Creative Staff:
Story: Kazuo Koike
Art: Goseki Kojima
Translation/Adaptation: Dana Lewis
What They Say:
The roads of feudal Japan are rife with brigands ready to separate travelers from their purses. For Ogami Itto and his infant son, the road is even more treacherous, as agents of the shogun and the assassins of the Yagyu Retsudo dog their every step. But each step on the bloody road brings the Lone Wolf and his Cub ever closer to Yagyu…and to vengeance.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
We return to Ogami Itto on his quest for revenge against the house of Yagyu. In the first story, “The Guns of Sakai,” Itto is faced against a new technology: the gun. The story is good foreshadowing to the future we all know is coming, which is that of modern firearms. Itto and his sword are not yet outdated, but they’re clearly getting there based on our knowledge of history. He spouts Shichirobei’s last words to the other gunsmiths, perhaps knowing that he, too, will soon be outdated. Perhaps in another act of foreshadowing, Koike ends the chapter with Itto making the new repeating gun that Shichirobei passed on to him. Itto knows that he’s going to be outdated and he’s taking measures to circumvent that. The chapter ends without us knowing what becomes of the gun they create, but it’s sure to come up again.
Perhaps what I like most about Lone Wolf and Cub is the villains. Itto is undoubtedly the good guy and does the just thing at every turn. But the people he faces, even the people he is hired by, do things of questionable nature. He justifies his own actions because they’re on the path to his revenge and because he is acting as a hand of the one who hires him. But in “The Guns of Sakai,” he encounters a gun maker who is trying to make a weapon of destruction into an art. In “Hunger Town,” he kills a ruthless leader that levies taxes onto his citizens so he can live in luxury. But it is those very citizens that Itto is hired by. Within four chapters, Itto comes out as both the villain and the hero and that line is never permanently drawn in the story. Itto does wrong and admits it. He does wrong fully knowing what he’s doing is wrong because he must do so out of honor; the pact between client and assassin is unbreakable.
The foresight by Koike always impresses me. He places the so-called “Chekov’s Gun” well in advance. The gun I mentioned before that Itto was making with his son comes up in chapter five of the third omnibus, four whole chapters later. It’s one thing for an ongoing story to use these kinds of foreshadowing, but the story he uses it in is completely unrelated to “The Guns of Sakai.” In “The Soldier is the Castle,” he’s fighting against the clan of Kurokuwa and annihilates them in two swift blows. One by fire, from Komei’s “Art of War,” and the second by the gun that Shichirobei invented. The planning not only by Itto the character, but by Koike is impressive. As John “Hannibal” Smith says, “I love it when a plan comes together.” And I do love it when I see the machinations Koike weaves come to fruition like this.
Quiet chapters like “One Stone Bridge” remind me, as the comic so often does, why I like it so much. In the aftermath of “The Soldier is the Castle,” Itto is gravely injured with third degree burns and, alone, Daigoro cares for him, trying to fish with little success. When a few kids say the river is theirs, Daigoro takes their beating. As we’ve seen in the past, not because he couldn’t take the kids. Daigoro is trying to save the fish, salvage what little food they have. A nobleman and woman pass by and help Itto and Daigoro by bringing a doctor to tend to Itto. But even then, Daigoro stands on his own. The nobleman says it best near the end of the chapter. He says, “Even with a doctor…even with US here…he doesn’t count on ANYONE. With his OWN hands…his OWN strength…he’s fighting for his father.” And time and time again, we have seen not only Daigoro caring for himself, but Itto teaching Daigoro to be self-sufficient. We know that the path Itto’s taken is one of bloodshed and one where he could die at any moment. Itto’s love for his son has always been subtle throughout the book, but this is another testament to his love. Itto knows he could die at any moment and he’s teaching his son to live, even after Itto perishes.
It is in “Dragnet”—a term for “a systematic search for someone or something, especially criminals or criminal activity,” according to Oxford Dictionaries online—that we finally inch every closer to Itto’s final goal: the Yagyu who framed him. The Ura-Yagyu (shadow Yagyu) need orders from the Yagyu proper, it seems, in order to enact a full on execution of Itto. To not raise suspicion of the Yagyu, they refuse any request to stop Itto. But the plan of the Dragnet is thought up. When Itto finds himself surrounded by dozens of police, he fights back. He says that they will only lose face if they kill Itto here and it will further implicate the Yagyu in his exile. The politicking here, not only on the part of the Yagyu but of Itto as well, is exceptionally brilliant. The complexities of how the Yagyu went about getting rid of Itto, which at this point is still slightly shrouded in mystery, and how they can’t act against him because that would implicate them are both so interesting and so true even now. The Japanese honor system, especially of the time, plays a huge role in it as well. An underling could, theoretically, go against the orders of the higher ups, but that would bring shame to not only the actor, but the actor’s family.
In “Cloud Dragon, Wind Tiger,” we get a glimpse into the Itto prior to being framed by the Yagyu. In it, he is much less of a disheveled man. His hair is tied up into chonmage and his attire is clearly of a higher cloth than what he wears in the present day of the story. From whence the story takes its name is a phrase that Itto says to his opponent, Makabe Shogen. It goes “the clouds make the dragon fly, the wind makes the tiger run.” Makabe, now going by the name Hozuki having lost his lord, is the wind that allows his lord to fly and the cloud that allows his lord to run. In short, the perfect retainer. Makabe serves as a rather perfect foil to Itto in terms of loyalty to his lord up to this point. Itto is a man of honor, for sure, but he’s done many acts to defy his lord up to this point; the biggest act against his lord being that he ran away from service. The circumstances surrounding Itto fleeing and (likely) disgracing his lord are stated enough to this point for us to know that he ought not have done something. Glimpses into Itto’s personal history are few and far between so far, but each is a gem of a story on its own. It calls back to I believe the final chapter of the first omnibus where Itto fought the street performer that hid in a box until he attacked. The comparison between the performer and Itto was absolutely perfect for what it was trying to do and the comparison between Makabe and Itto is absolutely perfect for contrasting the master-servant relationship that is so ingrained in the samurai culture.
We inch ever closer to the finale, long away in volume count (we’re on nine of 28 at the end of this third omnibus), but the plot, as they say, thickens. A lord by the name of Hotta is being targeted, as Itto himself, by the Yagyu. Hotta’s retainers meet upon Itto by chance and hire him to kill the assailants. Like in “Cloud Dragon, Wind Tiger,” Itto accepts no money for this job because it is so personal. The tidings of the geese, as they say, is when “Master Sobu of China’s ancient Han Dynasty, who, when taken prisoner by brigands, tied a message to the leg of a wild goose to warn his people.” Itto himself becomes the goose who will bring the tidings. In one swoop, he saves Lord Hotta from the Yagyu assailants (for now), kills some of the very people who are after him, and flushes out the Yagyu to an extent. As Itto says, the Yagyu work in the shadows and “embrace death, so that those who follow may complete the kill.” The Yagyu are ruthless, one man jumping over the other so the second may kill Itto. He sends two messages as the goose of the story: One, to Hotta that he is safe from the Yagyu. Two, to the Yagyu that he is still alive and seeking them out. Truly by chance, Itto stumbles upon the greatest of luck to complete his quest for revenge.
Itto is, truly, a man of justice. I’ve thought it many times, I’ve said it many times throughout this and the last review. And it is only strengthened with each passing chapter, especially “The Frozen Crane.” In one sentence, Itto explains his every motive, his every action to the audience. “A TRUE quest for revenge is not undertaken for PROFIT or FAME. All that matters is to silence the cry of your HEART! On the path of VENGEANCE…the MEANS do not matter! Only the END!” Every kill he’s undertaken, every innocent life he’s cut short, has been a mere stepping stone on his path to revenge. He’s gathered allies of sorts, he’s made a name for himself more than as a Kogi Kaishakunin. He is assassin, Lone Wolf and Cub. Itto has been dishonored and every man he dishonors matters not on his path. But he still holds respect and justice at his heart. He says to Tsuru—the woman who achieves vengeance of her own in the chapter and naively bribes Itto with 25 ryo—“Behold you namesake! Tsuru, the CRANE! In the heart of winter she folds one leg and buries her head beneath a wing, moving not a muscle. THAT’S what it means to survive on courage alone!” Itto is the crane, and he can be nothing else in this story, though Koike uses an insurmountable amount of metaphors to describe him.
In Summary:
I honestly am running out of ways to praise this comic. I wish my vocabulary was double or triple what it is just so I could do the book justice in my review. Despite my personal shortcomings, Lone Wolf and Cub is STILL one of, if not the, best manga I have ever read. Very few hold up to the quality that is the duo of Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima and I highly doubt any manga artist will. Personal tastes aside, just about anyone can find ONE STORY they like in this epic manga of samurai and revenge.
Content Grade: A+
Art Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: November 13th, 2013
MSRP: $19.99
