MOUSE WEARING MEDIEVAL SAMURAI ARMOR

Nezumi Isamu moved cautiously across the field, deftly treading around the tall trunks that rose, pillar-like, from the ground. He could still smell the blood that had been spattered all around, which the recent rain had washed into the dirt where it perfumed the top layer. He held his long blade at ready, aware that with the crest (家紋 kamon) on his armour betraying his allegiances, he remained a target.

What he forgot was that in the grand scheme of things, a mouse wandering among the slain would be quite overlooked.
Even if he was the last living retainer of Shō No Kami on this blasted heath.
It had been a fierce battle. All the humans were dead.


鼠侠勇記

Thus begins a great manga adventure, featuring a heroic rodent seeking vengeance for the death of his liege during the Warring States Period (戰國時代 Sengoku Jidai).
It is a tale of gallantry, valour, and the very highest ideals a mouse can represent.

Characteristically, because it strives to appeal to readers among both genders, there is a bit of very innocent nudity: the mouse soon hooks up with a young girl (Tsuyuko), twixt whose soft bosoms he often sits while they travel the land.
The bosoms are significant as a theme, but not really ever actually shown. Their suggested presence peppers the pages just enough to keep a teenage boy fascinated. The girl to whom these items belong is fierce, yet modest.
Let us call her "the good woman of Kansai" (関西の淑女 Kinki No Musume), and take delight in the wordplay that the name allows us.

[In a further nod to the target audience of highschoolers - college-age adults - junior members of the office workforce, the hero Koenosama-kun calls Tsuyuko-chan either "imōto" (阿妹) or "kouhai" (後輩 'protégé', junior fellow disciple), whereas she defers to him as "Koshō-sama" ('lord Koshō') or "senpai" (先輩 'mentor', senior fellow disciple).
All this instead of the high-fallutin' and rather archaic polite language which the setting of the story would seem to require.]


No, I shall not tell you the name of the very nicely drawn fifty volume series of "Dai Nezumi-Kyo Yu Shoki" (大鼠侠勇書記), nor who the author is, or where it may be purchased.
For the very simple reason that, to the best of my knowledge, it has not been written yet.
But it should be.

I am clearly not the person to either write the story or illustrate it, unfortunately, and given how utterly minimal my knowledge of both the Japanese language and Japanese history is, trying to do so would be a Sisyphus-Arbeit of monumental proportions.
But I am thinking of sketching out some story-boards, just for the hell of it.
The idea of a mouse wearing mediaeval samurai armour, riding between the gentle swellings of a yukata-clad maiden, his head barely visible, sticking out of the garment where the cloth overlaps at the collar, is just too delightful not to give some form to.

Think of it as a literary hero-quest.


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