Chronin

Chronin is a story by Alison Wilgus told over the course of two graphic novels, The Knife At Your Back and The Sword in Your Hand. It chiefly takes place during the Bakumatsu Era, shortly before the Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown by shishi revolutionaries in what would later be known as the Meiji Restoration.

It's 1864 in Edo (which we know today as Tokyo), Japan. Ever since the country was forced to open itself to Western trade a decade earlier, political and economic instability have thrust Japan into chaos. In the streets of cities like Edo and Kyoto, would-be revolutionaries clash covertly (and sometimes openly), with the forces of the Tokugawa Shogunate, as the sides hatch plots and counterplots aimed at defeating each other. Despite the internal turmoil and the increasing prospect of Western powers gradually coming to control and subjugate Japan, much as they have been doing to China, the lords and power players of the Shogunate remain directionless and bitterly divided. With Japan split between many different factions, the conflicts tearing the country apart seem certain to get worse.

In this growing turmoil, our story begins when a Rōnin calling himself Yoshida Minoru is the Sole Survivor when he and his companions are attacked by a group of samurai loyal to the shogunate. Some weeks later, Yoshida is doing something almost unthinkable for a samurai: making a living by delivering food and carrying water for a tea shop in Edo. One evening he is approached by one of the women working at the tea shop, Hatsu, who asks him for a favor: to accompany and protect her on a journey that will take her several days away from Edo. Yoshida initially declines, but reconsiders during the night and sets out with Hatsu the following day.

To Hatsu's chagrin, Yoshida turns out to be a uniquely unworldly traveler, knowing little about many of the everyday customs of the region and asking questions about them at nearly every step. This frustration is nothing compared to the unpleasant surprise she gets that evening, when she catches Yoshida bathing in a pond away from the inn sees that Yoshida is actually a woman, Yoshida Mirai, and is not actually a samurai, meaning that she could be killed on the spot for impersonating a samurai if discovered. And even learning that pales in comparison to what comes next when Kuji, a samurai who has been courting Hatsu for the past two years, confronts the two women in the inn and it turns out that both Mirai and Kuji are even more out place than Hatsu could have imagined.

Both Mirai and Kuji are actually history students from the 2040s who took part in their university's fledging Time Travel program. Ever since the attack in the opening pages, Mirai has been Trapped in the Past, as the device that would return her to her own time was lost. Kuji, for his part, had mysteriously disappeared several years before Mirai's last trip to the past, with it appearing to other students that he had suddenly left the program, but in truth he had become increasingly obsessed with the time period, and he decided to sneak down to the time travel machine and send himself to the past with the intent of remaining there and joining the shishi revolutionaries so he could observe the events that transformed his country. (And perhaps aid the process of the revolution go more smoothly than it did in history.)

In addition to the difficulties of surviving and navigating the times and culture, Mirai, Hatsu, Kuji, and their allies soon find another great challenge waiting for them; it seems Kuji isn't the only one who has gotten it into his head to change the course of history. Furthermore this mysterious other party has a very different agenda in mind for the revolution and the course Japan will follow, an agenda which could cause permanent, perhaps irreparable damage to the timeline.

This comic book contains examples of the following tropes:

• Affably Evil: Azai is a polite, honorable, well-intentioned man who, at least as an older man, could even be described as fairly openminded for his culture and era. But he is repulsed by the future he saw for Japan and is determined to change it, despite knowing many people will be harmed or disenfranchised as a result.
• Alternate Timeline: The changes caused by Azai send the timeline into this; for awhile Mirai literally can't travel back to the future even with a beacon because things have diverged too far. Eventually it becomes more like a Close-Enough Timeline, as convincing Azai to cooperate with the revolutionaries and Kuji's presence as a leader to replace the shishi leaders who were killed allows the timeline to heal enough that it mostly turns out the way actual history did.
• And Then What?: Mirai gets Azai to rethink his plans, and later to switch sides, by asking him this. Azai is dead set on stopping the Meiji Restoration and loathes the changes he knows will come to Japan as a result of the Restoration. However, Azai is also an Internal Reformist who is all too aware that the Tokugawa government is brutal, backwards, and needs to change. He's hoping to put down the rebellion first to avoid the drastic cultural changes that come about due to the Restoration, and then to try to implement the reforms that he thinks are the best path for Japan. Mirai, however, points out that Azai has no actual path to make these changes, and that the shogunate and the daimyo will not change or give up power unless they're forced to. Azai reluctantly concedes that Mirai is right.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Both Kuji and Gilbert also show attraction to Mirai when she is dressed as/passing as a man.
• Been There, Shaped History: Hiro has been part of several notable events in the Shinsengumi's history, mentioning being part of assassination of Serizawa Kamo and the raid on the Ikedaya.
• Big Bad: Azai Makoto, the Magistrate of Kyoto, who leads the Tokugawa's efforts to defeat the revolution.
• Big Damn Heroes: Mirai and Hatsu first encounter with Gilbert happens when a pair of violent shishi are about to kill Gilbert simply for being a foreigner. Mirai jumps in just in time to block a sword strike that would have cut him down, then struggles with them for awhile before Hiroshi steps in and summarily curb stomps the shishi.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The conflict between the Tokugawa and the shishi is portrayed as this. The shishi are often shown as abusive and self-important jerks, they get at least some condemnation by both contemporaries and future generations (Hatsu calls them fanatics while Mirai refers to them as drunken maniacs), and they were willing to use acts of mass terrorism such as setting fire to cities to undermine the shogunate. But the Tokugawa are shown to be an archaic, brutal, and deeply repressive government that kept the majority of the population relegated to a permanent social underclass either due to birth or the jobs they worked, samurai and lords had complete freedom to kill on a whim or for minor infractions of arcane codes of conduct, and it was simply woefully ineffective and out of place in a changing world.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Kuji, is a downplayed case. Always a diligent student of history and hailing from a traditional samurai family, so after he becomes obsessed with the past and decides to stay he fits in very well, although his views on things like the roles and rights of women and different classes or castes are decidedly more modern and inclusive than a samurai from the 1860s.
• The Chessmaster: Azai. When Gilbert agreed to return him to the past, Azai happened to peruse some of Gilbert's history books in a bag and saw a future he could not accept for Japan. Thinking quickly, he tricked Gilbert into sending him twenty years further back in the past than where he had come from, giving Azai time to establish himself and amass power that he could use in his quest to change the course of the future. Through his own efforts he became a powerful player in the Shogunate and the leader of the attempts to put down the revolution. When Gilbert went on his own trip to the past, it took Azai only a month to find him and give Gilbert a carefully worded warning not to get in his way.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Adachi is the biggest jerkass of the minor shishi characters, always badmouthing everything done by the group, and Kuji has to threaten him on several occasions to get him to shut up or mind his manners around women and people from lower classes. Not only is he always wrong, he turns out to be a spy for Azai.
• Culture Clash:
  • Inevitable when contrasting modern/Western morality with that of a time and place as different as the end of Edo era Japan.
  • There was some of this between Mirai and Kuji even before Kuji decided to leave himself trapped in the past. Kuji is actually from Japan and from an old samurai family, unlike the Japanese-American Mirai whose Japanese ancestors were anonymous peasants, so from the start he is much more serious about the time traveling program and more dedicated to matters of history. The final blow to their relationship came during an argument where Kuji (who, remember, comes from an old samurai family that is very conscious of class and historical matters), tells Mirai that she and her ancestors should be damn grateful to the shishi for overthrowing the shogunate and ending the old caste system, otherwise they all would still be working in rice paddies.
  • Kuji and the shishi revolutionaries are initially at a loss how to approach and deal with the mountain villages when they try to recruit those villages to their cause. They have no idea how to talk to the locals, what the local village customs are, what the people there want or what would motivate them, etc. If not for Hatsu taking over to do the talking, the attempt would have ended in miserable failure.
• Establishing Character Moment: Our first introduction to Hatsu's brother Hiroshi is him effortlessly defeating a shishi in combat and not even flinching after cutting off the man's hand.
• Evil Reactionary: Azai was accidentally transported from his time in 1860s Japan to 2040s New York, and found The Future Is Shocking. This made him decide to change the timeline and prevent the future we know from coming about.
• Fictionalized Death Account:
  • Near the end of the first volume, a number of prominent leaders in the revolution, some of whom should have lived decades longer and played a large part in shaping a post-revolution Japan, are revealed to have been killed by the Tokugawa, shocking the protagonists to their core and indicating that they're entering into a changed timeline.
    Mirai: The men whose heads you saw were all big-time shishi patriots. There are important things they're all supposed to do, like... Takasugi is supposed to be Choshu's expert on western military science. Inoue and Kido are supposed to convince Satsuma and Choshu, who like, do not get along right now, to team up and overthrow the shogunate. And like we said, Ito and Inoue are supposed to be on an expedition in England, and that expedition is supposed to play a big part in convincing them to model the new Japanese government on how people do things in Europe. I mean, I can't overemphasize how important these guys were. Ito was the Prime Minister of Japan four times...
  • Kunishi Shinano is gunned down by Tokugawa forces at the Battle of Hamaguri Gate, instead of taking his own life months later as one of a handful of ringleaders who were punished.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Azai was born to a samurai family that was destitute and as the third son, he wouldn't even be directly in line to inherit what little they had. With only his sword, wits, and knowledge of the future, he managed to rise to a position of considerable power and become a skilled chess master.
• The Future Is Shocking: Azai was a young samurai from the 1860s who was accidentally transported to the 2040s. Besides the obvious shock at his surroundings (he initially thought he was dead and in some sort of afterlife), he was really shocked when he got ahold of a history book and saw what lay ahead for Japan, including the complete change of culture and values. This caused him to become absolutely determined to prevent these changes from coming to pass.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Hatsu becomes infuriated with Mirai when Mirai almost gives up during the group's Darkest Hour. A verbal tongue lashing and coming up with a new plan help to snap Mirai out of it.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: The Battle of Hamaguri Gate is a much bigger disaster than it was in real life for the revolutionaries, with far greater losses to their forces and critical leaders killed during or before the Battle. The Shinsengumi and the Magistrate of Kyoto are hunting the survivors and it's only a matter of time, likely only days, before their secret camp is found. Meanwhile it'll likely be weeks, if not longer, before the revolutionaries even hear from their allies in Choshu. Both Kuji and Mirai and nearing the Despair Event Horizon. Then Hatsu comes up with a new way to recuit the followers/allies that they desperately need to fight against the shogunate: the mountain villages/eta caste which have thousands upon thousands of people dissatisfied with the Tokugawa, but have also been ignored or mocked by the shishi as well.
• Historical Domain Character: Many are mentioned but only a few show up onscreen (alive anyway, several show up as decapitated heads near the end of the first volume), with the most prominent case probably being Kondo Isami, the commander of The Shinsengumi, who presents the aforementioned heads during the Battle of Hamaguri Gate and is seen having a discussion with Azai in the second volume.
• In Spite of a Nail: Both Azai and Kuji actively tried to change the course of history, but once Azai ends his efforts and presumably starts working with the shishi, the timeline settles into something like a Close-Enough Timeline. In the last pages of the second volume, when Kuji finally returns to the future as an older man, he laments how despite his efforts there was so much that couldn't be changed.
  Kuji: My wife is gone. My grandchildren are fighting wars that I could not prevent...
• Internal Reformist: Azai wants to reform the worst of the Tokugawa but without the wholesale changes that would come about due to revolution. Mirai points out the entrenched power structure won't stand for those changes to be made.
  Azai: We can enact such changes without destroying our entire way of life.
  Mirai: You know the daimyo won't give up their power unless they're forced to. You know that the shogunate is never going to force them.
• Jerkass
  • Kuji is a a somewhat downplayed case. He's not great with people and isn't the most pleasant person in the world, but he usually makes an effort to observe manners and be polite, out of a respect for decorum and etiquette, if nothing else. This has a tendency to go out the window with Mirai, likely due to their past relationship.
  • Adachi, the traditionalist member of the shishi in the group, is constantly getting on the nerves of everyone with his smug, superior attitude and visible disdain for women, lower classes, foreigners, etc.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Kuji isn't entirely wrong when he dismisses Mirai in the second volume as "an American otaku who joined the program for superficial reasons and is out of her depth", especially since flashbacks in the first volume do show that she joined due to superficial interests (her interest in the historical time period originally being sparked by anime and manga, and when she says it would be cool to actually see samurai and members of the Shinsengumi, Kuji points out that the Shinsengumi should be the last thing she wants to see up close), wasn't the most dedicated student, and even she says that the students were trained to be able to walk around the streets for a few hours at a time, not to survive long-term in the past.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Mirai mentions a few times that it was historical manga that kickstarted her interest in history and being part of the time travel program, specifically mentioning an in universe series called "Ronin Ken" which is pretty obviously Rurouni Kenshin based on the way she describes it to Hatsu. The main difference is that while Kenshin was a shonen series that defied some of the genre expectations and pulled in an unusually strong female fanbase, Ken appears to be aimed at the Shōjo Demographic judging by Mirai's comment that there are a few fights but it's mostly about romance.
• Mauve Shirt: Several shishi are secondary characters in the second volume after being introduced in the first. These include The Stoic, bearded Rokkaku, who is Kuji's longtime ally, easy-going Perpetual Smiler Cho, and the jerkass, hardline traditionalist Adachi.
• Meaningful Name: Mirai means future, much to the amusement of Gilbert.
• Meet Cute: A somewhat strange example: Azai was traveling by himself when Hiroshi (who ran away from home at a young age and was living as a bandit), and several other bandits tried to rob him. After driving off the others and defeating Hiroshi, Azai complimented Hiroshi on his swordsmanship. Hiroshi then offers to be Azai's traveling companion/bodyguard, and sometime afterward the two men became lovers.
  Azai: It was unwise of me to travel alone at night.
  Hiroshi: I could walk with you, if you wanted.
  Azai: [raises an eyebrow and then smiles in amusement] You tried to rob me moments ago.
  Hiroshi: [looks away and blushes]
  Azai: [resumes walking] If I still have my purse when we reach the inn, I'll use it to buy you a hot meal. [Hiroshi follows him]
• The Mole: Adachi is informing on the shishi to Azai, and perhaps he has been from the start.
• Mutual Masquerade: When first meeting Gilbert, Mirai believes he's just an Englishman of the times doing business in Japan. He likewise believes that Mirai is a surprisingly kind Japanese swordsman. They then spend about a third of the first volume traveling alongside each other and being companions before they start to put together little clues about the other. This goes on until Gilbert finally asks an Armor-Piercing Question:
  Gilbert: Mr. Yoshida... when are you from?
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Gilbert sympathized with Azai's plight after Azai traveled to the future, and especially the possibility that Azai might never be allowed to return to his own time due to what he'd seen. So he helped Azai go back in time... and Azai used the opportunity to steal information about events that were yet to come and change the past. On the plus side for Gilbert, it also means Azai is somewhat reluctant to harm him when Azai holds Gilbert prisoner, since he believes he owes Gilbert.
  Kuji: You did a great kindness to a man far from home. You couldn't have known he would repay you so poorly.
• Nostalgia Filter: Downplayed with Kuji. While he doesn't automatically approve of everything in the past or think it was better, he does tend to block out and refuse to acknowledge legitimate criticisms of the shishi.
• Portmanteau: The title is a combination of "chrono", for time, and the Japanese word Rōnin, which was applied to samurai without a master, but literally translates "wave man" or "adrift on a wave" which is very fitting for the circumstances.
• Secret Identity: Both Hatsu and her brother Hiroshi are eta, a heavily discriminated against caste. While Hatsu goes to pains not to be discovered, she would likely simply be sent back to the mountain if found out. Hiroshi, on the other hand, as he has both been acting as a samurai and is a member of the Shinsengumi, would be extremely lucky not to be put to death, even if Azai tried to pull strings for him.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: This is what Azai believes he is doing by altering the timeline to prevent the Revolution from succeeding.
  The abandonment of our way of life. The endless concessions to the whims of foreigners. The years wasted on wars of greed. The humiliations that followed. The Japan which birthed you is one I hope to never see.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Mirai, with some help from Gilbert, is able to talk Azai into abandoning the Tokugawa due to several factors, such as the knowledge that the Tokugawa government has no viable solutions for any of Japan's problems, and that the brutal and stratified society of the Tokugawa is crushing people Azai loves and millions of others beneath its feet.
  Mirai: Are you fighting for the idea of Japan or are you trying to help the people who live here? ... people we love are suffering here, as things are. They deserve better than what the shogun would give them.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A combination of good intentions, naivety, and and a lax attitude towards safety nearly led to Gilbert being responsible for the divergence of the timeline. Acting out of sympathy for Azai, Gilbert decided to help Azai get back to his own time... and casually left his school work with the entire history of modern Japan right where Azai could find it, take a look at it, and after deciding that he didn't like what he saw, take the books with him so he could prevent that future from coming to pass.
• We ARE Struggling Together: In real life the shishi were made up of many different groups with many different motivations for battling the government, including pro-reformists who wanted to adopt Western ways and technology, regions with ancient, festering grudges against the Tokugawa, poor and impoverished young samurai who wanted a seat at the table, and hardline traditionalists who thought the solution was to simply kick out all foreigners and foreign influence. This is seen with some of the minor shishi characters in the story, especially with Adachi acting as more or less the personification of the hardline traditionalist shishi.
• Wham Episode: Through most of the first volume events are speeding along as history buffs might expect. Then the Battle of Hamaguri Gate comes and some of the most important and influential revolutionary leaders, some of whom should have lived on for decades afterward and continued playing a key role in the modernization of Japan, are shown to have been killed by the Tokugawa government. Just like that the course of history and the timeline we know is completely off the rails.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Mirai rips into Gilbert when she learns that he continued to hide what he knew about Azai in order to cover up Gilbert's inadvertent part in sending Azai back to the past with all the knowledge he'd need to change the timeline.