Onimusha: Way of the Sword Is Getting an Official Prequel Webtoon With New Chapters Every Saturday

The entire Onimusha series takes place in an alternate version of Japan’s feudal era. In the game’s canon timeline, Way of the Sword picks up over two decades after the previous mainline release, Dawn of Dreams, bringing the world of Genma into the Edo period.

The companion webcomic, subtitled “Fated Rivalry,” picks up pretty soon before the main events of Way of the Sword. The story follows Miyamoto Musashi’s rival, Sasaki Ganryu, who discovers an Oni Gauntlet on his vengeance-driven quest to become powerful enough to take down Musashi.

The prequel is being produced by Laurel Pursuit, a US-based studio that’s previously distributed the Dungeon Crawler Carl graphic novel as well as original webcomics like Defiance of the Fall. The Onimusha webcomic specifically features work from Webtoon creators jjolee, hilluhri, and BAEKSSE.

The first chapter was released this past Saturday and has amassed just over 20,000 clicks so far. Future chapters will continue to become available on Saturdays, though it’s unclear how long the full prequel webcomic will end up being.

Here’s the full description of the comic, which is free to read with a Webtoon account:

This isn’t the first time Onimusha has extended beyond the gaming realm. A film based on the action series was pitched all the way back in the early 2000s, but was eventually canceled. What did eventually come to fruition was an anime adaptation, released on Netflix in 2023.

Most fans don’t consider that story canon to the games. The webcomic, in contrast, flows pretty much seamlessly into Way of the Sword while staying faithful to events from previous games in the series.