Matchlock Samurai Hiruko Hachirota ( 鉄炮侍 蛭子八郎太 ) is an-going manga project by Miyazaki Hayao for the Japanese magazine Model Graphix. The story is based on the matchlock cavalry samurais that fought during the Kanto battles in the 1560s.

Apparently Miyazaki-san has been very busy with his Ghibli Museum anime short and had little time to complete this manga, so the current status can be considered “on-going”, or on hiatus, although the model kit based on the lead character is already available of purchase.

Hopefully the completed manga will see the light of day, but in other good news the series of Kaze Tachinu ( The Wind Rises ) manga that Miyazaki-san drew for Model Graphix will be compiled into a single volume, coming soon in September. That’s just fantastic !

The model kit for Matchlock Samurai can be purchased from Amazon Japan here.

For more information and an interview with Miyazaki-san about this project, visit Modelkasten. Images courtesy of ModelKasten.

You might also be interested in these items :