Chapter 1: Sahara

Sahara is a new series from Shibata Yusaku, the former assistant of Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece. The art style is clearly inspired by Oda’s. The first chapter opens with our main protagonists, he’s starving and purchases a modest’s amount of food. When he begins to drink his water, he sees in the corner of his eye, two children. They appear to be hungry and our protagonists gives them his food without question.

He overhears a conflict between a child and a adult man, that appears to have attempted to rip the child off. A psychical conflict results in the child dropping a flower in a beaker. Our protagonists quickly returns the flower. The child is disappointed that he or she couldn’t get a ride out of town. Our protagonist uses his samurai sword, to extend what appears like a vine whip, wrapping around the tail of the departing plane.

The child turns out to be a girl, surprising our main character. He inquire about her reason for traveling alone, she is apprehensive about sharing that information. While, they’re taking the airship is hijacked. Our protagonists informs the hijackers that his sword can’t really cut humans. The girls flower is taken by the head hijacker. He is excited about the potential to sell the flower for, “millions.” He also takes the ashes of the girls father.

He threatens to toss her father ashes from the airship, if she fails to answer his question regarding where she acquired the flower. She tells her captors that her father studied plant life, they don’t believe her, however. They plan on taking the girl, to help them search for more flowers. The main protagonists tells the captors that he doesn’t think that, “flowers don’t suit them.” The leader of the captors, orders his henchmen to “kill,” our protagonists.

He easily dispatches the henchmen easily and the leader takes the girl hostage. She bits him and escapes, recovering her fathers ashes and the flower. However, she falls out of the airship. Our hero jumps out of the airship to save her, grabbing her and turning his sword into a flower like bush that helps in their descent to the ground. The henchmen wait while the mechanic fixes the airship. When it is repaired, they abandoned the former hostages, to be killed by monsters.

The airship is destroyed by a, giant automated warrior. Our protagonists sword changes to a third shape, as he attacks the giant warrior alone. He dodges the attack, and slashes the leg of the warrior. The leg begins to crumble, a flowering tree beings to grow as well. With each attack, flowers sprout where he hit. Unable to defeat the giant warrior, he switches his sword to the “Flower Swords.” He uses “Form of the morning glory,” tripping the giant. He then quickly shifts to,”Form of the dandelion,” finally transitioning to “Form of the Cherry Blossom.”

A large cherry blossom tree sprouts, as the giant automated warrior is defeated. He introduces himself as Sanjuro Sahara and the girl introduces herself as Yae Tokiro. Yae and Sahara, decided that they will go on a journey together. Sahara makes a pledge to her promising to be her faithful guard. The inspiration with the art-style is clearly influenced by Oda.

I think this is a major plus, as I love great artwork in the manga I read. So far I like this series. It’s only one chapter, but the promise is there. It is interesting what types of enemies they’ll encounter. We already have seen the giant automated warrior, I wonder if he face a larger variety of enemies. The series is on it’s third chapter, you should begin reading this series, I recommend it.