Usagi Yojimbo

• Title: Usagi Yojimbo: The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy #1
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Stan Sakai
• Artist: Stan Sakai

IDW continues to collect old Usagi Yojimbo stories and release them in color for the first time. Usagi Yojimbo: The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy #1 offers the retelling of the first chapter of “The Dragon Bellow Conspiracy,” originally released in the late 1980s Fantagraphics Usagi Yojimbo run. Although Miyamoto Usagi does appear in the issue, as one of three separate weary travelers struggling through the rain (the other two being Gen and Zato-Ino), his entrance to the story comes rather late.

The story of Chapter One involves Lord Noriyuki sending Tomoe Ame to investigate the unusual activity of his neighbor Lord Tamakuro who seems to be stockpiling warriors and weapons for some unknown purpose. Tomoe confirms her lord’s suspicions by discovering rifles and gunpowder but is captured before she can report back (which is where our rabbit ronin steps into the tale).

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• Title: Usagi Yojimbo #20
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Stan Sakai
• Artist: Stan Sakai

Usagi Yojimbo #20 begins a new arc with the introduction of young swordmaster Yukichi Yamamoto who meets Miyamoto Usagi for the second time. The pair’s first meeting is shown in a flashback in which Yukichi retells the meeting where the young pupil was too slow to recognize Usagi’s skill with a blade denying a meeting for the rabbit ronin with Itsuki-Sensei. Now with his master dead, Yukichi travels to deliver Itsuki-Sensei‘s sword his nephew Daido.

The flashback meeting, which Usagi has long ago forgotten about, and hold no ill-will, but which still haunts Yukichi, offers an interesting way to pair the two together as something more than just simple companions on the road. It turns out Yukichi is thankful for Usagi’s company as some local marauders take interest in the two travelers (and aren’t too happy with being publicly rebuffed).

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• Title: Usagi Yojimbo: Wanderer’s Road #5
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Stan Sakai
• Artist: Stan Sakai

Reprinting the story from Usagi Yojimbo #11, “The Tea Cup” offers a team-up of Miyamoto Usagi and Murakami Gennosuke who the rabbit ronin runs into on the road. Gen has accepted a job to deliver a valuable tea cup, but there are those who don’t wish him make that delivery. With nothing else to do, Usagi decides to accompany his friend as the two fight and bicker along the way.

The story, reprinted in color, offers a good example of the Usagi/Gen dynamic. There’s plenty of action for the duo on the road, and they even decide to help a pair of lost orphans (and despite Gen’s objections he takes far more care with the pair than Usagi would have ever guessed). We also see Gen isn’t above taking advantage of his friend by using him as a decoy to make the escape (and making Usagi believe the cup was destroyed).

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• Title: Usagi Yojimbo #16
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Stan Sakai
• Artist: Stan Sakai

Usagi Yojimbo #16 offers the opening chapter of a new story of Miyamoto Usagi helping his old friend and teacher Sōjōbō, a dai-tengu, fight off lesser wood spirits known as guhin tengu who are jealous of Sōjōbō’s position and status and have returned to plague him once more.

As he does so often, and so well, writer/artist Stan Sakai weaves in an explanation of Japanese culture and folklore detailing the tengu and the different types, providing a background to the spirits while also offering flashbacks to Sōjōbō’s previous encounter with the guhin tengu which cost him a hand. He also draws some terrific reactions shots of Usagi talking with his friend that rank among some of my favorites.

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