by MATT BRADY (COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE #1167, MARCH 29, 1996)
Usagi Yojimbo is a survivor. The samurai rabbit first showed up in print in 1984, survived the black-and-white implosion, went on to prosper at Mirage, teamed up with The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and now has found a new home at Dark Horse.
Stan Sakai, Usagi’s creator and sole storyteller for the post 13 years, said he has one philosophy: Tell a good story in a simple manner. “I had, at one time, planned on doing a historical comic-book series based on the life of Miyamoto Musashi, a 17th century samurai and author of The Book of the Five Rings,” Sakai said. “I wanted to do a series based on his life. One day I was fooling around and drew a rabbit, tied up his ears, and loved the design. It was really simple, but no one had ever done it before.”
Instead of Miyamoto Musashi, Sakai’s character became Miyamoto Usagi, and then Usagi Yojimbo, Japanese for “rabbit bodyguard.” That was in 1982. The first Usagi story was printed two years later in Thoughts and Images’ Albedo #2. Shortly there-after, Usagi Yojimbo moved to Critters and then received his own series at Fantagraphics.
While Sakai enjoyed his time at Fantagraphics (about 38 issues worth), he grew to feel that Usagi didn’t quite fit with the rest of the Fantagraphics line, so he took up Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird on their offer to move Usagi Yojimbo to Mirage. At Mirage, Sakai enjoyed a color run of Yojimbo and a couple of Space Usagi mini-series. With the announcement in early 1995 of the closing down of Mirage’s publishing division at the end of the year, Sakai found himself looking for a new publisher.
“(Mirage] did give me about nine month’s notice of the publishing shutdown before it was announced publicly, so I had a long time to look for a new publisher,” Sakai said. “Still, it was a little unexpected.”
Finding a new publisher didn’t take long. “When I found out about Mirages publishing arm closing, I sent out four or five letters to different publishers and I got letters from about eight,” he said.
Ultimately, he settled on Dark Horse. “I’ve always liked Dark Horse’s products, and they seem to be very easy to work with from friends I’ve talked to. I think Dark Horse is a good choice, and so far we’ve had no problems whatsoever,” Sakai said.
As far as the character and story of Usagi Yojimbo goes, it is the story of a rabbit samurai who’s wandering through feudal Japan. He’s met many unique characters along the way, including the blind swordspig, Zato Ino. Originally, Zato Ino got around by using his keen sense of smell, until a confrontation with Usagi in which his nose was cut off, effectively “blinding” him. Zato Ino now wears an artificial wooden nose, but his whole world is pine-scented.
According to Sakai, the three-issue Dark Horse Usagi Yojimbo mini-series (running from April to June) will continue from the final Mirage issue, but will also be reader-friendly and will start with a four-page introduction to the characters and background.
In the first two issues of the upcoming mini-series, Usagi meets a street performer and becomes embroiled in a crime wave that’s sweeping the town he’s entered. “It all culminates in a public crucifixion (not of Usagi, of course!), which is something for which I had to do a lot of research,” Sakai explained. “It was a very common punishment for criminals back then and is a very different style of crucifixion than the western style.”
In the third issue, Usagi encounters a Nue, a creature from Japanese mythology with the head at a monkey, the body of a badger, a tiger’s legs, and a snake for a tail. Usagi comes to the rescue of a woman menaced by the monster, unaware that there is a greater threat nearby. “I enjoy taking elements from Japanese folklore,” Sakai said, “because American readers are so unfamiliar with it and Japan has more legends than any country in the western world.”
Something that Sakai concerns himself with is the amount of violence in Usagi Yojimbo. Obviously, when the story involves characters for whom swordplay is an integral part of life, it is an issue that cannot be ignored. “My measure (of violence] is whatever I feel comfortable with,” Sakai said. “I seem to have struck a happy balance based on the feedback I’ve been getting. Usagi Yojimbo received a Parent’s Choice award, and they did mention the violence, but they still recommended it for kids.”
Another thing that stands out in Usagi Yojimbo is the meticulous attention Sakai pays to detail. Since the series is set in 17th-century Japan, Sakai works to make it as historically accurate as possible, within reason. “The depiction of houses and life in Feudal Japan is as accurate as I can make it,” Sakai said “but I know their footwear isn’t accurate, because my characters have stumpy little feet.”
Fantagraphics is re-releasing a seventh Usagi trade paperback in April, collecting the last six issues of the original black-and-white series. All the books are kept in print, with Book One scheduled for a fifth printing in July. A role-playing game will be out in August from Gold Rush Games.
One of the major influences in Sakai’s attempts to make Usagi as accurate as possible is his long-time friend Sergio Aragones. “I worked with him on Groo the Wanderer, and, even though it’s a humor title, he still does a lot of research,” Sakai said. “He’s always pushing me to do my research. Also, I’ve got to answer to my fans. If there’s anything I’ve shown inaccurately, I’ll hear about it. They don’t try to ‘catch’ my mistakes but, rather, they add to my knowledge.”
While Usagi Yojimbo demands a lot of research on Sakai’s part, Space Usagi demands mostly imagination. “Space Usagi is the futuristic descendent of the original Usagi Yojimbo.” Sakai said. “I made a rough family tree that follows the ownership of Usagi’s swords through history. Space Usagi is part of a clan that owns a solar system. It’s Star Wars meets Akira Kurosawa -- but then, Star Wars was inspired by Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress. It’s space fantasy with aliens and dinosaurs.”
In fact, dinosaurs contributed to the creation of Space Usagi in the first place. “I really wanted to draw dinosaurs, but I couldn’t draw them in Usagi Yojimbo and still have it be realistic,” Sakai said, “so I created Space Usagi, where I could travel to dinosaur planets if I wanted to.”
Space Usagi was originally planned as a trilogy of mini-series, two of which were published by Mirage. The third Space Usagi mini-series, scheduled to ship from Dark Horse this spring, is a continuation of the first two mini-series. “Basically, Space Usagi’s lord gets kidnapped and he has to go after him.” Sakai said. “There are futuristic ninja, a planet of giant bugs, people who live on the bugs, and lots of action, treachery, and deceit. It’s going to be fun.”
Fun is oat of Sakai’s main reasons for working on Usagi in his various forms for the past 13 years and far into the foreseeable future. Sakai confessed that aside from his other work (he still helps Aragones on Groo projects and has lettered the Sunday Spiderman newspaper strip for the past nine years) he would be perfectly content to tell the stories of Usagi Yojimbo and his descendants for a long time.
And what is Sakai’s advice to the Usagi Yojimbo newcomer? “Basically, it’s a good series that’s meant to be read,’ Sakai stressed. “There are just too many comics that are bought, only to be bagged and boxed. I’m a big advocate of reading, and, besides, you might learn something, and that’s always good.”