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With Japan in the midst of a bloody revolution, an elite cadre of samurai swordsmen known as the Shinsengumi must protect the embattled city of Kyoto. Tetsunosuke Ichimura has spent his life dreaming of working at the Shinsengumi, and his wish has recently been fulfilled. As a page for Vice-Commander Hijikata Toshizo, he is privy to a wealth of secrets and is among Japan's highest ranking officials, some of whom are actual historical figures. When a strange gun-toting swordsman, Ryoma Sakamoto, recognizes Tetsunosuke and his brother as the sons of someone he calls the "Peacemaker," trouble brews and the other Shinsengumi run the outsider out of town. Full of action, this sword-fighting and gun-toting story is centered on the bakumatsu, a chaotic and bloody time of revolution that would ultimately result in the disbanding of the samurai and the opening up and Westernization of Japan. Fifteen-year-old Tetsu must witness the war around him, and perhaps gain some amount of wisdom about the samurai.

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

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342 people want to read

About the author

Nanae Chrono

42 books61 followers
CHRONO Nanae: 黒乃奈々絵

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5 stars
195 (33%)
4 stars
167 (28%)
3 stars
153 (26%)
2 stars
48 (8%)
1 star
21 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
Profile Image for Danielle.
502 reviews14 followers
August 19, 2013
I was really confused as to what was going on in this manga.....I guess if I had read that it was a continuation of the story, I may have skipped it all together. Apparently you need to have seen the anime to understand what's happening. If you haven't, don't bother reading this....it really makes no sense on its own.
Profile Image for Heidi.
15 reviews3 followers
April 20, 2009
I absolutely love this series for its serious, historical basis mixed with a bit of humor and great characterization.
Profile Image for Mosley.
1,456 reviews2 followers
May 22, 2022
If you take Hitsugaya's looks from Bleach and Samurai Champloo you'd get this series. This was an interesting first volume but I'm not sure if it's a continuation or in what order I'm supposed to read it.
Profile Image for Fractalhead.
74 reviews
March 10, 2015
Mungkin bintang 5 itu overrated.. tapi ini sifatnya subyektif banget, setelah membaca volume 1 komik ini aku tak pikir panjang beli volume selanjutnya. latar belakang kisahnya era kebangkitan kelompok shinsengumi yang dimotori Kondo Isami dan Hijikata Toshizou. Jangan harap ini cerita sejarah yang sesuai dengan aslinya, karena penokohan anggota shinsengumi di sini lumayan aneh dan super comical untuk kepentingan sebuah komik fiksi. tokoh utama kisah ini sebetulnya bocah fiktif Tetsunosuke Ichimura, putra dari sang Peacemaker. Tapi yang paling menarik mungkin tokoh Okita Souji, si jago pedang. Karakter Okita digambarkan feminim dan penyayang babi, beda jauh dari tokoh aslinya dalam sejarah... Kelompok Shinsengumi yg sangar di komik ini jadi mirip perkumpulan geng-nya Luffy di One Piece. penuh persahabatan, intrik dan humornya kerasa banget dengan gambar Nanae Chrono yang mampu membangkitkan tawa pembaca tanpa harus berlebihan dalam goresan2nya. tapi komik ini lumayan 'gelap', jadi gak cocok buat anak-anak..
Profile Image for Red Nuht.
4 reviews
February 1, 2009
Sequel to the first manga (entitled Peacemaker) and to the anime series, this historical fiction graphic novel is a must read of all anime/manga fans alike.
Nanae Chrono's art combined with her amazing story telling ability really grabs your attention while at the same time gives you a great incite into japan's history.

Peacemaker Kurogane as well as its precursor Peacemaker are one of my all time (top 5) manga series out there today.

A sneak peek into the first manga, Peacemaker, can be found [here:]
It is currently liscenced by Tokyopop and all 5 volumes of the first series had been released

The sequel (Peacemaker Kurogane), which was liscensed by ADV, can still be found in some bookstores though it is out of print but it will hopefully be rereleased by Tokyopop sometime in the near future.
Profile Image for intrepideddie.
124 reviews2 followers
August 31, 2014
I got this book because of its solid rating and the artwork on the cover. From the book description, I was expecting an interesting manga that takes place in feudal Japan. I really need to research books better before getting them...

This book made no sense to me. At all. I tried reading it several times, but I just couldn't figure out what the heck was going on.

And some guy in the story had what looked like 9mm pistols. In feudal Japan?! Granted, I know that this is manga, and chances are that some demon lord or giant mecha will probably pop up sooner or later, but for some reason the pistols seemed a bit much.

On the plus side, the artwork is good. I just couldn't get into the story, unfortunately.
Profile Image for Evin.
83 reviews36 followers
July 29, 2015
This manga started out iffy, but I really enjoyed the characters. It grew on me alot. I really can't wait to see where this whole story is going. It felt like this volume was a big set up for things to come.
Profile Image for Ariel.
357 reviews
June 20, 2022
This is my 1st Manga & it took me a little bit to figure out how to read it fully, correctly 😅 I am interested in more of this story, but maybe because something crazy happened where as I spent most of the story confused and not following some things… possibly. Could also be because the story has to get started. 🤷🏼‍♀️
Profile Image for Nick H.
879 reviews2 followers
November 11, 2024
ちょっとつまんないと思った。キャラクターがみんなちょっとパーソナリティがないし話が色んな無関係エリアにいつも行く。僕はちょっと「何かミスしてる」の感じあった,何かわからなかったかもしれない

Kind of dull, with wooden characters. Maybe I’m missing something, but this didn’t click for me at all.
1 review
May 29, 2020
The best thing ever I just love I really reccomend you to buy it and read it like 5 times it's just so dramatic and awesome.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Cadi.
4 reviews
February 8, 2021
I was very confused but the art is cool 😌✌️
Profile Image for Khyie.
171 reviews17 followers
July 26, 2021
Jumped around a lot and too many same-faced characters. I couldn't get into it at all.
Profile Image for Diamond Axe.
Author 30 books
March 21, 2023
Pretty good. An interesting premise but spoiled due to poor translation.
Profile Image for Lisa.
1,426 reviews119 followers
June 2, 2023
I was completely lost for the entire read. The dialogue is stilted and choppy, it was difficult to identify the characters and several plots seemed to be going on at the same time. Solid no for me.
Profile Image for Liqai.
21 reviews9 followers
December 23, 2020
My favourite shinsengumi manga so far. Also, I love love love love Okita Souji so much in this series. He's slightly feminine, gentle, humble, but he turns into a totally different person when he use his sword. He's weak due to his illness but also strong in the same time.
Profile Image for pinkgal.
173 reviews55 followers
March 29, 2007
Don't take the three stars as an indication that this manga is bad per se. It's just that compared to the other manga on my list, I feel it falls a bit short. It's very, very pretty. But there's not a whole lot of substance. One slightly annoying thing is that you kind of have to watch the anime before you can read the manga because so much crap happens beforehand that a lot of the plot points really won't make much sense unless you've watched the series. I made the mistake of reading the manga first (in Chinese) and being confused and bewildered by the cast. And then I watched the anime and I went, AHA!

It's a good series; beautifully crafted, short, strong in the sense that the characters presented are seen as infallible as myth often presents the Shinsengumi as. I'd say the mangaka took a bit of creative license though to a number of the characters, notably Okita.

But if you're a fan of the Shinsengumi (which I am!), this is definitely a read for you. Otherwise, take a look at it anyways for the pretty.
Profile Image for Sparrow.
2,287 reviews40 followers
May 30, 2023
-2023-
I liked this more this time, but it still seems like a random plot threads that don't quite connect yet. I'm still shocked by how much violence Chrono put in here and I really don't look forward to when it worsens.

-2018-
For the first time, I've read this book and not loved it. I remember loving it; in fact, I'm positive this is the first PK book I've ever read. But comparing this to the first series...it really falls up short.

The art is still beautiful, but I can't help but yearn for the style of the first series. The difference is hard to get used to. Characters seem different to an odd degree, like Toshi (he smiles a lot, is conversational, and seems happy?). The translation doesn't seem quite as good as the first series, and the plot seems slightly disjointed and not very centralized. I appreciate the jump into darker themes, but I do hope the next few volumes are better than this one.
Profile Image for hujanlia.
108 reviews5 followers
November 12, 2008
A sequel to Shinsengumi Imon Peacemaker (SIP).
The reason for it's changing title was because previously Peacemaker published by Enix and then switched to Mag Garden.

If SIP, the previous series, was mainly about Shinsengumi's victories, Peacemaker Kurogane timeline reaches to where Meiji Restoration started to strengthen it's grip.

Some friends turned their backs, other came for revenge, and new friends offered a new perspective and direction.

IMO, Peacemaker Kurogane is even darker than SIP, though it's far more intriguing.
Too bad up untill now, Nanae Chrono as the author hasn't continue the story yet.
I guess making a story with history background is never been easy ^^'



3,035 reviews14 followers
February 13, 2016
This series tells a very interesting story, but I sometimes found the visual storytelling to be choppy and distracting. The footnotes in the book were essential to anyone not heavily steeped in Japanese culture, and I was very glad that they were there, but there were plot points where the characters didn't seem to be responding to the same story that the reader was witnessing. For instance, if you were given orders out of the blue to do something very strange, wouldn't your response show on your face, even a little? Here, that doesn't happen.
The story itself is pretty good, though, and would be of interest to anyone who likes 19th century Japanese history and culture. Unlike some other manga, the concept of the shinsengumi doesn't drift into fantasy.
Profile Image for Jaimie.
1,741 reviews25 followers
July 11, 2015
I'm not entirely sure what to think of the first volume of this manga, since it feels like it is a continuation of the anime rather than an adaptation of the same story. Nevertheless, I am very curious about who the strange samurai (who seems to be American?) is and what the musterious cat-like man will do now that he has killed his master. The entire cast of characters are quite intriguing overall, even if their story and relationships are still a bit muddy.
Profile Image for Nazish Ahmed (Nazish Reads).
953 reviews38 followers
March 30, 2014
I'm glad I watched the anime, because this felt like it was the middle of the series, instead of the beginning, but it's still good.


EDITI just found out that the reason why this seems like the middle is because there's a prequel series called Peacemaker, which is what the anime episodes are from. So that helpsEDIT
Profile Image for Abbie.
45 reviews
April 10, 2016
The plot was a bit confusing but this is the introduction and that happens in the introduction. I'm definitely looking into the rest of the series and I would suggest this to any manga lovers.
The characters are hilarious and the story is pretty serious. It focuses on a group of samurai and their back stories with a bit of fantasy added in.
4 reviews1 follower
January 10, 2013
Nanae Chrono is one of my favorite manga artists and has successfully made this series one of the most likable set of characters for a manga set in this time that I've read. My only complaint is that there are only three volumes to this particular version.
Profile Image for Jessica.
78 reviews
June 18, 2009
read this and seen the show. great anime really bloody and sometimes not. old times their all in but great story line wish i can read more of this.
Profile Image for Kellie.
62 reviews
October 4, 2009
I loved the manga and the anime! It took me a while to figure out that the Shinsengumi was actually real though...........
Profile Image for Tia.
14 reviews
May 29, 2009
Amazing ninja manga. The art is insane. Love it.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews

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