首斬り朝

Yamada Asaemon, nicknamed Kubikiri-Asa, or "Neck-Chopper Asa," tests swords and carries out executions for the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo-period Japan, a role based on a real historical line of shogunate sword-testers. Rather than one continuous plot, each chapter follows a different condemned prisoner Asaemon meets on the way to the execution ground, using their crimes and final hours to examine bushido, justice, and what the law demands of the people who enforce it. From the same creators as Lone Wolf and Cub, this manga is set earlier in the same world.