Ogre Slayer (鬼切丸) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kei Kusunoki. It was published in Shogakukan's manga magazine Shōnen Sunday Zōkan (later Shōnen Sunday Super) from 1992 to 2001, with its chapters collected in 20 volumes. It was adapted into a four-episode original video animation (OVA) released from 1994 to 1995. Both the manga and anime were distributed in North America by Viz Media; only two volumes of the manga were released. Another series, titled The Legend of Onikirimaru, started in 2013. It takes place in the Sengoku era and features a different lead character

Synopsis

The series follows an unnamed young man (voiced by Takeshi Kusao in Japanese and Jason Gray-Stanford in English) who hunts ogres (oni (鬼)). The young man was born of an ogre's corpse, like the ogre born of human's body, making him pure ogre blood. Though he was born like an ogre, he has the appearance of a human. Instead of being born with horns like traditional Japanese ogres, he was born with a sword called Onikirimaru (鬼切丸), the Ogre Slayer.

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by Kei Kusunoki, Ogre Slayer was first published as a one-shot short story, which proved popular among readers, and eventually turned into a serial as Kusonoki drew more sequels, being published in Shogakukan's manga magazine Shōnen Sunday Zōkan (later Shōnen Sunday Super) from 1992 to 2001. Shogakukan released 20 volumes from February 18, 1992, to April 18, 2001. In North America, the manga was licensed by Viz Communications, publishing it on its Manga Vizion magazine, and releasing the first two volumes in 1997 and 1998, respectively.

Volumes

The Legend of Onikirimaru

Kusunoki published a one-shot, titled The Legend of Onikirimaru (鬼切丸伝), in Leed Publishing's Sengoku Bushō Retsuden on August 26, 2013, with a serialization planned for future issues; the serialization started on December 26 of that same year. Unlike its predecessor, it takes place in the Sengoku era, and features an entirely different lead character. The magazine published its final issue on June 27, 2016, and the series moved to Comic Ran Twins on September 13 of that same year. It was published in the magazine until June 13, 2018, and moved to the Pixiv Comics website in July of that same year. Leed Publishing released the first collected volume on September 30, 2014. As of April 23, 2024, 19 volumes have been released. Crunchyroll Manga started publishing the manga digitally in English in 2014. The service ended in December 2023.

Original video animation

A four-episode original video animation, produced by OB Planning, KSS, and Tokyo Broadcasting System, and animated by Pastel, was released from September 9, 1994, to July 21, 1995. In North America, Viz Video released the four episodes on two VHS (each containing two episodes) in October 1995 and February 1996.