Lady Snowblood

is a Japanese manga series written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Kazuo Kamimura. It was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Playboy magazine from February 1972 to March 1973. The series revolves around the title character, a female assassin who seeks vengeance against the bandits who raped her mother and murdered both her father and older brother. Lady Snowblood was translated into English and published in four volumes by Dark Horse Comics between 2005 and 2006. The manga was adapted into a live-action film of the same name starring Meiko Kaji in 1973, which was followed by Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance in 1974. The manga and film adaptations have influenced a number of other works. Title The Japanese title Shurayuki-hime is a pun on . Additionally, shura nods to the Buddhist path of the asura, in which a devout follower is prepared to kill. The title was translated as Lady Snowblood because Asura is associated with the term shuraba "scene of a great battle" or "scene of carnage". Plot A band of four villainous criminals murder the husband and child of a woman whom they rape. The woman kills one of the bandits and is imprisoned without parole; she decides to seduce a guard to become pregnant, and has her daughter raised by a friend in order to avenge the family. The girl, Oyuki / Lady Snowblood, grows up and determines to set up crime boss Okono Kitahama so she will be convicted as a murderer. Kitahama's cohort Gishiro Tsukamoto discovers Oyuki's plan and uses her ally Miyanara as bait, but Oyuki defeats him. Another cohort, Hanzo Takemura, begs for Oyuki's forgiveness, but she slays him in a final act of vengeance.