Dark Horse Comics Usagi Yojimbo #34 The Mystery of the Demon Mask, Chapter 1 December 1999 (Click on the thumbnails to view full size cover art)

USAGI YOJIMBO LETTERS COLUMN
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I will be a guest at the Fanimé Con at the Westin Hotel in Santa Clara, CA on February 25-27. If you're interested in animé or manga, come down. Other than that, I usually drop in to Gary's Corner Bookstore in San Gabriel, CA on Fridays for my weekly funnybook fix. STORY NOTES In Japan, the board game go is attributed to the Chinese Emperor Shun (2255-2206 B.C.). Legend has it that it was invented to strengthen the weak mind of his son Shang Kiun. It was brought to the Japanese Islands around the year 735 A.D. with the return of the envoy Kibi Daijin. It became a game for the warrior class, and by the thirteenth century it was played by the greatest generals to the meanest foot soldiers. Boards were carried on campaigns, and when the day's fighting was done the soldiers would retire to fight another type of battle. All three of the great generals, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu Tokugawa were devotees of go. Private and state-endorsed go academies were founded, and the highest masters of the land appeared annually to "combat" before the shogun. This ceremony was referred to as go zen go, "playing the game before the exalted presence." The custom was maintained until the fall of the Shogunate in 1868. Go has been likened to western chess. However, whereas chess concerns a single battle, go is an entire campaign and so a severe loss on a portion of the board does not mean a loss of the game. The player can take to another part of the field and may even secure a decisive advantage. Battles occur in various parts of the board as positions are besieged and armies are cut off and captured in an effort to acquire the most territory and surround the most vacant spaces possible. A typical game can take an hour or two, but, as in chess, a championship game may be played over a period of days. There is record of such a game lasting nine days. It is said that a player would have to play ten thousand games to reach the lowest professional rank. At a rate of one game a day, that would be about twenty-seven years. The board, or ban, is a solid block of wood, always stained yellow. The feet are cut to resemble the kuchinashi fruit – kuchinashi means "without a mouth" – and are supposed to restrain onlookers from offering comments. The top of the board is painted with thin, black lines, nineteen on each side, dividing it into squares. The intersections of these lines are called me or moku. Disc-shaped stones are placed on these intersections. Stones are picked from tsubo boxes and, with the middle and index fingers, placed on the board so it gives a cheerful little "click." The game comes to an end when the opposing armies are in absolute contact. The whole board need not be covered.

Dear Mr. Sakai,

I just made it through my stack of summer reading to [Vol. 3] issue #30, and it reminded me that I've meant to write you since seeing you in August.

First, congratulations again on your Eisner award. I'm glad at least one of the people I voted for won! My batting average was particularly bad this year, I'm sad to say – sad for most of the nominees I favored, anyway.

Second, thanks for the excellent series of Inspector Ishida mysteries. I hope you've enjoyed doing them as much as we (Kat and I, and lots of other people, judging by the letters columns) have enjoyed reading them. I hope that [Vol. 3] issue #30 isn't the last we'll see of him.

Third, since my appreciation of your work continues to increase at a pace only matched by the growth of my bald spot (I was born in 1963 Year of the Rabbit, and it's starting to show in my hairline!). I hope to someday sport one of those super-cool Usagi Yojimbo caps you sold out of in San Diego. If you can, please keep them in production long enough for me to purchase one the next time we meet. (Mid-Ohio, perhaps?)

Finally, and speaking of San Diego, thanks again for the kind words about my books and the research that goes into them – they really gave me a boost. High praise indeed from someone who has been one of the trailblazers when it comes to historically accurate comics.

Jim Ottaviani
Ann Arbor, MI

Jim is the writer of several wonderful science-based books done in collaboration with various artists and published by G.T. Labs: Dignifying Science, Wild Person of the Woods, and (my favorite) the Eisner-nominated and Xeric-winning Two-Fisted Science.

Dear Usagi Yojimbo :

This story would have been perfect for Halloween and reminded me of a manga plot version of a Scooby-Doo cartoon because, at the end, the obakémono were all fakes. Scooby-Doo and friends would investigate a haunting, and, at the end, the ghosts or monsters were just bad guys in masks. "The Inn on Moon Shadow Hill" was nevertheless frightening, and as Usagi Yojimbo went deeper into the woods, it brought back memories of The Blair Witch Project movie. When the inn was brought into the story, I knew something was sinister with this nice establishment. Things only got creepier as foxes, flying heads, ogres, water demons, and more were mentioned. The haunting of these woods seemed like a great psychic-phenomenal disturbance. As he was told that a priest blessed this inn, the real hidden agenda was being kept in the shadows from Usagi. Usagi Yojimbo [Vol. 3] #31 was an exceptional story that showed the testing of wills. The spirit of the "samurai will" was tested. The taunt, laughter, and teases – that a samurai is supposed to be fearless – were cruel for Usagi. I was disappointed that Usagi accepted the challenge to retrieve the white stone. His mental prowess to become a samurai should have held him back from that bet. He need not prove anything; to know that he is a true samurai should have been good enough. Encounters with the monsters were exceptionally exciting, and I was somewhat saddened to learn later that they were fraudulent. I was hoping that there was some truth to the story of the haunting in the woods, because this story could have continued on. No matter that the ending came out differently from the way I wanted it to, I still enjoyed the story immensely. Thank you for the entertainment!

Paul Dale Roberts
pdroberts@jazmaonline.com

Usagi has already ventured a couple of times into a haunted forest: "The Tangled Skein" ["The Tangled Skein", Critters #38 and UY Book 7; "The Wrath of the Tangled Skein", UY Vol. 3, #3 and UY Book 10].

Dear Stan,

When I saw the cover of this issue, the first thing that went through my head was, "Another ghost story within a year? Stan must be slipping." However, I have never had more fun being proved wrong.

The atmosphere of the story is exquisite, a bit like a comics version of The Blair Witch Project. I especially liked seeing Usagi betray terror he has not felt since he was a kitten having a nightmare of facing his master as a gaki, culminating in that stunning double-page spread of all those monsters. I was certain at that moment that those monsters were real on account of the appearance of the tengu, the kitsuné, the kappa , and the giant terror by revealing it all was what I call a "Scooby-Doo" jolted me into the realization that you were playing on my previous assumption, and I enjoyed the payoff.

Finally, it was a wonderfully silly moment to see Usagi play up the hoax with such a hilariously bug-eyed hysterical act. You've made your series such a believable, dramatic one that it is so easy to forget your equal talent in humor.

By the way, I have seen these kinds of ghosts before in the film Pon Poko , when the raccoons were trying to scare the construction crews away. So I was wondering: do you think Usagi could have an encounter with those changeling raccoons one day?

Kenneth Chisholm
kchishol@execulink.com

The tanuki is actually a dog (canis viverrinus). It has a furry body, a long fuzzy tail, and dark areas around the eyes that make it resemble a raccoon. It, like the kitsuné (fox), is a shape-changing trickster. In one story, a priest at Morinji Temple was about to hang a teakettle over the fire when it suddenly sprouted a head, tail, and feet. The furry teakettle scampered around the room as more priests rushed in and captured it. The tanuki decided to stay in the temple, sometimes transforming itself into a priest.

Not all tanuki stories end so pleasantly. In another story, a tanuki kills a farmer's wife and tricks her husband into eating her. A friendly rabbit eventually avenges the farmers.

[Late-breaking news: Stan has just been named the recipient of this year's Haxtur Award, all the way from Spain, for Best Short Story, for "Noodles," in Usagi Yojimbo Book 10. Congratulations, Stan! – Diana]