MISC. MANGA, *Shuriken

Recalled as being one of the first real anime/manga-inspired American comic books, Shuriken was created by longtime independent artist Robbie Buyers. Originally released in 1985 by indie publishers Victory Productions, it was eventually partially collected by Blackthorne Publishing in a graphic novel, then continued in another series through Eternity Comics, and then as a short-lived follow-up by another creative team. Not being based on any specific Japanese title, Buyers claims his original inspirations were the earlier works of Osamu Tezuka and Leiji Matsumoto, even though his comic deals with modern day ninjas, which is unusual considering there weren't numerous anime or manga at the time that delved into the genre. Shuriken might have been more inspired by the deluge of ninja-themed movies that were common in the U.S.

Kyoko is a professional ninja employed by Morgan Enterprises, and uses the alias "Shuriken" when acting as a professional bodyguard. Kyoko's friend Jean is attacked by the masked ninja Eagle's Claw, who is really her brother Koji, and now working for the yakuza. Kyoko heads to Japan to help free Koji from the Japanese mafia, even though Koji kills another friend of hers and somehow accepts the excuse of him being "schizophrenic" for just previously committing murder. Shuriken then travels back to America to see about freeing herself for Morgan Enterprises' personal ninja clan known as The Organization. Morgan agrees to let her quit, although a little to easily as he sends his personal bodyguard Megumo to kill Kyoko's new boss as she tries to get a new career as a model. Kyoko manages to get Megumo to admit to the assassination, and then plans to get even with Morgan.

The next title in the series was Blade Of Shuriken by Eternity which took place after the original, while still taking off in a new direction for fresh reader where Kyoko gets a job working as the bodyguard for the corrupt mayor who is being targeted by the local mafia. Shuriken: Cold Steel takes place afterwards showing Kyoko getting into a more world-saving level of adventure. This also tied into Shuriken: Team-Up where Kyoko crossed over with other Eternity Comics characters, the comic itself was supposed to be a mini-series but only lasted one issue. This was followed up by new Shuriken series in the early 90s, except this time it was written by S.A. Bennett with art by Wes Abbott, and took a hard dive into its manga roots with a style similar to Masamune Shirow works like Ghost In The Shell.

Shuriken is an thrilling look at the early days of "Ameri-manga", which didn't take from usually sources at the time like mecha shows, and more from obscure Japanese titles like Cat's Eye. It might be tricky to be able to collect all the scattered issues as their not legit available digitally, even though your average modern day otaku might be satisfied with the first collected graphic novel for a look during Golden Age of american anime fans.