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Review - Usagi Yojimbo: Daisho and Grasscutter
by Das Übernerd (7/21/09)

Usagi is cut from the standard heroic mold and consequently he's often a bit dull to read about. A situation presents itself and Usagi does the right thing typically by cutting his way through the dozen thugs who get in his way. If he is ever troubled about a decision then it's because it's the “right” thing to be troubled by it and and then he takes the moral high ground. As a character he moves on heroic autopilot.

I don't know if I agree with this, but maybe that's because my first volume was Demon Mask. I recall Usagi getting scared out of his wits by some women pretending to be ghosts, and then later on by a soothsayer who mentions Jei. At the time I thought it was pretty daring to have a badass samurai character who could actually get scared of things. And then later on, Usagi meets a peasant kid who tells him of his dreams to become a samurai, and in a manner reflective of his historical background, he basically says "shut up and know your place, peasant." No "nothing's impossible if you follow your dreams!" cliche, just knowledge of the cold, hard reality.

I disliked this article.... but i don't have the strenght to comment it...

Usagi is Usagi, he is who he is, its the same as the way i am and i live my life, Usagi lives by bushido and all humans should live by bushido. enough said

Dregory wrote:I don't know if I agree with this, but maybe that's because my first volume was Demon Mask. I recall Usagi getting scared out of his wits by some women pretending to be ghosts, and then later on by a soothsayer who mentions Jei. At the time I thought it was pretty daring to have a badass samurai character who could actually get scared of things. And then later on, Usagi meets a peasant kid who tells him of his dreams to become a samurai, and in a manner reflective of his historical background, he basically says "shut up and know your place, peasant." No "nothing's impossible if you follow your dreams!" cliche, just knowledge of the cold, hard reality.

See, I prefer to view it as Usagi teaching Eizo a much-needed lesson in manners, since I'm not too comfortable with the idea of Usagi's character conforming to the darker, nastier aspects of feudal Japanese hierachy. It's all well and good for Usagi to lecture Eizo about how we're permanently locked into the stations we're born to; he's never led the kind of life Eizo has, and probably never will. I don't think it's a case of "cold, hard reality" so much as Usagi being a little fatalistic - which, unfortunately, is a dominant attitude in Japan, then and now.

I'm sometimes inclined to believe that "karma" - at least the way karma is portrayed in Shizukiri's tale, and to a lesser degree in Usagi's encounter with Eizo - was a psychological ploy invented by aristocrats to to squash any notion of defiance or rebellion, although a lot of it also seems to stem from the vast number of natural disasters Japan has faced over the centuries.

(Yes, I think too much. Sue me. )