Dark Horse Comics Usagi Yojimbo #11         The Lord of Owls, and The First Tenet  March 1997 (Click on the thumbnails to view full size cover art)

USAGI YOJIMBO LETTERS COLUMN
Send comments to: Usagi Yojimbo ~ Letters Column c/o Dark Horse Comics
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UsagiYojimbo Dojo: http://heart.engr.csulb.edu/~tbustill/usagi.html

Dear Jamie S. and Stan:

As I delve into the earlier exploits of the rabbit ronin, I can see consistent themes and threads, and Stan Sakai has done ghost stories before. "A Promise in the Snow" made me think of "Kappa," in which Usagi honored a promise to a mother about a son...but no sooner had I thought that thought than I thought another.

Namely, comparisons are odious and odorous. How did "A Promise in the Snow" stand up on its own?

The answer was: pretty well. The enemy wasn't a mythological creature but the harsh environment; the appeal of Fumiye was a double-edged one, for while Usagi made (and kept!) the promise, she helped him to do so (or so it seemed). We were aware of a larger world in the references to Gen (love that rhino, by the by, and hope he'll be in "Grasscutter") and the wild tokagé…whey even Kinu and her husband, with their concern for fuel and Ryuzo's sponging, gave evidence of greater concerns than a cucumber-loving creature. Above all, there was a real drama: we didn't know that Usagi would make it, and his arrival on page 22 was a collapse, not a victory march.

Beyond that, we had the adorable Fumiye, the servant whose "courage [was] greater than his abilities," the swordplay with the lizards, and the neatly delayed revelation of Fumiye's death. Put everything together, and there will always be room for another ghost story as good as "A Promise in the Snow."

Charles J. Sperling
Flushing, NY

Dear Stan,

I am enjoying these single-issue stories very much, but am anxious to see another "epic" like the one beginning in ["Grasscutter", Vol. 3] #13, which will really showcase Mr. Sakai's storytelling and pacing expertise. Epics also give us an opportunity to see Usagi grow and develop as the story progresses.

Two observations about this issue:

(1) "A wild band of tokagé" – I don't recall seeing this phenomenon previously! These creatures are usually helpful, or at least docile. Do the tokagé have any basis in Japanese history or are they purely a product of the writer's fancy?

(2) What is the bag hanging over Usagi's head as he awakens near the end of the story? It appears to be related to his recovery, but I can't tell if it's medicinal or spiritual in nature.

Rocky Parsons
73112.512@CompuServe.com

1) There was a band of killer tokagé controlled by a trainer in the first part of "Gen's Story" (UY Book 7 [and UY Vol. 1, #34]). Other than that, they've been pretty passive. The ones that attacked Usagi were desperate with starvation. The lizards are just a figment of the writer's imagination, though they do serve a purpose in the ecosystem. With few exceptions, rats, cats, and dogs are "people" in Usagi's world, so the tokagé serve as the system's scavengers and pets.

2) The bag contains various medicinal herbs. If you're interested in that stuff, Chinese Folk Medicine by Heinrich Wallnofer and Anna Von Rottauscher is a good book for the layman (did you know that skunk bugbane was used to relieve headaches?).

Fan Art by Clayton Hollifield

Dear Stan,

Since UY is inspired by Miyamoto Musashi, are any of the other characters based on Muso Gonnusuke, the only (known) man to best Musashi in a challenge?

Jeff Alexander
Arlington, VA
jbalex@ix.netcom.com

Usagi has not met his world's version of Muso. And, while it's true that Musashi conceded defeat, Muso had never claimed victory. In fact, even after Muso had established his own style and reputation, the spearman had always claimed it was Musashi who was the victor.