Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked – Perhaps they have actually become kamui
One of the few licensed titles Grasshopper Manufacture has developed is Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked, a hack-and-slash game published by Bandai in 2006. As a budget title for an established property, the creative freedom of all parties involved was limited. Even so, Suda and Ooka, along with Sagara Nobuhiko, a Grasshopper employee, wrote an original scenario that occurs partway through the Samurai Champloo TV series. For those unfamiliar, the show follows an amoral thief named Mugen, a ronin named Jin, and a former waitress named Fuu, who travel an anachronistic version of Edo-period Japan.
A few hallmarks of the Kill the Past titles are present in Sidetracked. This includes multiple simultaneous storylines the player can switch between. One stars Jin, one stars Mugen, and a secret third scenario stars the original character Tsurumaki Worso. There is no Uehara Kamui, but the story does involve kamuy (usually spelled “kamui” in the English subtitles), and Worso is a Kamui analogue.
Seeking free room and board, Jin, Mugen, and Fuu end up Ezo, a historical region that included what is now Hokkaido. There they have a series of adventures that involve killing hundreds and hundreds of suicidally fanatical identical hit sponges. Derived from a two-part episode of the anime series called “Idling Your Life Away: Lullabies of the Lost,” the conflict relates to the colonization of Hokkaido, incorporating a version of the historical Matsumae clan involved in establishing Japanese control of Hokkaido under the Tokugawa. There is a war between them and the Ainu Tsurumaki clan, shamans whose “old blood” enables them to use kamuy-related powers. However, Europeans under the leadership of Lord Antonioni, the “red-eyed, blue-haired aristocrats,” ally themselves with the Matsumae and later usurp them in a quest to finish the conquest and claim Ezo for themselves.
The two key Tsurumaki characters are their leader, the young Worso, and his sister, Nochiyu, who possesses a strong connection to the kamuy. Another important Ainu character is Rei the Invincible. The “truth” of Rei as a kook in the chapter “Waiting to Pounce: Lousy Liar” gives way to the “facts” of his role as the stern leader of the White Tengu insurgency against the Matsumae.