It is simply an amazing show. Very well written. The story is about two ninja clans, the Iga and the Koga, who are ordered to assemble their ten best warriors to kill each other until only one side lives. Apparently there are two illegitimate heirs to the shogunate and whichever side wins will determine the next shogun. Meanwhile, the plot addresses a beautiful love story that is doomed, politics, martial arts, and philosophy. The artwork is superb. The music is decent. It is very similar to the script of the live action movie called Shinobi that came out not too long ago. It also has an association to the classic Ninja Scroll movie, where there are these ninjas who each have different mystical powers that are unique to them alone. It does great justice to Ninja Scroll, unlike a few other attempts to recreate that great story which is culled from myth. Of course, the myth was created because of the disappearance for many years of the real Jubei Yagyu when no one knew what he did during that time. He was the son of Munenori Yagyu, who was one of two or three instructors in the martial arts to the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and his family. Munenori's father Muneyoshi had learned the Shinkage-Ryu or "shadow art" based on psychological martial skills and created the Yagyu Shinkage-Ryu. In roughly the same part of the mountain ranges in the area where the Yagyu village still is was an area that had practitioners of the occult arts or voodoo. Many mythological traditions like to combine the two together because it makes for a wild array of skill combinations one person might have had. These stories are mostly fiction based on myths but they do have connections to real people and real events in Japan's history. Munenori left behind some writings about his art. In his book 'The Life Giving Sword' he says that you must make your mind clear like still water reflecting the full moon so that whatever thoughts are directed at you are reflected back upon the attacker and then you will be able to react with the proper counter measure to anything that comes at you and he says that this concept can be applied to more than just physical combat but also to business and politics and any walk of life. (or something along those lines)
