"White Star Rising"
Space Usagi #1-3 (Nov 1993 - March 1994)
Reprinted in Space Usagi
Colors by Mary Woodring



Summary:

Chapter 1: At the captured White Star stronghold, young Ch'Yoko is plagued by dreams of the death of her mother Ryoko. Lord Niro recognizes these dreams as the emergence of her psychic powers. Meanwhile a Neko Ninja breaks into the Mino Imperial Palace on Gifu to steal the military codes to White Star Castle from Lord Kiyoshi's mind. Failing in his mission, he dies and his body dissolves.

Miyamoto Usagi has traveled to another world and an arena dome to find Rhogen in the arena facing off against a giant slug. He kills the creature and has Dr. Takenoko tractor them out to a ship piloted by Tomoe. Rhogen is the only person who has ever successfully snuck into White Star Castle. He had done so as a smuggler and lost his horn to a battle with Usagi. They hire him to lead them into White Star Castle, using the plans programmed into S.P.O.T. 2000 (Synthetic Prototype of Organic Tokage-saurus) as a guide.

Chapter 2: Along the way, they stop at Gadget World to pick up some supplies from Iyorga. These include a smaller craft with a glider that can sneak into the castle. However, Iyorga sells the group out and alerts Niro of their plans.

At White Star Castle, Toady relays a message to Niro that Empress Amateh summons him for a progress report. Once the codes are found, White Star Castle has the power to be a mobile offensive weapon.

Usagi, Rhogen, Tomoe, and SPOT make their way into the castle. They make their way through the sewers, encountering a sewer toad and other oddities. Meanwhile, Ch'yoko finally understands her dreams: her mother had sent her the codes telepathically.

Chapter 3: Kiyoshi and Admiral Oyako lead a Mino fleet to retake White Star Castle. Niro has broken the castle codes. SPOT works to purge all data from the system before Niro can access it. Along with a prototype Samuroid, Usagi and Tomoe fight off Kajitori soldiers.

Using the codes SPOT transmitted, Dr. Takenoko is able to take control of White Star's defenses and turn it against the Kajitori fleet. Niro and Usagi get in a swordfight. Usagi loses, but Tomoe saves his life, dying herself in battle with Niro. An enraged Usagi kills Niro.

The White Star Castle retaken, there is time to mourn for Tomoe.



Thoughts: When we left off with the previous miniseries a little over a year earlier, White Star Castle had fallen to the Kajitori, but Miyamoto Usagi had helped the young lord, Kiyoshi, escape. The psychic Ryoko had stolen the codes to unlock the Shirohoshi military secrets from Kiyoshi's mind, but her ship exploded before she could reveal them to Niro. Kiyoshi went on to marry Princess Masayo of the Mino Clan to seal an alliance.

While the last miniseries ended with much left unresolved, this series basically takes care of it. It ends with White Star Castle retaken. There is rebuilding to do, but Kiyoshi now sits on his rightful seat as lord.

This story opens with the story of the kameyama, the giant space turtles. It's a pretty awesome story, worth the price of admission in and of itself. In a couple pages, Stan builds the story of these creatures, from biology to mythology, complete with insightful commentary on religion. It's quite a feat. Equally impressive is the smooth transition from the story of these creatures to the story of how spaceships are built from their husk, to a flashback of the destruction of such a spaceship, taking us to our first glimpse of present events at White Star Castle, through the dreams of Ch'yoko. A masterful few pages of storytelling.

The world where Usagi goes to meet Rhogen has a very Star Wars feel, moreso than much of this series. Some of the basic look and feel of the place must be intentional homage to Mos Eisley. The basic plot certainly seems to match. Our hero picks up a known scoundrel and smuggler he believes can help him. The parallel is furthered when Usagi looks upon the ship Rhogen has secured and thinks it's a piece of junk. Heck, even the sewer creature has a Star Wars feel.

This is an excellent story. Mostly pretty straightforward action spectacle, but oh what spectacle. Plenty of tension as a battle is waged on three fronts: the fleet in space, Usagi's group's battles aboard the castle, and Niro's struggle to learn the codes. It all comes down to the wire.

The battle between Niro and Usagi is excellent. In many ways, it is a departure from Stan's normal very clean style. Stan puts much more detail than usual into his characters' faces, to include the growing bruises and sweat and flashes of rage.

Within this heated struggle, there is time for character and emotion. Usagi and Tomoe manage to sneak a kiss before an oncoming storm of soldiers. This adds just enough impact to the death of Tomoe at Niro's hands, and the final scene at her funeral.

Did the spelling of Tomoe's name change? In the first miniseries, she called herself Tomoeh.

"The lizard's tale"
Usagi Yojimbo #6 (January, 1994)
Expanded from "One night in the cold" from Critters #23
Reprinted in Usagi Yojimbo Book 8: Shades of Death
Colors by Tom Luth



Summary: One night in the cold, several tokage lizards seek warmth by Usagi's fire. Usagi awakens and tries to slip away, but steps on a tail, drawing the ire of all the lizards. He offers food as a peace offering and makes more friends than he knows what to do with. They follow him everywhere, much to his chagrin. He tricks them in order to ditch them, but comes to appreciate them when they save him from bandits.

Thoughts: The first two pages of this story are from Critters #23. This issue would seem to place the story into continuity at this point in Usagi's history. The story can't help but remind you of Spot. It was originally published around the time Spot was traveling with Zato Ino, and of course now is shown to be set well after Spot's death. The difference has some effect.

For the most part, the goal is humor. I don't think many fans were clamoring to know what happened to all the lizards Usagi spent that night with, at least not enough that wanted another 18 pages for resolution. And it's effectively achieved. A simple tale, but one with a certain charm. Particularly in the personalities of the lizards.

Notably, this issue contains no dialogue. It is not a silent issue as there are plenty of "eep"s and the occasional "ow". But no dialogue. I believe that is a first for Usagi Yojimbo. Like Jizo before it, this demonstrates Sakai's ability to adapt and excel in different story formats.

Final thoughts on Usagi Yojimbo Book 8: Shades of Death

While a fine book, this is the lowest point in the Usagi series thus far. There is nothing in this book as memorable or exciting as the first 7. Even the ones with flaws like Book 1 had several excellent or memorable stories to recommend them.

This has some great stories, notably Jizo and Shi. And Jizo and The Lizard's Tale allowed for some formatting experimentation. And Stan's writing and art is always impeccable. But there are no memorable stories in particular, nothing that truly stands out amongst the many great tales of Miyamoto Usagi. Probably the most noteworthy thing is in a backup story, the first meeting of Usagi and Mifune.

All in all, this makes a rough new beginning and suggests the Mirage series will not live up to the standards of the Fantagraphics series. We will see to what extent that proves true and to what extent this short-lived series redeems itself over the coming stories.

My ranking of stories in this volume:
Shi (A-)
Jizo (B+)
Battlefield (B+)
Shades of Green (B+)
The Lizard's Tale (B)
Usagi's Garden (B)
Autumn (B-)

The first volume in which I gave no story higher than an A-

I've got a book in my hand called Daisho. This contains issues 7-14 of the Mirage series and will be the source of my next 6 reviews I am guessing.

I think my intention is to combine Daisho and Mongrels into a single review as they are hard to separate.

Long before starting this thread, I had read Shaxper's reviews of Usagi. These were reviews of the collections, and he reviewed each collection. Here I am reviewing each story, but also giving some final thoughts on each collection. This collection got a terrible review from shaxper. I on the other hand am generally favorable toward it. At least in my recollection. I reserve judgment until I finish the reread. When I get to the final thoughts on this collection, maybe I'll have come around to shaxper's POV, or maybe we'll have to fight.

But first, we'll go story by story and see what we think. First is the Music of Heaven, which I recall very fondly as one of the great single issue stories. So unless this reread massively shifts my viewpoint on a story I remember quite clearly as having a beautiful ending, disagreement will already start to be seeping in.

Not sure if I'll get to that review tonight or not. It is getting late. Definitely this weekend, though.

I suppose this makes sense here as well as anywhere else, I regret to say that Stan Sakai's wife Sharon passed away today. I'm not religious so I don't pray, but my thoughts go out Stan and his family.

That sucks. I follow him on Facebook and his posts about his wife have been incredibly sad. I was amazed he was able to continue to work through this terrible year he had. Hopefully he can go through 2015 without any major personal loss.