Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

No one seems to have posted a thread of this yet. A fun issue all around. It's just great to see Stray Dog and Gen again. Kitsune doesn't appear at all, but she felt like she was there the whole time, which was awesome.

Well, her cameo appearance at the very end was very brief.

If I were doing a 'best of' collection of single-issue Usagi Yojimbo stories I'd include this one. It's got a novel premise that's executed in a concise, entertaining fashion and is neatly wrapped up in the end. It shows off the characters' personalities well. It's just a perfect single issue of Usagi.

I suppose the reasoning behind having Gen gain weight was the desire to modify his character design somewhat to make him more of the hulking presence he was in the early days

Angilasman wrote:If I were doing a 'best of' collection of single-issue Usagi Yojimbo stories I'd include this one. It's got a novel premise that's executed in a concise, entertaining fashion and is neatly wrapped up in the end. It shows off the characters' personalities well. It's just a perfect single issue of Usagi.

I suppose the reasoning behind having Gen gain weight was the desire to modify his character design somewhat to make him more of the hulking presence he was in the early days

I completely agree with you. This is as perfect as a single issue can get. It captures everything I love about the series from the great character interactions and the novel premises to the fun little twists at the end. I didn’t realize just how much I missed a lot of these characters and it’s always fun to see them bounce off each other. I keep thinming the Stray Dog is a recent addition, but he’s been in the comic for quite some time now. Maybe some new recurring characters would be a good idea. I love Stray Dog’s design. It goes from gritty and grimy to cheerful and pleasant (when he’s around the orphans) without ever feeling forced. A great character all around.

^ You know, Stray Dog has always been the one Usagi character that I was never particularly enthused by. I feel like he was created to be a jerk character to provide the same sort of contention that Gen and Usagi (and, come to think of it: Ino and even Kitsune) had in the earlier days of the comic.

...but I finally think he's growing on me! I'm beginning to be swayed by the logic of having a character like that around.

It has been my favorite story of the IDW run so far.