Hanazamurai no Sahara

It´s hard to write a Review of Sahara the flower samurai mostly because is not your regular manga. Sahara it´s a manga that might really work as a anime movie screen play with a 170 pages long story that knows where it´s going since it´s first panel. Story-wise the plot centers on a post apocalyptic world similar to Trygun or Desert Punk where deserts cover the land. Our main heroin Yae is a young girl who wants to take her father ashes back to a legendary forest. A mysterious and easygoing man called Sahara will decide to help her in her journey. The storyis really fast-paced, something that we hardly ever see except when mangas are getting canceled, but when the author actually wanted it this way you can feel that there is something special about this manga. The Art is outstanding and is probably the best feature of this manga. The author being an assistant Eiichiro Oda and Kouhei Horikoshi you can tell that he knows how to design his characters. The strong point of this manga is the character design, from Sahara and Yae, to robots and the main antagonist. The dessert setting keeps the environment simple and clean while at the same time helps create an amazing contrast every time trees and flowers appear. The Characters on the other side are simple and somewhat cliché, but is probably for the best. In a short story highly character driven we need to know from the begginnig who are this characters and how will they interact with people. There is no time to growth or learning in this format so in my opinion keeping it simple is the best way to go. Sahara is your regular hero, easygoing, selfless, strong, a little clumsy. Yae is strong willed, a bit tsundere and admires the hero as most girls in shonen manga. In conclusion i really enjoyed Sahara the flower samurai, it´s not your every day manga. In a world where authors want their series to break the 500 issues a short story with a amazing art, clean storytelling and a satisfying ending can become a little gem or at least an enjoyable reading for all.