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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:43:43 GMT -5
Introduction
USAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 23: BRIDGE OF TEARS
Stan Sakai is a ronin.
I’ve never met the man, and I know it’s a mistake to confuse artists and their work, but in the world of comics, a cartoonist who creates, owns, and controls his or her own characters is the closest thing we have to a masterless samurai.
(Which is not to diminish the steady hand of Dark Horse editor extraordinaire Diane Schutz, but I think she’d be the first to admit she’s anything but Stan’s “master.”)
Unlike those of us who’ve toiled away in the world of corporate-owned superheroes, Stan Sakai is beholden to no one except his own muse, freely roaming the creative landscape and taking his long-eared protagonist anywhere Stan’s imagination desires.
In reading some of the other introductions to past collections, I realize that just as Usagi Yojimbo has selflessly bettered the lives of countless characters over the years, so too has Stan enriched an untold number of writers, artists, filmmakers, and other devoted fans.
Stan shouldn’t be blamed for my own inferior work, but Usagi was profoundly influential on my writing, particularly with the Vertigo series I co-created with artist Pia Guarra, Y: The Last Man. I was impressed and inspired by Stan’s thorough and thoughtful research, the elegant way he introduced a massive supporting cast throughout a breathless cross-country journey, and the confidence with which he allowed his pictures to speak volumes, always saying so much with seemingly so little.
That said, I only wrote my humble little book for a mere sixty issues, a feat that nearly killed me. Stan has written and drawn and lettered (oh, the beauty of his calligraphy!) every single panel of his masterpiece for more than one hundred and sixty issues (with the hundredth Dark Horse installment included in this very collection).
Forget the oft-repeated and relatively meaningless fact that he’s somehow found the discipline to put out these issues on time every time - how about the fact that that the book has been consistently outstanding since its very first page? In an era when even the best television shows often become stale after just a few seasons, Stan has found a way to keep his serialized epic fresh for decades, always being brave enough to try new things while never being fickle enough to forget what made his story connect with so many readers across the world in the first place.
If you have never read Usagi Yojimbo before, any collection is a fine place to start (especially this one), thanks to Stan’s gift of writing instantly relatable characters into surprisingly accessible adventures. And just because Usagi features a talking bunny, don’t be fooled into thinking this is only a book for kids (although it’s one of the few comics out there that I’ll happily share with my young nephew). The stories are sophisticated, thrilling, hilarious, and heartbreaking, not in spite of the furry creatures, but because of them.
From Uncle Scrooge to Maus, comics have had a rich tradition of using anthropomorphic animals to escort us into unfamiliar worlds, and Usagi Yojimbo has taken this gaijin to places in feudal Japan that more traditional guides never could. Rabbits and bats and rhinos transcend race and creed and nationality, and allow us to experience stories, perhaps counterintuitively, on a purely human level.
Usagi Yojimbo is as sharp, skilled, and good-hearted as its hero, and as honorable as its creator.
May they never find masters.
Brian K. Vaughan
(February 2009)
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:44:11 GMT -5
Introduction
USAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 24: RETURN OF THE BLACK SOUL
Twenty-six years ago, a rabbit in samurai costume entered a lonely hut seeking shelter from a blizzard, announced, “I am called Miyamoto Usagi” - and began one of the most remarkable sustained narratives in the history of the comics.
Although his name comes from the warrior-hero Miyamoto Musashi, Usagi is a fusion of Japanese and American elements, from Akira Kurosawa and George Stevens to Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Will Eisner. Stan Sakai took the title for his comic from Kurosawa’s classic Yojimbo. A ronin (masterless samurai), Usagi began as a bodyguard-for-hire, but he quickly turned into a wanderer, following the musha shugyo (warrior’s path) to perfect his spiritual and martial skills.
Usagi owes as much to Alan Ladd in Shane as he does to Toshio Mifune in Yojimbo or Sanjuro. He’s the stranger who wanderes into town, rights a wrong, tosses out a tin-horn bully, solves a mystery, and maybe breaks a heart. The townspeople, a feudal lord, or a beautiful girl ask Usagi to stay, but he moves on. He may long for a peaceful, settled life, but the backroads and byways are his only real home.
Stan set Usagi Yojimbo in a country that resembles Japan in the early seventeenth century, shortly after the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate ended an era of civil wars. His careful research helps to bring his imaginary world to life. The buildings, tools, weapons, and costumes evoke the early Edo era, giving Usagi a believable stage for his adventures.
Usagi has a more complex personality than the standard comic book hero. An honorable and highly disciplined practitioner of bushido, the warrior’s code, he despises bullies.He’ll help anyone in trouble, and his propensity for sticking his nose in other’s business often lands him in trouble. His mischievous sense of humor balances his volatile temper. Usagi prefers not to kill, but when he’s forced to unsheathe his weapon, his consummate swordsmanship (“swordsrabbitship”?) enables him to dispatch enemies swiftly and decisively, leaving one of Stan’s delightfully weird skulls floating over the victim’s body.
The adventures in this collection focus on Jei, the demon who believes he’s a divine emissary of justice. Usagi destroyed the previous form of this murderous foe with the Kusanagi, the sacred sword of the sun-goddess Amaterasu, in Book 12, Grasscutter. But Jei requires a lot of killing. Taking possession of one body after another, he spreads death and terror wherever he appears. Stan leavens these dark tales with impish humor. Jei’s name is a pun: when the standard Japanese honorific -san is appended, it becomes “Jei-san” or “Jason,” the villion from the Friday XIII horror movies. And like Jason, Jei will be back.
Demons often appear in Japanese folktales. So do tengu (forest goblins) and kappa (water demons), whom Usagi has also fought. The more the reader knows about these traditions, the more he can appreciate the richness of Stan’s narrative. The supernatural attack of the monstrous spider in “The Doors” (Book 22, Tomoe’s Story) is a great ghost story. But it’s also an evocation of Yoshitoshi’s faous print “Minamoto no Yorimitsu Striking at the Ground Spider” and of the kabuki plays that feature spider-monsters.
The “Doors” works as both a straightforward tale and a modern retelling of a classic fable highlights Stan’s greatest skills: he’s a storyteller par excellence and a master of the comic book form. The crisp, calligraphic drawings and immaculately lettered words in Usagi Yojimbo present those stories more powerfully than words or images could alone. I was introduced to Stan and his work several years ago by our mutual friend, comics packager Lee Nordling. I’ve been a fan ever since, and continue to admire the apparently effortless way Stan fuses words and pictures into a seamless, timeless tale. Happily, the story continues, taking Usagi and the reader to new adventures that lie beyond the next bend in the road.
During the past twenty-six years, Usagi has survived countless sword fights, pitched battles, attacks by Jei and other monsters - and the equally violent ups and downs of the American comic book industry. Yet readership for the series has never flagged. Gen-X fans who enjoyed Usagi Yojimbo as teenagers have begun passing old, dog-eared books on to their kids, creating a second generation of readers.
Not bad for a rabbit who came in from the cold.
Charles Solomon
(2010)
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:44:33 GMT -5
My Journey with Usagi Yojimbo
USAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 25: FOX HUNT
Several years ago (I honestly don’t remember how many years), I found myself on an exciting journey. An unexpected trek that provided adventure, danger, treachery, and even romance. Of course, it wasn’t my journey. I was only a tagalong trying hard to keep up. I’ll have to admit, the surroundings and countryside were not exactly familiar. Then again, this was not my homeland nor was it my time. In spite of this, I quickened my pace. It was too intriguing, and I knew there was a good deal I would learn along the way. After all, how often does one get to accompany a samurai warrior on his travels?
Naturally, I was delighted to share these remarkable adventures. And it was an opportunity afforded me by a gifted artist and storyteller named Stan Sakai. I’m guessing you’re already well aware of the samurai warrior, Usagi Yojimbo. However, if you’re not acquainted with this unique character, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. Like the master storytellers of comic book art, Stan Sakai breathes life into his animal characters and they become much more. They’re not human, of course. They don’t need to be. Stan’s characters are real.
The integrity of Stan’s storytelling is matched only by his art. Respectful of his medium, Stan crafts it all by hand. In an age of computers and digital shortcuts, every image on the page is meticulously penciled, inked, and drawn by the artist. Even the lettering is rendered by hand. As one who has lettered comics in years past, I’m well aware of the discipline and skill required.
Another unexpected plus of Usagi Yojimbo is color - or, rather, the lack of it. While most comics stories rely on their graphics, Stan Sakai proves that a colorful story can be effectively told in black-and-white. Actually, once you’ve delved into a Usagi Yojimbo story, you’re hardly aware the story is being told without color. Like the masters of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Stan can be likened to cinematographers such as James Wong Howe or Gregg Toland for his mastery of the black-and-white medium. Finally, the stories have a visual richness. The Japanese patterns and textures that adorn the pages of Usagi are not purchased visual aids. Rather, they spring from the pencil, brush, and pen of a dedicated artist. Call it “old school,” if you will, but it represents the vision of an artist who will not compromise.
Finally, there is Stan Sakai the consummate storyteller, with remarkable ability to engage the reader. As we follow the samurai on his adventures, Stan breathes life into his cast of unique characters. Like all of us, his characters are not immune from human frailty. They can be arrogant, vindictive, and selfish. Yet, others demonstrate courage, sacrifice, and honor. Through it all, Usagi Yojimbo remains pretty much unchanged. Consistent with his samurai oath, he’s the one constant in the series.
Of course, it gets even better. Our little group of cartoonists and writers happens to be lucky enough to join Stan Sakai for lunch each Friday. How many readers have this kind of access to the author? Should I have a Usagi question for Stan, he’s usually sitting right next to me. How cool is that? Naturally, my questions are few. A consummate storyteller, Stan rarely is required to explain his stories.
All right, you’ve probably heard too much from me. It’s time to discover Usagi Yojimbo for yourself. If you’re a devoted reader of the series, you already know what I mean. If you’re new to Usagi, I envy you because your journey is about to begin.
Floyd Norman
(2011)
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:46:27 GMT -5
The Sound of One Pen DrawingUSAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 26: TRAITORS OF THE EARTHStan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo has been my favorite comic book, like…. forever. It’s the one comic I have read regularly for years. But be warned. I haven’t memorized it; I would fail a Usagi Yojimbo trivial pursuit contest. I don’t have that much unused memory storage left anyways. But I have read this book, since the beginning, for all the right reasons. Regularly, like clockwork, it brings me the unalloyed joy of reading a well-told, well-drawn story, about characters I have come to care about. For me, that’s the highest praise I can give any comic book. In some ways, I am transported back to the comics of my youth when I read the adventures of Usagi. Stan eschews bombast, the use of elaborate panel layouts, black gutters, or artwork extended beyond the edge of the page and trimmed. Any given issue is liable to contain thought balloons and sound effects. He fashions his stories using all the classic tools that comic books have used for years. In other words, Stan fills his comic book, every month, with straightforward storytelling that is by turns lyrical, direct, subtle, engaging, funny, and occasionally tragic. Stan’s art, in every sense, is always at the service of his story. I keep a copy of a quotation taped on the bookshelf to my right in my studio. It is there to remind me, lest I forget, of the nature of the business in which I engage, both as an artist and as a storyteller. It is a quote from C.S. Lewis, from his book The Great Divorse: “Every poet and musician and artist, but for grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him,” I do not work thinking that the Eye of God is looking over my shoulder and prodding me to do His will, or anything else for that matter. I fervently hope He has more important things to worry about. Mostly, I try to keep in mind the old quotation, sometimes erroneously ascribed to the Bible, that “God helps those who help themselves.” For me, the meaning of Lewis’s quotation is that I do not want to be caught and seduced by the cleverness of my own storytelling. I want whatever words and pictures I put down on paper to be at the service of my story. I will do things sometimes that are less than straightforward, but always with the thought that I am trying to make my story better. Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo is the complete exemplar of that idea. Stan never wastes a panel; he never throws away a moment or a word balloon, and his stories are fashioned with craft, care, devotion, and a deep respect for history. With every issue, Stan creates a comic that is a story for an audience of every age, in the best sense of that expression. Perhaps that is why these books transport me back to the days of my youth. That was when I read the stories of another writer/artist about whose work I feel the same way: a Mr. Cal Barks, purveyor of duck stories for about a quarter-century. The biography of the masterless ronin, Usagi Yojimbo, continues. I invite the reader to join me, and accompany Usagi on his marvelous journey. Walter Simonson (January 2012) 
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:48:08 GMT -5
IntroductionUSAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 27: A TOWN CALLED HELLI can’t tell you how pleasantly surprised I was when Diana Schutz rang me up on my new IPhone 5 - Time Magazine’s gadget of the year by the way - and asked if I would be interested in writing an introduction to Stan’s latest collection. First off, I was saddened to hear that Stan had left Marvel - Disney must have found someone cheaper to put on his soapbox - but I was glad Mike Richardson had given him a chance to work at Dark Horse. Diana quickly pointed out that it was the other Stan - Stan Sakai - and would I still be interested in doing an introduction to his latest collection? I think my robust laugh let her know I knew who she was talking about, and again I expressed how saddened I was that Fantagraphics had let Stan go, but glad that Mike Richardson had given him a chance to work at Dark Horse. That being said, and given the long list of luminaries who have been put to task writing introductions for Stan’s Usagi Yojimbo volumes, I wondered why Diana would have thought of me. So I asked, and she said that she wanted a philosophic bent, but Jean-Paul Sarte, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche were not returning her calls, and I was fourth on the list. I was flattered, to say the least, for although I have never read any of those fellows’ comics, I know people who have, and I knew I was in good company. Diana said she would need five hundred words, give or take, and I was a bit reluctant at first, given the recent difficulty I had even coming up with a combination of eight letters, numbers, or symbols for my eBay account, but this was for Stan Sakai - and, besides, I am considered Iowa’s reigning poet lariat. So, for inspiration, I trotted over to my Jewel-Osco, where I do my best thinking (in your region, it might be a Winn-Dixie, Piggly Wiggley, Albertson’s…. well, I better stop there before you get the idea I am padding out my word count - I think you get the idea), and began looking for inspiration as well as the evening’s menu. There was so much to choose from, but so little with real taste or nutritional substance. Sure, Count Chocula is pretty cool and turns your milk into chocolate milk, but then so do Coco Puffs. Frosted Flakes are great, but Honey Nut Cheerios are, too, and they are supposed to help lower cholesterol. And then it hit me. Usagi Yojimbo is like the greatest breakfast cereal in the world!!!!!!!! And, unlike many of the other cereals you find in your comics store, or comics you find in your cereal store - er, comics store - Usagi Yojimbo is not only great, but it helps lower cholesterol… well, not cholesterol, but it does something for your heart, and for your mind, to boot. How often can you say that about a comic book - or anything, for that matter? It is a heart-friendly brain food that makes you feel good about yourself whenever you eat it. I mean, read it. And if you are reading this volume of Usagi yojimbo for the first time… brother or sister, are you lucky, because there are twenty-six volumes before this one, and by the time you finish reading this one, or all of them, you’ll feel good about yourself, about comics, and about the choices that led you to buy these awesome (I only used the word “awesome” because I wanted to include some vernacular kids could relate to) books to begin with, because it means you care about great art, great story, and great nutrition….. I hope that’s five hundred words, If it is, then that’s awesome! Geof Darrow (2013)  P.S. I drew Zato-Ino the Blind Swordspig, because I love the character and his movie counterpart Zatoichi so much, and I love Stan so much, and I am very selfish and wanted to have one of my drawings in his awesome books. Sorry. Is that five hundred words?
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:48:42 GMT -5
Introduction
USAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 28: RED SCORPION
As a kid, I listened with bated breath to the exploits of the Lone Ranger on our radio. I was captivated by the adventures of good guys who fought for the underdog.
When I was a preteen, I went to the movies and saw Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood. It was fantastic. I was transported to Sherwood Forest and the swashbuckling derring-do of Robin Hood. He took from the rich and gave to the poor. And I loved the sword fights up and down the castle stairs.
As a teenager, I had an absolutely unforgettable experience at the movies. I saw Yojimbo by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. It was mind-blowing. A ragged, flea-bitten, lone samuraiwith no master, a “ronin,” roams the countryside fighting to bring justice to the downtrodden. He risks his life for no payment, no glory - only for his code of honor as a samurai. And he is a terrific swordsman. He can wipe out a couple dozen enemy samurai in one spectacular, bloody combat.
In 2011, the Japanese American National Museum, of which I am Chairman Emeritus and a Trustee, put on an exhibit of Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo. It was a retrospective of the twenty-five-year scope of his graphic novel series about a “ronin,” a vagabond samurai just like the one played by the incomparable Toshio Mifune in the movie Yojimbo - but, of all things, in the form of a rabbit! A “ronin” rabbit in a world inhabited by comic anthropomorphic animals. What a deliciously whimsical notion. It was a world I had never heard of. Where had I been for twenty-five years? Usagi Yojimbo was enthrallingly engaging. Since my boyhood, the demands of life and career had drawn me away from my love of fantasy heroes. The Stan Sakai exhibit took me back to a fantastical place that was yet so familiar.
The hero is a rabbit samurai dressed in well worn “hakama” pantaloons and swords, with his ears gathered up on his head like a “chonmage,” the samurai topknot. He has a strong sense of decency and empathy for the common people - a rabbit Lone Ranger. And he is a magnificent swordsman. Every frame of Stan Sakai’s fight scenes captures with ferocious cinematic rhythm the rabbit samurai’s amazing swordsmanship.
The villains are equally fully developed animal baddies. They are as powerful as hippos and as devious as foxes can be. They are as dangerious as wolves. They are shysters and gangsters. They are human animals in an imaginatively detailed universe. And the exploits of our rabbit “Yojimbo” are all watched by cute little lizards and observant newts. There are witnesses.
This, however, is not mere whimsy. Stan Sakai places our rabbit in the authentic world of seventeenth-century feudal Japan. The details of culture and history are finely researched. Every frame has the look and smell of reality. This specificity of detail in customs and time transforms our rabbit into a very human animal. He becomes the hero that we all would like to be, whether we live in Buenos Aires or Berlin, Osaka or Omaha. Usagi Yojimbo becomes as timeless and as mythic as the lone good guy roaming the Wild West or Sherwood Forest, coming to the aid of the oppressed. The “ronin” rabbit’s stories become universal.
Congratulations, Stan, on your thirtieth anniversary! Usagi Yojimbo transports me at once to a fantastical world and to my long-ago boyhood.
George Takei
(2014)
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:49:04 GMT -5
Time and Timeless Again!
USAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 29: TWO HUNDRED JIZO
It seems only yesterday that Stan reached the milestone of two hundred issues with Usagi Yojimbo, a feat that most artists can only dream of through a variety of deadlines and titles over the years - let alone accomplish singlehanded with a character of their own creation! But Stan did it and continues to do it with effortless imagination issue after issue. And after 144 Dark Horse issues (the last six collected in this volume), at first I found myself worrying what more could I say that others hadn’t already written about, and more eloquently. It’s pretty much all been said, with everyone in agreement about Stan’s amazing stories and his ability to draw many different situations - and, of course, to draw them in a way that keeps the reader captivated.
But after reading the latest issue (and enjoying the hell out of it as always), I was finally struck by something we almost take for granted: that the series consistently hits a high mark with each issue, right from the start. Sure, Stan’s refined his art over the years, and the characters have grown - artwork evolves, and characters will take on a life of their own - but very few comics series stand the test of time. (And, believe me, having done a bunch of comics in the ‘80s, I can tell ya that standing the test of time is hard and rare!)
Credit for that longevity, of course, all goes to Stan, a storytelling sensei who brings an endless variety of stories to life from his imagination and onto the page, and, with crafted pacing, keeps you turning those pages for more. Variety that, in this volume alone, includes murder mysteries - with the return of Inspector Ishida - and tales of intrigue, from ice-running to the making of shoyu. Stan knows storytelling, and he has a big catalog of stories to tell.
Which is one of the reasons Usagi is an easy choice when I’m asked to recommend comics to artists who want to learn sequential art. To me it’s not about flashy layouts or word balloons around a pinup, it’s about world building and character creation, storytelling and the flow of action from panel to panel - done in a way that moves the story and keeps the reader’s eye invested. If you’re an artist, there’s a lot to learn from Stan, and the lessons are right there on the page.
So here we are, over two hundred issues and twenty-nine collections later, and I think it’s safe to say that catalog of stories will continue to grow, with no ending in sight. I can’t imagine an ending to Usagi, even if Stan has one in mind. To me it seems there is always another Usagi story that must need to be told, and I’m sure we’ll look back another hundred issues later and say the same thing. If there is one thing Stan and Usagi have proven over the years, it’s that his ronin rabbit in feudal Japan is timeless.
Guy Davis
(2015)
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:49:28 GMT -5
Introduction
USAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 30: THIEVES AND SPIES
Here in Pasadena, California, Miyamoto Usagi is legendary. The samurai rabbit has been around longer than his young fans. And his creator, the understated Stan Sakai with his impish grin, magically appears at community festivals, attracting fans like a high-powered magnet pulling in flacks of iron. The young ones finger an Usagi figurine, looking up at their parents with hopeful expectation. And, of course, the parents cannot resist because they want the figurine as much as their children do.
I’m not quite sure when I entered the Usagi Yojimbo fold. But when I perused my personal library, I found the first book that I purchased in the 1980s. It’s autographed with Stan’s signature Usagi drawing. Just that is worth the price of the whole issue.
Reading the story lines in this volume, I’m reminded of how Stan can embrace equally a sense of kawaii and the slashing of a bloodcurdling killing. It’s a curious combination that works due to Stan’s storytelling abilities. Just like Dickens and Shakespeare, characters abound. A pompous foreign aristocrat, the honorable tea master, the woman ninja. The mayhem is peppered with humor, making the journey all the more enjoyable.
Miyamoto Usagi is much like us, at least how we are and how we hope to be - goofy and unsteady at times, but when it comes down to a moral injustice, he steps forward with his sword, courageous.
There’s a lot of violence resulting from the action in these particular stories. The skulls of death haunt many a scene. That’s the everyday reality of a ronin, a masterless samurai. It doesn’t matter that our hero has two very long white ears tied together on top of his head.
A new generation of graphic novelists (such as Yumi Sakugawa) also use animals to tell very human stories. While these storytellers’ aims may be different from Stan’s, the animals in both situations seem to be able to transport me beyond this material world. I adopted a Jack Russell two years ago, my first pet as an adult. Living with another species in the house has caused me to be in a state of wonder. “Tell me what you’re thinking.” I say to the dog, Tulo, as he cocks his ears.
Luckily, in the world of Usagi Yojimbo, we know exactly what the animals are thinking and sometimes scheming. My favorite tales are the ones in which Usagi represents the interests of the underdog, like the loyal vassel Yoshi in “The Distant Mountain.” Yoshi is committed to his mission, no matter how nonsensical it seems. Usagi respects Yoshi’s devotopn to duty, and when it seems unappreciated by Yoshi’s master, Usagi makes sure to get the last laugh.
I hope there is a Usagi hiding in the shadows of my life. I imagine him watching over the innocent and identifying the black hearts of evildoers. The next time I’m walking Tulo at night and we encounter trouble, I hope he transforms into a samurai warrior, ready to take appropriate action.
Naomi Hirahara
(2016)
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 2, 2021 13:49:51 GMT -5
Introduction
USAGI YOJIMBO BOOK 31: THE HELL SCREEN
Great stories transcend their medium. Reading a wonderful novel, you forget that you’re flipping through pages and deciphering little characters on a printed page. Watching a terrific movie, you become immersed in the images that are playing across the screen; you become part of that world, the adventure, and the romance. Listening to someone spin a ghost story sitting around a campfire, you feel the hair prick up on the back of your neck and you start looking worriedly over your shoulder.
Great comics - like the comics you’ll find in this collection - transcend the medium, too. As you read these stories, you’ll forget that your eyes are moving from panel to panel. You’ll forget that you are processing images and word balloons. You’ll feel like you’re part of something… bigger.
To me, the stories in this collection feel like ancient parables and classic fables. Sure, when I sit down to read a new issue of Usagi Yojimbo, I know Stan Sakai wrote and drew the tale relatively recently. Soon enough. I get lost in the telling of the tale, and it feels like I’m reading something that should have been inked on crumbling scrolls, something detailing the lives of samurai and bandits and peasants - and a rabbit ronin. These stories feel like they are part of a much larger tapestry of myth and legend. These are folktales that have lessons and morals to teach.
Part of that is because of Stan’s love and reverence for the history and legends of Japan, from which he draws inspiration for every chapter in this epic. But Stan’s astounding ability as a storyteller is not to be underestimated. There are nods to time-lost legends. There are bits and pieces that will teach you something about how people lived in feudal Japan, the struggles they faced, the hardships, but also the simple beauty and soul in every panel of every page, and he doesn’t shy away from the emotional roller coaster, either. The first story in this collection is sweet and heartwarming. The next delves into some dark places. There’s humor and sadness, and fear and joy, all right here, waiting to lure you into the story, to make you part of it, to make you forget you’re reading a comic at all.
That’s an amazing feat for a storyteller. After decades, after hundreds of issues, Stan Sakai still has fresh, exciting, expressive tales to tell, all of them starring a sword-wielding rabbit who is - like the reader, like Stan himself - part of a world that just feels… bigger.
Since I was tapped to write these words, I’ve wondered many times: why me? Probably because this collection has plenty of creepy-crawlies and ghastly myths; maybe because some of the chapters cover the Hell Screen, and I seem to write a lot of stories with “hell” in the title. I don’t guess it matters. I’ve been following the storied of Usagi Yojimbo for many, many years. I don’t know that I’ve ever said this to Stan, but I consider him to be a huge influence and inspiration. These days, I also consider him a friend, so to write these few words is an honor, to say the least.
Cullen Bunn
(2017)
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 3, 2021 1:05:11 GMT -5
IntroductionUsagi Yojimbo Book 32: MysteriesWhen I was first asked to provide the voice of Miyamoto Usagi for the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, I got cold feet. For many people around the globe, the character represented samurai. They started reading Usagi when they were young, and they grew up with him thoughout the years, so Usagi’s life was their alternate samurai life. Surely, voicing him would be a pretty daunting task for anybody. But, to mu own surprise, my biggest fear was concerning aa completely different reason, disappointing the creator, Stan Sakai-san, a Japanese American cartoonist icon. If I failed to represent Usagi properly, I failed him, thus wasting the biggest opportunity to contribute to showing the world an authentic samurai figure. This was my biggest anxiety and fear. Ever since I came to the United States many years ago to pursue acting, I constantly held myself responsible for overseeing everything that has to do with Japanese culture while on-set. Sometimes it was the way the Japanese military saluted throughout history. Sometimes it was the way Japanese newspapers or signs were displayed. In a very limited amount of time, I had to research everything possible on-set in order to correct mistakes out of the fear of letting the world see Japanese culture misrepresented. Eighteen years of this tiring work wore me out very much. But then, if you look at Stan-sensei, he’s been doing it for over thirty years … and moreover, quite successfully! HOW?! THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE! To me, he’s not just a master storyteller, but a master Japanese culture researcher. When I first opened an issue of Usagi Yojimbo, the first thing I noticed was the level of research in the details: The shapes of kasa (hats), what people were wearing, what they carried, what toys kids were playing with, etc. Many people probably saw them just as background detail, but to me they showed the determination of the creator to portray Japanese culture as truthfully as possible. And it was done in a subtle way so readers could immerse themselves in a realistic world instead of being distracted by those details. When you look at the pictures, you don’t see everything drawn in the details, but you can definitely hear people shouting in the crowded streets; you can smell the food that the vendors are selling: and when Kitsune performs and the townsfolks gasp, you can imagine how they spend their daily lives just by looking at their kimono. I was completely mystified by the fact that someone was able to accomplish such a feat. But soon, my wonder faded - NOT because the book became less impressive, but because I stopped thinking about it being a man-made world. I found myself walking on the unpaved road with Usagi, listening to the sound of the breeze. Once Usagi settled into a seedy inn and started to eat his soggy rice, I cautiously looked around every corner of the panel to make sure there was no danger around him. I trembled whenever I heard Jei’s haunting voice, and felt sorry for the plight of whomever was unlucky enough to share a roof with him. I laughed and laughed listening to Usagi and Gen talking. I was simply there. Like a skilled Neko ninja, the creator had vanished. Voicing Miyamoto Usagi has taught me many things, but the biggest takeaway was being assured that good storytelling has no bounderies. It doesn’t matter where the reader or the audience are from. As long as you succeed in creating a realistic world, people of any culture can submerge themselves into that world, and laugh, cry, and live. Yoki Matsuzaki (2018) 
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 3, 2021 1:50:54 GMT -5
Todai Moto Kurashi
Usagi Yojimbo Book 33: The Hidden
Of the many things I admire about Stan Sakai, rating up there at the very top is his ability to so nimbly navigate so many different fictional genres.
That skill is a major reason why Usagi Yojimbo has remained so enjoyable - so relevant- for so long. Stan has never allowed his defining series to grow stale. My admiration for how carefully he has constructed Usagi’s world is boundless. He has fashioned characters and a time and place which allowed him to take his stories and ambitions in different directions - historical adventure, political intrigue, war, science fiction, fantasy - Usagi Yojimbo has been a very elastic premise that Stan has artfully deployed to many ends.
The Hidden is a detective story, and what with the high body count and degree of corruption, I’s say it qualifies as hard-boiled. I mean that in the classic sense - there’s a brutal precision and lack of sentimentality that goes straight back to Dashiell Hammett. Most importantlt, though, it’s about character. That makes it a genre story with a purpose, and from beginning to end the story belongs to Inspector Ishida. Stan makes the bold choice to regulate Usagi to a secondary role, having his usual alpha serve as the reader’s surrogate, an outsider like us, to whom must be explained police procedure (including Ishida’s sometimes unorthodox investigative techniques), as well as the complicated relationships of various cultures living under the Shogunate. Usagi does get to go all Yojimbo when needed, serving as Ishida’s strong-arm man, but it is the inspector who is the story’s driving force and its emotional center. He has become a fascinating personality (and I would love to see more stories centered on him!).
That Stan can present all this story’s historical and plot-specific information in a compelling manner is a testament to his mastery of the comic medium. The very nature of a detective drama told within the static panels of a comic poses a problem: how do you make all the repetitiveness of all the necessary verbal interactions visually interesting? It would be easy to succumb to a staccato gallery of talking heads. But Stan understands rhythm and flow, he is a maestro at manipulating the time and space implied in our two-dimensional, image-progressive medium. Stan has absorbed and transformed any number of influences, but I particularly see that of Harvey Kurtzman and Roy Crane here. The storytelling is always inventive and propulsive - every panel, every scene gives detailed information, throwing the story forward. That’s real artistry.
Ultimately, Stan has taken his tale, set in a very specific time in the history of feudal Japan, and quietly reminded us that its underpinnings of culture and class divide, state-sanctified corruption and persecution fueled by fear of the “other,” is not bound to that time and place. The persecuted, under another set of conditions, can easily become the persecutors. Power and the status quo shift, and only the individual who sees past prejudices and futile resistance to change gives us hope of finding a better way.
The Hidden is certainly entertaining, but it’s more than that. It’s genre storytelling at its best.
Mark Schultz
(2019)
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Post by usagigoya on Mar 4, 2021 1:29:28 GMT -5
Introduction
Usagi Yojimbo Book 34: Bunraku and Other Stories
The first time I met Stan Sakai was in Tokyo. Actually, that isn’t true: we first met online. The occasion was an email conversation about Yokai - monsters from Japanese folklore, a topic in which both Stan and I share a deep and abiding interest. And even that isn’t isn’t quite true, for you could say that I first “met” Stan growing up reading Usagi Yojimbo as a comic-obsessed kid in the Eighties.
Stan’s characters, art, and historically-infused storylines leapt out from a marketplace that was, at the time, saturated with imitative anthropomorphic animal-hero fare. That Usagi Yojimbo has endured and thrived is a testament to the richness of the world Stan created. When I finally met him in person many years later in Tokyo, I played the role of interpreter as Stan discussed his work with local manga artists. In spite of the growing popularity of manga and anime abroad, many Japanese creators still struggle to appeal to foreign audiences. They were fascinated by how Stan channeled their nation’s folklore and traditions into comics that Americans so thoroughly enjoyed. I learned a great deal from those discussions: the universality of good storytelling and compelling drama and complex heroes, and the power of art to bridge linguistic and cultural gulfs.
The setting of the very first episode in this volume involves a Bunraku puppet theater, Several years ago, I had the pleasure and the great honor of being invited to the studio of a puppet craftsman in Osaka. Today most think of Japan as a land of high tech, of electronics and video games and semiconductors, but here in the cozy confines of the master’s workspace the clock might as well have stopped in Usagi Miyamoto’s antique era.
There wasn’t a single electric tool in sight. The master’s low benches - he worked cross-legged on the tatami-mat floor - were covered with an astonishing array of gouges, knives, and chisels. When he told me many were more than a century old, I recalled an old Japanese superstition about old tools reanimating as Yokai once they reached 99 years of age. If it was going to happen anywhere, I thought, it would happen here.
Over the next few hours he demonstrated the process of creating a puppet. How he would, over many weeks, painstakingly whittle a block of wood with nimble fingers, seeking the human face dwelling deep within as though by instinct. But the carving was only the start. For this was no statuary: his creations needed to emote.
Next, he revealed the workings behind a puppet’s visage: levers made of iron pins, joints made of leather, springs fashioned from ancient whale baleen harvested by his ancestors and carefully stored for use by successive generations. These ingenious mechanisms bestowed upon a blank mask the ability to lift eyebrows, turn eyes, open and close mouths. From these “organs” (as I began thinking of them, for it was hard to consider this level of handiwork as inorganic) ran a series of strings, a nervous system of twine strung through the “skeleton” of its internal frame, linking them to what might be called its “brain” - the duo of puppeteers who would control its movements with an elaborate series of poles, pulleys, and switches, efforts synchronized over many decades of apprenticeship and practice to function as one.
This system, honed over many centuries, allowed experienced puppeteers to evoke from their charges everything from the dynamic action of a swashbuckling sword-battle down to the coquettish wag of a single fingertip. Or, should the scene call for it, trigger hidden quick-change mechanisms to transform the face of a beautiful maiden into a fearsome fox-demoness. As the master demonstrated one of these for me, I found myself thinking Is this why Japan, and not some other nation, devised so many morphin’ heroes and transforming robots and evolving monsters? It was as though those networks of threads hidden within the dolls represented the network of connections between times of old and the modern day.
Which brings me back to Stan. The way he breathes life into his pages is, it seems to me, not unlike the way the master puppet-craftsman breathes life into his blocks of wood. The way he excites us with his pen and paper reminds me of how the puppeteers stir our souls by manipulating figures made of wood and cloth. And the way in which he revitalizes folklore and history with his storytelling makes antiquity feel so relevant, just as the best scenes in the ancient dramatic arts possess the power to move audiences even in the modern day. There is something incredibly fitting about setting an episode of Usagi Yojimbo within the walls of a Bunraku theater. Within his pages Stan is both puppet-maker and puppetmaster, and the world is all the richer for it. May Usagi Miyamoto dance across his stage for many more years to come!
Matt Alt
(2019)
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