Azumi

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yū Koyama. It was serialized in Shogakukan's seinen manga magazine Big Comic Superior from 1994 to 2008, with its chapters collected in 48 tankōbon volumes. A sequel, titled AZUMI (Latin-script title in all caps), was serialized in the same magazine from 2008 to 2014, with its chapters collected in 14 tankōbon volumes. The story follows the title character, a young woman brought up as part of a team of assassins, charged with killing the warlords that threaten the uneasy peace in Feudal Japan in the aftermath of its long Sengoku civil war period. The series has been adapted into two feature films starring Aya Ueto (2003's Azumi and 2005's Azumi 2: Death or Love), and a video game and a stage play in 2005. Azumi received an Excellence Prize at the 1997 Japan Media Arts Festival and won the 43rd Shogakukan Manga Award in the general category in 1998. Plot Azumi focuses upon the life of the titular young female assassin. The manga begins an indeterminate number of years after the Battle of Sekigahara. As Azumi begins her duty, the manga introduces its characters into mainstream history. Many of the early missions that Azumi undertakes are the assassinations of the prominent supporters and generals of the Toyotomi clan, against whom Tokugawa Ieyasu expected to again go to war. The manga "reveals" that many of the Toyotomi leaders who conveniently died of diseases or accidents prior to the final confrontation between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa were actually victims of assassinations by Azumi and her comrades, thus indicating to the reader when the events were taking place.