Like Ninjas? Zombies? Wolverine? Want to see Wolverine fight ninjas and zombies? Then this is the book for you Wolverine returns to Japan only to get caught in the middle of an ancient war between gods and demons Can Logan tip the balance for good - and save his soul, Japan and the world? And what does the mysterious Mark of Mana have to do with it? Collects Wolverine: Soultaker #1-5.
"Any idea where we could find your sister and her pet demon Ryuki? [Because] I'd bet Ryuki's planning on raising a little hell. Literally." -- our titular antihero, offering his assistance
Wolverine takes a personal trip to 'the Land of the Rising Sun' which quickly spirals into a fast-paced supernatural adventure involving murderous monks, zombie ninja warriors, and various other kinds of mystical mumbo jumbo oddities in the spry miniseries Soultaker. While it's not any sort of classic - it is very much the definition of a fast-food graphic novel, as in just quick enough to get the job done - it had the requisite 'snikt! snikt! action scenes (featuring a badass sword called 'the blade of blood'), plus an anime style / influence that was an inspired choice to pair with the growly solo scoundrel.
Wolverine goes to Japan again. Tragedy happens again. Wolverine has a young female protege again. Wolverine puts on his yellow and black suit again. Wolverine needs to save his soul again. Ninjas again. Best there is at what I do again. What I do isn't pretty again. Snikt again. Supernatural villain you've never heard of before and will never hear of again again. Sai blades vs admantium claws again. A man with admantium claws in his hands for some reason needs to use a sword because this is a story set in Japan again.
This story has been told and retold better dozens of times. The art on the backgrounds and the monsters is solid, but the actual human characters are precariously placed on the uncanny valley of chibi.
Not a terrible story but it just felt like it was trying too hard... Appropriating an anime story (a pretty cliché retread at that) and turning Wolvie into a weird sidekick character and totally misusing Yukio, and... Well, it was an enjoyable enough one-time read, but this one is easily skippable in my opinion.
I know this is in no way the point, but it's been shown many times that Logan is fluent in Japanese, which is good. But he uses so many colloquialisms in English that I can't help wonder how he translates that into his Japanese. I know, translating emotions is easy and words hard, but I still want an example on how to speak like Logan in Japanese.