Efu no Shichinin

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Efu no Shichinin roughly translates to The Seven Ninja of Efu. Efu is hard to translate, my understanding is that efu means some kind of government. This manga sets just post the sengoku era. It is very heavy on historical content and Japanese lore, making the translation of this manga very difficult. As of August 2022, there is no official English translation.

The story follows 7 people ninjas (technically none of them are real ninjas), who suffered and died from the brutality of war after Tokugawa Ieyasu united Japan. They came back as hunting spirits or ghost seeking revenge. The stories of these 7 people ... are pretty disjointed, they don’t get together until the very end. The ending seems super rushed and unfinished, I almost feel the manga was canceled. All 7 characters are interesting, but none of them got enough time to develop. There are way too many characters for a series of 10 volumes. Maybe the author was planning for a longer series at the beginning. The heavy reliance of Japanese history and lore made this manga sometimes confusing and hard to understand for non-native Japanese readers.

The art of this manga is quite good, with very detailed characters, and fight scenes are depicted very well. If I have to think of a similar series, maybe Ninja Scroll or The Blade of Immortal. There are a lot of gores and nudities which I did not mind. Overall, I like the series but it definitely could be a lot better if given more time to develop.