This is only the third of these threads I've started, and the issue title on the Dark Horse website has been wrong twice. And I'm leery of the publication date, too. The previous issue was supposedly published in September 2006, and this one in November. Does that mean Stan missed a month? I think it's wiser to doubt Dark Horse's info.

Anyway, grim battle issue where Jei more than holds her own against Gen and Stray Dog. She leaves them alive which, as later issues show, can be worse for a character.

2 issues in a row with duels in the rain, yet both are compelling and different enough that I really don't mind. Only shows perhaps they both take place around the same time or place possibly? I do imagine torrential rains with sword fights is a Japanese tradition, just as much as cowboy gunfights at high noon here in the USA. A real visual delight seeing Gen and Stray Dog double teaming upon the demon Jei possessed Inazuma. While the boys managed to stay alive I am not sure you can say they held their own.

Something Stan has managed to do with Usagi is craft such an incredible cast beyond the title character. You don't miss having our long eared Ronin for an issue spotlighting the amazing denizens when they are so rich in their own right. It feels natural that these other characters interact, mingle or go on adventures together just as in true life we ourselves find people coming and going through our own lives, popping up in unexpected places or finding them on a similar path intersecting ours.