The lord is in no way worthy of his men’s sacrifice.Ī foolish bet with a death-obsessed foreigner leaves Lord Odo with no choice but to order tea master Nobu to kill himself. This time it is a beautiful rock, on its way to a lord’s garden. Once again, Usagi intervenes in a bandit attack too late to save most of a procession’s guard, and once again he is convinced to help transport a precious item. Usagi must choose sides regrettably he is friends with both Chizu and Kitsune.…Īn amputee swordsman seeks out the bully who lopped his right hand off in a previous duel. The Thief and the Kunoichi, Part One, Two, & ThreeĪ document proving mercantile collusion becomes the object of contention between outcast ninja Chizu, charmingly greedy thief Kitsune, and a corrupt merchant. Usagi is drawn into a needlessly deadly rivalry between two soy sauce manufacturers. Nothing for it but for the ronin rabbit to join the quest! The attackers were not random highwaymen: the runners are transporting precious ice, with the honour of their clan on the line. Usagi arrives in time to save the last of a band of runners from massacre. What can one incredibly lethal samurai hope to do in the face of considerably less skilled swordsmen? He soon discovers that it has been invaded and occupied by a band of bandits. Seeking shelter from the endless rain - a running theme in this volume - Usagi finds his way to a small village. It’s up to Ishida and Usagi to solve the murders. When they wake in the morning, two of the guests are dead. The inn is filled with the usual colourful array of characters. This reminds me, I need to find time to track down and review Davis’ Baker Street.Īfter saving his old friend Inspector Ishida from bandits, Usagi, the inspector and the bandit leader they captured make their way to a nearby inn. Titles of the original books are rendered in all caps. The Usagi Yojimbo Saga, Volume Eight is available here (Amazon), here (Amazon.ca) and here (Chapters-Indigo). Still, mixed with the tragedies are moments comic or heartwarming. Peasants live on the edge of starvation, arrogant samurai fail to grasp the survivorship fallacy, and the ethic of honour above reason results in some very unreasonable results. This Edo-era Japan is one in which lamentable outcomes are all too likely. One might wonder, is there a subtext to the way in which Usagi’s consistent attempts to avoid violence fail, that despite his best intentions he is usually backed into a corner where it is kill or be killed? Perhaps the subtext is that in a context where errors generally result in death, it is very hard for people to learn from their mistakes. Just as sonnets differ, so do the Usagi stories. In most stories, we have:Īn attempt at figuring a non-violent way to solve the problem The Usagi stories resemble some strict poetic forms. The ice runners and the artistic rock escorts stories may have points of similarity, but they are different in that one lord is worth the sacrifices made while the other, eh, no. But repeated tropes don’t necessarily result in repetitive stories. Usagi has a rare talent for arriving just a little too late to save most of an entourage, as well as a knack for getting drawn into arduous quests where the honour of one clan or another is on the line. On the minus side… Sakai has some favorite tropes and uses them again and again. No surprise: he has decades of practice under his belt. Sakai is a master of conveying action and emotion with deceptively cartoonist art. (It seems that both sorts are more ubiquitous and violent than I had realized.) Usagi yojimbo omnibus plus#On the plus side, not only is this book value for money, but you could also use the dead-tree version as a weapon should bandits or ninjas attack. I know I keep mentioning that but we are talking serious tome here. If I do it the other way round, you might not last until the general comments. In fact, this tome is long enough I am going to start off with talking about the work, and then end with a brief incredibly long synopsis of the contents. On paper, it’s probably weighty enough to cause serious back pain when lifting the volume. At its centre is the masterless lapin samurai Miyamoto Usagi, who wanders through a slightly skewed version of Edo-era Japan.īecause I got this as an e‑arc, I failed to grasp how much of a tome Volume Eight is. The Usagi Yojimbo Saga, Volume Eight is an omnibus that collects books 29 through 31 of Stan Sakai’s eponymous series.
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