“Let’s see Kenshin pull this off.”
Stan Sakai Builds Characters
Dark Horse Comics (June, 2015)
This is an anthology series featuring some of Sakai’s work for Dark Horse. It’s the fourth in a series of “Dark Horse Builds Characters” tributes to indie creators’ with numerous great stories under their belts. With five stories, three of which involves his most famous character of rabbit samurai Usagi Yojimbo, I’m just going to speed through these reviews.
Usagi Yojimbo #145 (reprint)
Or rather it’s an excerpt. Guessing that’s going to be the case all around the question from someone who has sadly not read many issues of Usagi Yojimbo is whether or not the chosen segment was a good choice to make a new reader curious. In this case Usagi runs into his thief friend Kitsune and her retainer, Kiyoko. Kitsune has grabbed some kind of scroll but the guards aren’t so easily tricked and give chase. Seeing Usagi with her they assume he’s part of the “gang” and attack him. Usagi tries to chase them off without killing them but one guard gives him no choice, the others finally scared off by his skills. Of course Kitsune and Kiyoko have already disappeared but I’m guessing the story’s not over as it ends with seeing them run. It’s not a spectacular cliffhanger. Maybe if one is already interested in this series they might want to check it out. I mostly know him from his appearances in various Ninja Turtle cartoons and that one unsold Space Usagi pilot, plus a couple of comics I’ve managed to get. So I’m curious what she’s up to as she may be a thief but she’s not necessarily a bad girl.
Usagi Yojimbo: Senso
Specifically this is from part 6, in which an older Usagi and friends deal with their take on “War Of The Worlds” as the Martians invade in tripod robots. In this excerpt Usagi tries to fight the giant Martian robot with a feudal Japan version of a Gundam…literally called “Usagi Gundam”. Yes, I would like to see that. The question is whether it’s still in print after all this time and the various times Sakai has taken Usagi elsewhere, returned to Dark Horse, and then gone again. It’s an odd little dance between these two.
Usagi Yojimbo Vol. 29:“Two Hundred Jinzo”
During his travels, Usagi comes upon a man setting up a stone statue (the “jinzo” of the title), but he runs off when Usagi approaches, while the rest of the nearby villagers cower in fear. Usagi rescues a girl from assault, and she turns out to be the daughter of the man, who tells Usagi that bounty hunters have claimed the village to recover from wounds and currently hold the town in fear. The statues are part of a dream he had to put out two hundred jinzo statues, and Usagi found him putting down the 199th. This is an interesting premise. It might be worth checking out but that’s where the story ends.
47 Ronin
Sakai drew this one but the story comes from Mike Richardson and comes from chapter 10 of the series. December 14, 1702 just outside of Edo, Japan. Our heroes are after the latest target, who killed their master. They have no problem killing their target’s men, but warn a nearby house that they only want the target and to stay out of it. That’s nice of them. There’s also a girl in the house but I don’t know what role she plays. This is the first time I’ve seen Sakai drawing humans and he does a good job, aided by some good coloring by Lovern Kindzerski. I’m rather curious about this one. Sakai didn’t write it but this was obviously chosen to show his ability to draw more than anthropomorphic critters. It is still a story set in Japan, so he still has a preference.
The Adventures Of Nilson Groundthumper
Our last character predates Usagi Yojimbo but it’s basically the same premise. Just trade feudal Japan for medieval Europe. Nilson’s even still a rabbit. In this story Nilson is searching for a magic well that will make him a great swordsman if he dips his hands in it. Lost due to a bad map, he comes across Hermy the mole and rescues him…then regrets it as he gets Nilson in trouble with monsters and then drinks all the water in the magic well. There is a solution…I’ll just say it’s a pee joke and move on. Yeah, I wasn’t a fan of this one. While technically the only story with a definite end…it’s not one I was into. It is interesting to see his pre-Usagi work and there are elements of Nilson’s journey that are reflected and refined with his samurai counterpart’s story but I can see why Miyamoto Usagi is popular and Nilson Groundthumper…isn’t.
Overall this is a rather good sampler. Most of the excerpts do make me interested in the larger series, and once that’s done even the one that isn’t as good an introduction would be more of a curiosity once I got to know the characters. The last story is a curiosity but you can see the early steps of the better stories he would make later in a different setting. It might still be better to look for the actual series than the sampler but it serves its purpose well enough.
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