shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 7, 2016 9:36:48 GMT -5
Reading Senso got me wondering again about how many years Usagi has been wandering since the Battle of Adachi Plain. Obviously, characters like Lord Noriyuki and Jotoro give us a basic idea that it can't have been all that many years, as neither have reached adulthood yet.
One methodology I'm considering for determining this is to count the number of winters that pass across all the Usagi stories. I don't know that Stan himself would approve of this method, as winter tends to happen either to service the plot or to establish a tone, but it seems like an idea worth considering. The problem would remain, though, that we have no idea how much time transpired between Adachi Plain and the first Usagi story, and it's also risky to guess how much time passed across the Albedo and Critters stories before Usagi vol. 1 #1.
So does anyone have any other thoughts/clues to help answer this question?
If not, I'll probably start counting winters tonight.
|
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 7, 2016 10:19:23 GMT -5
I suspect that there isn't really a time... I imagine you could go through the stories and find several years passing, between travelling time and the like. I'm interested to see what you come up with, though!
Perhaps a semi-official time line is in order?
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 8, 2016 22:03:16 GMT -5
Okay, let's try this.
So, in Usagi's first appearance, he notes that The Battle of Adachi Plain was "so many years ago," so that obscures things a tad. But if we want to measure (approximately) how many years Usagi has been travelling since Albedo #2, here's my attempt to do so by chronicling the number of winters that are clearly visible in the Usagi stories:
Winter #1: "Usagi Yojimbo," Albedo #2 (November 1984)
Winter #2 "The Tower," Usagi Yojimbo v.1 #7 (March 1988)
Winter #3: "The Lizard's Tale," Usagi Yojimbo v.2 #6 (January 1994)
Note: "Lightening Strikes Twice," Usagi Yojimbo v.3 #6 (October 1996) includes a winter, but this occurs in flashback
That takes us through Saga vol. 1. I'll work on this more tomorrow.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 9, 2016 20:47:44 GMT -5
Note: "The Withered Field," Usagi Yojimbo #7 (November 1996) features the onset of autumn Winter #4: "A Promise in the Snow," Usagi Yojimbo v.3 #8 (December 1996) "The Conspiracy of Eight," Usagi Yojimbo v.3 #9 (January 1997) Note: "Three Seasons," Usagi Yojimbo v.3 #49 (June 2001) includes a winter, but this occurs in flashback Note: "Vendetta," Usagi Yojimbo v.3 #53 (December 2001) is the onset of autumn and occurs almost exactly a year after "The Withered Field," Usagi Yojimbo #7 (November 1996) Note: "Images from a Winter's Day," Usagi Yojimbo v.3 #55 (February 2002) indicates that it has been seven months since winter Note: "Ice Runners," Usagi Yojimbo v.3 #142 (November 2011) takes place during the summer. In summary, this approach was working for a while. A year in Usagi's world was taking 2-6 years in his, but there should be a winter somewhere around 2002, as this is six years after the last winter, as well as a year after autumn was clearly depicted in v.3 #53 and 54. There should probably be another one around 2008 so that it makes sense for it to be summer in November of 2011 (v.3 #142). Granted, we've been shown numerous times (most clearly in "Three Seasons, v.3 #49) that Stan isn't showing us anywhere near all of Usagi's adventures. We skip over a lot. It's also possible that there were stories set during the Winter in 2002 and 2008, but that it was not snowing at the time. I would have to do a much more detailed search to examine the weather conditions of each Usagi story ever. I was just looking for snow  So, assuming there were two Winters we missed (a third should be coming soon -- remember we lost a few years to Stan's sabbatical after v.3 #144), there have been six winters (and, thus, six years) since the winter depicted in Albedo #2.
|
|
|
|
Post by lobsterjohnson on Feb 9, 2016 21:32:18 GMT -5
I think in #148 ("The One-Armed Swordsman"), a few seasons are skipped over (the first part of the story takes place several seasons before the other. I don't know if there is a winter in there or not, though.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 9, 2016 21:56:14 GMT -5
I think in #148 ("The One-Armed Swordsman"), a few seasons are skipped over (the first part of the story takes place several seasons before the other. I don't know if there is a winter in there or not, though. That's the next issue on my "To Read" pile, so I'll let you know tomorrow |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 11, 2016 21:03:46 GMT -5
Update: As lobsterjohnson had indicated, Usagi #148 begins with a flashback to Autumn and ends in the present moment, which is Spring. This, of course, suggests that a winter has recently passed, confirming my estimation that one was just about due. So really, the only leap of faith my timeline takes as of this point is that there was a winter we didn't see in 2002 and 2008. |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 15, 2019 10:49:07 GMT -5
I can't wait to resume this timeline once the next Saga edition ships! Has anyone who has been reading the floppies noticed any winters over the past three years of publication?
|
|
|
|
Post by usagigoya on Feb 24, 2019 9:21:00 GMT -5
Do you have a copy of the original Usagi Yojimbo Role Playing game from Goldrush? They included a pretty detailed timeline in it.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 24, 2019 10:05:10 GMT -5
Do you have a copy of the original Usagi Yojimbo Role Playing game from Goldrush? They included a pretty detailed timeline in it. I've yet to own a copy. I'd be curious to see if it correlates with this. |
|
|
|
Post by jabba359 on Feb 24, 2019 19:19:19 GMT -5
I can't wait to resume this timeline once the next Saga edition ships! Has anyone who has been reading the floppies noticed any winters over the past three years of publication? So book 30: Thieves and Spies ends with Usagi hurrying off to not be caught in a storm, with an epilogue "days later" with it raining. Book 31: The Hell Screen picks up with it Usagi in a rainstorm (I assume part of the same rainstorm the previous book leaves off on) and the rainstorm runs the first two stories. The third one begins with "Three months later..." (which is a quick job), then an Inspector Ishida team-up, and the final story of the book is the end of the rainy season, so I assume only 3 months or so have passed from the end of book 30 to the end of 31. Normally the rainy season lasts mid-June to the end of July, so this must have been a particularly rainy year (Usagi's comments lead me to believe it's rainier than normal). Book 32 starts with Usagi musing "I will reach the city soon, I should drop in on Inspector Ishida...unless he's sick of seeing me so soon after that mystery of the Hell Screen." So book 32 takes place very soon after book 31. All of book 32 and book 33 are with Inspector Ishida and take place over a relatively short amount of time. So the short answer is "no," no winters over the last three years. I'd guess 4 months or less have passed over the last 3 years. |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Feb 24, 2019 19:23:39 GMT -5
I can't wait to resume this timeline once the next Saga edition ships! Has anyone who has been reading the floppies noticed any winters over the past three years of publication? So book 30: Thieves and Spies ends with Usagi hurrying off to not be caught in a storm, with an epilogue "days later" with it raining. Book 31: The Hell Screen picks up with it Usagi in a rainstorm (I assume part of the same rainstorm the previous book leaves off on) and the rainstorm runs the first two stories. The third one begins with "Three months later..." (which is a quick job), then an Inspector Ishida team-up, and the final story of the book is the end of the rainy season, so I assume only 3 months or so have passed from the end of book 30 to the end of 31. Normally the rainy season lasts mid-June to the end of July, so this must have been a particularly rainy year (Usagi's comments lead me to believe it's rainier than normal). Book 32 starts with Usagi musing "I will reach the city soon, I should drop in on Inspector Ishida...unless he's sick of seeing me so soon after that mystery of the Hell Screen." So book 32 takes place very soon after book 31. All of book 32 and book 33 are with Inspector Ishida and take place over a relatively short amount of time. So the short answer is "no," no winters over the last three years. I'd guess 4 months or less have passed over the last 3 years. This is excellent. Thank you!! |
|
|
|
Post by maichan on Jan 5, 2020 2:42:17 GMT -5
This subject has been weighing on my mind for some time now, and I've posted about it on the Dojo forum as well as on Facebook:
|
|
|
|
Post by strangelyshapedhorse on Sept 20, 2020 19:19:41 GMT -5
At the start of the series, it's been 2 years since Adachi plains and he spent 3 years in Mifune's service, Usagi says it to Gen in volume 2. This matches with volume 1 where Usagi and Mariko talk about how it's been five years since they've seen each other.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,353
|
Post by shaxper on Sept 20, 2020 19:45:28 GMT -5
At the start of the series, it's been 2 years since Adachi plains and he spent 3 years in Mifune's service, Usagi says it to Gen in volume 2. This matches with volume 1 where Usagi and Mariko talk about how it's been five years since they've seen each other. This is fantastic. Thank you! |
|
