A manga by superstar team Kazuo and Goseki, I went into this one having loved Lone Wolf & Cub but having hated Samurai Executioner. Overall, I'm finding Path of the Assassin to be somewhere in between. I think the biggest reason this comic is significantly better than Samurai Executioner is that it actually has a story. I think the reason it's not quite as good as Lone Wolf & Cub is because the story is meandering and tends to dwell in tedious, exposition-heavy places. This is a fictionalized account of the end of the Sengoku period, when numerous Japanese warlords fought for control of the country. Joiningthe frey is Matsudaira Motoyasu (the future Tokugawa Ieyasu), a young warlord who has grown up the hostage of one of his political rivals. Ieyasu's fortunes change when the Igamono, the ninja clan serving his family, sends him a servant on his 16th birthday. That servant is Hattori Hanzo Masanari, and though neither man knows it, they're both destined for greatness.

Hagiography runs rampant in Path of the Assassin, but that's to be expected from any historical drama. Hanzo is peerless in everything he does, Ieyasu's motives are always clear-eyed and intellectually pure, every victory is due to some kind of brilliant battlefield revelation, etc. It gets to be exhausting after a while. Ieyasu loves his speeches.

Overall this is a fair-to-good comic. Definitely give it a shot, especially if you're into Japanese history. It's probably not the best thing to binge, as it can get tiresome. You might want to make it a casual read.