Shimura

Judge Dredd

by Robbie Morrison, Colin MacNeil, Simon Fraser

Shimura

Lone Wolf!

The far-eastern mega-metropolis of Hondo City os ruled as much by tradition as it is by Justice Department. Codes of honour still prevail, and none more so than in former Judge-Inspector Shimura - once an upright lawman, now he is ronin, a masterless outcast, rejecting the system he once represented and striking out lone against the criminals he finds at every level of society...

Scripted by Robbie Morrison (Doctor Who, Downtown) and featuring the art of Colin MacNeil (America), Simon Fraser (Nikolai Dante) and more, Shimura is a kinetic slice of SF excitement, where the customs of feudal Japan meet 22nd-century technology!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Dean Simons · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could have been way better if it were complete and more cohesive. The character of Shimura - and the setting of Hondo City - has a lot of promise but either the collection is missing several more stories (many have been taken out and inserted into the Hondo City Justice collection but I don't know if that was all of the missing pieces) or the character wasn't followed up enough to tie together a stronger narrative for the series. A massive shame as I really enjoyed these glimpses - I just wish they made more sense as a whole.

[Tim Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A product of it's time, but still a good read.

[Timo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some nice art but that also was mostly boring.
But the biggest thing I just could not get over with: The stories. They are just crap. Way too much oriental mysticism (which has not mysticism at all) and too much Japanese code of thing.
Why this is so popular with Judge Dredd readers is beyond me.

[Al No · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yet another Megazine volume and, despite some nice art by Colin MacNeil, this isn’t great. Very 90s, which isn’t a good thing.

[Leila Anani · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has been my least favourite of the Judge Dredd mega collection to date. Dredd himself only features in two stories, one of which, (Web) I didn't like at all. The volume focuses on Shimura an ex-judge of Hondo City and now Ronin. While he's a decent enough hero, this lacks the humour and satire that is present in much of the other 2000AD stories I've read. It's dark, bloody and violent, but there's not much else. There are loads of references to Japanese cinema - Tetsuo, seven samurai, Kurasawa to name a fraction, but the problem is its just name dropping without the substance or satire to back it up - being a huge fan of Japanese cinema this really disappointed me. You have a character called tetsuo and yet no cyborg bikes or anything - which considering the cyberpunk possibilities of the Hondo-City setting is a big disappointment.

We also have mutant versions of Japanese mythological characters - oni and Lady Shi is a snake demon hybrid - these were really cool and I wish had featured more predominantly.

The stories are a real mixed bag as well, in both colour & b/w. I quite liked transcendental assassin (probably the most satirical of the stories), dragon fire and the harder they come, but there are some real oddities in here as well like Shimura angels of death set in Texas 1867 that feels more like preacher than Dredd and Ronin Breed the story about a horse which is very random.

Wasn't particularly fond of the artwork either on this volume.

[Johnny Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shimura is one of those cool characters that if I were to write a Japanese character would be very similar style, Robbie Morrison used his love of martial arts and samurai movies to influence and shape the character into a kick ass character.
Formerly a judge, now Ronin and fed up with the corrupt law of Hondo-City which is in Dredd's futuristic world the Japan of now.
This collection just follows the character from storyline to storyline, nothing really big or in depth but at the same time some very good action set pieces.
A good character, a good showcase. Definitely worth a read if you like violent comics and/or Japanese style stuff.

[Datsun · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two stories did an excellent job of establishing the world and character of Shimura, outcast judge on the eastern edge of Judge Dredd's world of megacities and mutants. But from there the book seems half drunk on generic sci-punk violence and faux-Orientalism. It's not until the last third that the book reclaims its early promise.

[Damon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not enough Quitely. The Quitely stuff that was there was great, and there was some B/W stuff that was okay, but the rest was pretty lousy...