Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

I'm rather surprised to see this story here before it shows up on the Dark Horse MySpace site (thanks to @EnemyOfPeanuts for linking to this on Twitter):

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/05/usagi-yojimbo/

It's a pretty cute little story.

Amazing how Stan can write a story anywhere from a single page to a multi-issue mini-series or trade paper back in length and the story is a perfect fit for the number of pages. Cut the Plum is just another example of that amazing ability, a really great two page story that is extremely enjoyable. Thanks again, Stan!

Quite amusing... reminds me of when Usagi smashed something similar and thought he'd killed Katsuichi

great short one....just read samurai yesterday;).....

...for the hundered thousand so and so times, of course;)....

Absolutely adorable!!

Few things make me happier than Jotoro stories, and it's been so long since we saw him last.

It's been my hope for a while now that, when we saw him again, he'd be looking a bit older and showing signs of growing/developing. I'm thrilled to see Stan deliver exactly that.

This little two pager was pretty meaningful to me. Thanks so much, Stan!!

so he really did look a little older, young jotaro, he?I thaught my mind was playing tricks on me....

coolray85 wrote:so he really did look a little older, young jotaro, he?I thaught my mind was playing tricks on me....

Well he's a bit taller in comparison to Usagi than he was last time, and (in terms of development and time progression) he's now relatively (overly)confident about his swordsmanship. As we know from Usagi book 2, Katsuichi doesn't even start his students with the sword until several months into their training, and it can take years after before a student manages to land a hit on him, causing them to feel confident about their abilities. Clearly Jotoro has now been training with him for some time.

This is all very interesting because, Lord Noriyuko's getting taller aside, we've never seen any real indication of time progression prior to this story. Usagi may have been traveling for 12 years or 2. Now though, it looks like at least 2 years have passed since Jotoro's last appearance in Usagi #75 (approximately 5.5 years and 55 issues ago).

So maybe Stan is following the once largely accepted guideline at Marvel Comics that 1 year in the comics world equals 2 in the real world. Thus, Usagi has been traveling for about 13 years now (which, I suppose, makes sense).

Or maybe Jotoro has aged a lot more than two years. I suppose it's possible he's five years older now.

Okay, I'm going to take all of this much farther than I should. Let's do some research and math, here...

Jotoro first appeared in Usagi (vol. 1) #28 in 1991. I'm guessing he was at least five then and probably more like 8? 19 years later, there's no way he's aged 9-10 years, making him at least 17 or 18 in this story.

So my little conversion guideline doesn't really work. If Stan is following a time progression plan (which is a big if), then one year in Usagi's world must equal a lot more than 2 years in the real world. In order for Jotoro to still be so short as compared to Usagi, I'm assuming he's somewhere between 12 and 15. If he was 5-8 in 1991, and 19 years have passed, he has only gained about 7 years in all that time. 19/7 = approx. 2.5.

So it looks more like Usagi's world ages one year for every 2.5 years that we age in this world. Jotoro has therefore aged (5.5/2.5 = 2.2) just over two years since we last saw him, at which time he was 9 to 13 years old.

My best guess is that Jotoro was therefore around 6 or 7 when he first appeared, 10 or 11 during Travels with Jotoro, and 13 or 14 in this new story.

Also, Usagi has been traveling for at least ten years (I can't compute beyond the amount of time that he's been traveling since his first appearance since we don't know how much time has passed between the death of Lord Mifune and the beginning of Usagi's first story).

Okay, I'm sure I spent way more time thinking about that then I should have. Thanks for bearing with me. Now I'm just waiting for Stan to say "Actually, I just sort of winged it"

well you certainly broke your head solving this mystery of the ages...
I doubt respectively that stan hast knowingly gone through all these plans in advance of how much time it will take his characters to age....
I also feel with comics you can show maybe 2 years(about 20 issues) that together may tell a time span of just a couple of weeks in the lives of the characters....(2 years is just a number, don't start counting on me.....)
I always felt that way about cartoon/comic characters...

Great analysis there... although there's one error...

shaxper wrote:Jotoro first appeared in Usagi (vol. 1) #28 in 1991.

Jotaro first appeared in Critters #10 as part of Usagi's first homecoming since he became a ronin... the Circles arc was his second appearance.

Hmmmm.... I'm a new fan, but from what I've read it seems that a each year (or a single trade paperback) takes place over a few months - us catching up to Usagi in his wanderings some weeks or even days after his last adventure - this is backed up by the fact that Koji sets up his duel with Katsuichi at the begining of Book 11 and the duel happens a year later at the end of Book 17... of course we have to factor in that Grasscutter happened in that time and that story, though 10 issues long, takes place over, what, two days?

Anyway, speaking of continuity, this tale might take place in the past (during the Travels With Jotaro/Fathers and Sons storyline) or it might take place in the future (like the Tomoe tales form the color specials).

...I'm such a nerd.

Good points all around.

(And I'd completely forgotten about Critters #10, <b>Mayhem</b>!)

<b>Coolray</b>, while it's entirely likely that Stan wasn't thinking this hard about age progression, if he was, it would have been far easier for him to have decided 2.5 real years = 1 Usagi year out of the blue than it was for me to reverse engineer that equation as I did above.


<b>Angilasman</b>, yes, it's true that an entire volume tend to encompass only a month or even a few days, but I also doubt that Usagi is running into adventures on a daily or even weekly basis. In a sense, one can see each story as Usagi's highlight of the month (or several months) -- the exciting stuff worth showing outside of the kind peasants, petty thieves, and hungry tokage that encompass Usagi's everyday wanderings.

Thus, a year can go by in Usagi's world while Stan only delivers 25 to 100 days worth of adventures (one to four days per issue x 10 issues per year x 2.5 real years equaling one Usagi year).

Very cool

There was a UY timeline in the UY roleplaying game book.