soviet Union, the mysterious girl named Berka and the quiet boy Shchenok help a Socialist Party member to escape from the secret police. Their aim is to infiltrate into a certain mansion that holds what they seek, but the secret police immediately capture the two. Will they be able to find what they seek and endure the torture of the secret police?
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- **Won the 18th Japan Media Arts Festival Excellence Award in 2014**
Every year, Lord Nicola A. Bradherley, one of Europe's leading aristocrats, sends his coach round to various orphanages to adopt young girls and trains them to join his opera troupe. But most of these girls never make it onto the stage a far more sinister fate awaits them, sacrificed in the name of the greater good.
Collection of short stories, published in Rakuen Le Paradis (some of which are his older oneshots).
**1. Pineapple Girl**
**2. Kamakurian**
Sci-Fi story about building kamakuras
**3. A Happy Birthday from Paradise**
Hoshihiro is a 40-year-old virgin who desperately wants a girlfriend. But thanks to his "chastity", he has been chosen as the next fairy king. But in the two weeks until the wedding…
**4. Tsutsu-Izutsu**
Itagua and Kagua are two aliens whose spaceship broke down while they were visiting Earth, leaving them stranded and hiding in a dried water well. Due to the distance to their planet, they took 13 years to ask for help. And now finally…
**5. Cops and Robbers**
A petty robber learns of the existence of the "Village of Honesty", where they only tell the truth, and he goes with the purpose of rip off all the townfolk.
At the entrance of the village he finds a fork with two beautiful women, one who tells the truth and one who tells lies, and he could make only one question to find the right way.
**6. New Century Godslayer**
God decides to destroy the world because of mankind's behavior and entrust the creation of a new world to his son.
A collection of eight Zombie related oneshots by several authors.
Includes illustrations by Hiroe Rei (Black Lagoon), Samura Hiroaki (Blade of the Immortal) and Matsumoto Jiro (Freesia).
Contains six short stories:
• The Kuzein Family's Grandest Show(Kuzeinke no Saidai no Show)
• The Uniforms Stay On (Seifuku wa Hugenai)
• Brigitte's Dinner (Brigitte no Bansan)
• Shizuru Cinema
• Low Grade Strategy: Mirror Play (Kasou Senryaku: Kagami-uchi)
• Emerald
• Youth Chang-chaka-chang (Seishun Janjaka Jaka Jaka)
Who cheated? Who Won? The lies and the truths? In the city of west where injustice prevails. Only a 'game' divides the living and the dead.