4.5 Razors

• Title: Usagi Yojimbo #12
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Stan Sakai
• Artist: Stan Sakai

Miyamoto Usagi is offered a chance to do harm to Lord Hikiji. The lord is far too well protected to ever attack directly, as Usagi knows all too well. Instead, Kato suggests they strike at Lord Hikiji’s power and weaken his reputation by denying him any further advancement. The cost? Every life in Usagi’s home village.

Kato’s plan is devious and brutal, to attack the shogun’s agent on his way to the city which will harm Hikiji’s reputation and also bring the shogun’s vengeance down on the village. Realizing how large the plot already is, Usagi pretends to go along with it for a time, acting as the samurai willing to do anything for his lord’s honor.

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• Title: Usagi Yojimbo #11
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Stan Sakai
• Artist: Stan Sakai

Usagi Yojimbo #11 kicks off a four-part tale of Miyamoto Usagi returning to the village he grew up. After being injured, Usagi drifts down river where he is found by the surprised Mariko, the love of his life, and nursed back to health. Mariko’s husband Kenichi is less pleased to see the return of his childhood rival (Sakai offers flashbacks of the misadventures of the three as children).

After thinking better of returning all the way home, fate has brought the rabbit ronin full circle despite his intentions of giving his village a wide berth. There is mention of Usagi and Mariko’s son as Usagi learns he has been sent to learn from the same master who instructed him, but Jotaro himself doesn’t make an appearance here.

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• Title: Usagi Yojimbo #10
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Stan Sakai
• Artist: Stan Sakai

Miyamoto Usagi‘s return to his native province offers nothing but pain in this single-issue tale named for the mon which Usagi wears so proudly. In a town under the control of Lord Hikiji, the crest of Lord Mifune is something to be scorned or attacked.

The only semi-friendly face Usagi finds in the town is a former foot soldier for Lord Mifune who long ago sold off his swords and became an inn keeper to those who bested their lord on the battlefield. Others, including a group of drunken warriors, are far less pleasant to the rabbit ronin picking a fight over both old grievances and the possibility of a reward for taking down one of Mifune’s best warriors.

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