or that one time Kentaro Miura and Buronson made an Isekai manga in which a Japanese kendo champion from the 1980s travelled back to 13th century China and became one of Genghis Khan's generals I decided to read this before embarking on the Berserk manga not only because it chronologically precedes Miura's more famous work, but also because it's an instance of a master and his student working together in a single creation. I just finished reading Hokuto no Ken and having acquainted myself with the Buronson style of storytelling, it was so interesting to see it through the visual style of his (for lack ofa better word) successor. This is, undoubtedly, a Buronson story, but it looks and feels like a Miura manga

Buronson loves his duels, even in moments of warfare and moving armies, he can only write characters into facing off against singular rivals. This is apparent as the kendo master protagonist only faces off against the Mongolian Generals as the armies stand behind them. I don't know much about Berserk but I imagine Miura personally escapes this narrative trap in his own story. But in this work, Miura does contribute with the extreme and maximalist effect of the bloody stand offs between these characters. This is definitely something that he learned from Buronson, but here he does it in his own way, and it becomes clear the moment you realize all duels are fought with large blades, while in Hokuto no Ken, it was always fist fights.

Another large Buronson theme is the imposition of an ancient destiny onto the characters. While in HnK this appears through the constellations, the bloodlines, and the esoteric martial arts, in here it is different, in that the destiny that the protagonist needs to fulfill is that of time itself. As a time traveller, he must maintain the order of history in order to not permanently alter the future (which was once the present). The way the story concludes this is in a way that Buronson also loves: by stating in a very cathartic way that maybe you can (not) change your destiny

Fun work. Works as a neat gesture of an autheur "passing the torch" to another autheur. Let's see what the future holds