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USAGI YOJIMBO LETTERS COLUMN
Send comments to: Usagi Yojimbo ~ Letters Column c/o Dark Horse Comics
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[UsagiYojimbo Dojo]
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STORY NOTES The Heike gani or Heike crab (Heikea Japonica) has, on its carapace (shell), the image of a scowling human face. According to legend, these crabs are the ghosts of the Heike warriors who died during the sea battle at Dan-no-Ura (DH UY #14). These small crabs reach a maximum size of 1.2 inches (31 mm) across their backs. The rear two legs on each side are much smaller and claw-like for carrying objects. Their red coloration further reinforced their connection to the Heike clan whose banners were also red. There are actually two varieties of "face crabs" along Dan-no-Ura. I've drawn the smaller Heike gani, which are the spirits of the common warriors. The slightly larger, more ornate taisho gani (chieftain crab), or tatsugashira (dragon helmet), were animated by the ghosts of the clan leaders. The shell-images are not merely decorative but serve a specific purpose. They are the external grooves of support ridges, called apodemes, inside the carapace that are the sites where muscles are attached. These grooves occur in almost all species of crabs. There are other varieties of "face crabs" – the Kuei Lien Hsieh (ghost crabs) of China and the paradorippe granulata, a northwestern Pacific species, to name two. Research on the crabs came from: the periodical Terra, vol. 31, no. 4 (Los Angeles: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, September 1993), sent to me by Kay Nakamura; Kotto by Lafcadio Hearn (Rutland, VT/Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc., 1971) contains a chapter and drawings of these unusual crustaceans; and Japan Day by Day 1877-1883 by Edward Morse (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1945) has drawings and a brief history of the crabs. |
Honored Sakai-san,
Referring to your interview in Comics Journal #192, it is strange to see you compare your own work to Asterix; anthropomorphics or not, Usagi Yojimbo is much more closely related to Tokugawa-era Japan than Asterix is to its purported period.
Asterix is more or less a humor cartoon based on twentieth-century national stereotypes and how the French see them (rather harmless version of the French xenophobia). Spanish are gypsies, Britons are football fanatics who drink their five o'clock hot water, Germans are belligerent, Romans are like in the films of Fellini (plus bureaucracy), etc. That's not to say that they are not funny, though I am not the only one who things that Coscinny's death meant that the main driving force of the series was also gone. Uderzo is not as good a scripter.
As for the more accurate depiction of the same historic era (plus very minor fantasy aspects), I would recommend Alix by Jacques Martin. Unfortunately, I have no ides whether they are available in English. I doubt it.
As for the matter between color and black-and-white, I do like color, but secondary (if not tertiary) to the story. If you would choose to make a reprint of the Mirage issues in black-and-white, I would probably buy it anyway (assuming I have the money, of course). Personally, I would prefer the size similar to Fantagraphics' for purely selfish reasons; they'd fit together on my bookshelf…
Now, matters not concerning the interview; in historical Japan, kissing was a courtesan's special trick. This originally Roman custom spread to Japan by Westerners and, probably, by the Western customers of the courtesans. Further details can be found in Liza Dalby's book, Geisha; she also talks about the true prostitutes. This attitude has apparently been preserved. An American-born wife of a Japanese was seen kissing her husband, and the husband was accused of treating his wife as a cheap woman.
Strictly speaking, shuriken means a short, throwing blade, presumably used by ninja. The proper term for a throwing star is shaken. The mistake probably originates from the fact that the "art" of using both weapons is named shurikenjutsu and the fact that throwing stars are much more exotic than throwing blades, hence more eagerly used in ninja movies.
Vesa Lehtinen
Tampere, Finland
European albums are difficult to come by in the states, but Asterix was and still is the exception. It was my first introduction to European comics and still has a very special place in my heart.
Kissing was indeed a foreign custom, hence Usagi's further puzzlement when Chizu plants one on him. It was called seppun and was probably introduced by Portuguese traders.
According to my research, which is not definitive, the shuriken can be either a dart or throwing star. Its original shape was more like a knife used by monks and concealed under their robes. There are many shapes, such as the shiho (four-pronged), manji (swastika), bo (dart), and happo (eight-pronged, usually coated with poison).
Dear Stan and Jamie:
It's presumptuous to call myself "a long-time fan of UY," since it was only this year that I caught up with the bulk of the Fantagraphics stories and I've never read the Mirage issues. Yet, when I read the UY Color Special: Green Persimmon, I felt like one.
I have seen enough of the rabbit ronin to want more than just a good, rock ‘em-sock ‘em story such as this. Not that I don't like that in good measure, for I do, but, here, the persimmon-seeking assassins were a dull bunch most notable for their resemblance to folks I would gladly see return. However, these folks were not those folks; they were nameless, on the whole, and by page 24, they were all dead. Consequently, the real punch of the story came in the final three pages, first as the cat-samurai, Tomoe Ame, returned (an immensely appealing character), and then Tomoe and Usagi sat with the young Lord Noriyuki and solved the mystery of the eponymous Green Persimmon. (It was no less grand to see Noriyuki again, and I'd welcome a multi-parter set around the Geishu Provinces, perhaps dealing with court intrigue and a possible royal marriage. In the Europe of this time, marriages were alliances of nations as well as individuals. Was the same true for Japan?)
Before that, things were pleasant, lively, and fun; should all go well, folks who bought Green Persimmon on a whim will find themselves sufficiently intrigued to seek out earlier appearances of Usagi at his three publishers. I wish you that success, but to someone with a fairly good grounding the world of UY, it was an interval. It was a good interval, admittedly, which Tom Luth's astounding use of color made almost great; nevertheless, it remained a pause between meatier works.
Therefore, while I was happy to buy this and happier still to read it, I will be happiest of all when "Grasscutter" begins. Until then, thank you for your time, and keep the memorable baby talk ("Bleek yadda goot" gets me every time!).
Charles J. Sperling
Flushing, NY
I agree with your analysis of Green Persimmon. It was a rather superficial story but written to be that way. It was originally serialized in the Diamond Distributors' Previews catalogue, two pages a month for a year as a promotion to entice new readership. Every other page had to end with a cliffhanger, and the story had to be easy to follow even if you missed last month's installment. Also, the plot had to be recapped every so often, but not so blatantly as to be redundant when it was collected in a single book. So, you see why I chose not to do much complex plotting or characterization aside from Usagi.
The Art of Usagi Yojimbo [#1] was successful enough that Radio Comix asked to do a sequel. Ask for it in your comic-book store in January. It should have, among other things, an inside look at my studio.
January also begins my five-issue serialized story in Jeff Smith's Bone. It is written by Tom Sniegoski and features the Rat Creatures and a new character, Riblet.
And Dark Horse continues the UY trade-paperback collections with UY Book 9 – Daisho – out in February.
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"Usagi Yojimbo", including all prominent characters featured in the stories and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Stan Sakai and Usagi Studios. Usagi Yojimbo is a registered trademark of Stan Sakai. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric content, is coincidental.