"Year of the Leaping Rat" Usagi Yojimbo Trivia Con

[Steve Hubbell]

According to Wikipedia, the United States Postal Service has no official creed or motto. Often falsely cited as such, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" is merely an inscription on the James Farley Post Office.

Over the years, Miyamoto Usagi has been drafted as a courier on several occassions (the inscription quoted above needs to add "nor assassin's blade" to the list) and for various people.

This trivia contest requires the participants to send in a description of at least four deliveries which Miyamoto Usagi was recruited for in some manner or other. The more detailed the descriptions, the better. To give everybody time to get their answers ready, this contest will run until February 29, 2008.

Please send your responses to me at:

http://www.usagiyojimbo.com/forum/privm ... =post&u=17

or

www.usagigoya@hotmail.com

The prizes for this contest include a number of sets of the Usagi Yojimbo Postcards produced by Usagi's French publisher Paquet, which were donated by Daimyo Fanfan, the man responsible for the very cool Usagi Yojimbo Dojo France. Also up for prizes are three copies each of Albedo 3 (Lone Rabbit and Child part 1) and 5 (Nilson Groundthumper), being contributed by Sensei Stan himself.

Abayo,
Steve H.

[Fanfan]

Is the contest opened to french dojo members ?

[Steve Hubbell]

Is the contest opened to french dojo members ?

Yes! I ran out of time and was unable to post a copy of the message on the forum there. Would you like to post a translated version?

[Steve Hubbell]

I am sad to say, tomorrow is the deadline for the trivia contest and so far, Fanfan has been the only Usagi fan to send in a response.

[Marchino]

I am sad to say, tomorrow is the deadline for the trivia contest and so far, Fanfan has been the only Usagi fan to send in a response.

man i want to participate but i dont know a lot of UY i only read Grasscutter 1 and 2 ,TPB 20 , and Dark Horse 59 to 109 ( i dont have so much of this ) if can you see i dont have so much of UY but im Happy because all comics i read of UY are great!!!!

[Thomas Froehling]

I am sad to say, tomorrow is the deadline for the trivia contest and so far, Fanfan has been the only Usagi fan to send in a response.

I didn't want to turn you down, Steve, but since I already own the described prizes, I decided to step aside for other fans to grab them....

[Fanfan]

That was not my case since i dreamed to own Albedo issues !

I wanted to add 6 special prizes so it will be for another time.

Hey Steve is there any secret message ? in a mail and now in the forum you put in the same phrase I hate to say that / I am sad to say that with Fanfan answered and Fanfan is a fan.

You know i am never lucky with loto, i never won, so i won't complain

[Steve Hubbell]

Here are the two replies which were received....

Usagi delivery trivia contest‏
From: Fanfan
Sent: Sun 2/24/08 5:27 PM
To: Steve Hubbell

Hi Steve,

lately my answer to the trivia contest, i'll have to confirm you but i think i will add 3 or 6 special prizes (of course you'll get one copy for you !) i 'll confirm you before Stan draws lots .... i hope i'll get a luck to win one of those Albedo 3, i dreamed about it...

SNIP (removed unrelated content)

I try in this answer to show several aspects of Usagi as a courier

Usagi Book 6 Circles
Where Usagi didn't realized he was a messager... sleeping under a willow near a river Usagi dreamed about or really met a yurei, the ghost of a poor woman killed by her husband. When he woke up he found an hair spin (the same we saw in the hair of the yurei) and take it with him, he went in an inn. The innkeeper is noone else than the husband that killed his wife... Usagi wanted to trade the hair spin, the husband thought Usagi was a blackmail. He tried to killed Usagi with vilains, but Usagi defeated all his oponents, so he ran away, to the willow, in the river, where he threw the corpse of his wife... Usagi found later the inkeeper dead in the river, the hair spin near in the grass...

Usagi book 11 seasons (end of the story in Usagi book 14 Demon Mask)
Koji wants to rematch Katsuichi sensei, he defeats Usagi and spare his life : he asks Usagi to tell Katsuichi he wants a Duel at Kitanoji. The message is delivered not by Usagi but in a letter from Usagi to Katsuichi sensei in book 14

In book 11 we have another delivery story, green persimmon (better in its color version)
Usagi crossed the path of a dying samurai, he gave him a green ceramic and told him to deliver it to Lord Noriyuki. Killers try to take this ceramic to Usagi, he survived with an arrow in his arm and delivered the ceramic to Lord Noriyuki, the ceramic was about a secret agreement with foreigners, Usagi understood the glaze was a map of the coastline and indicated where the transaction should occur.


UY book16 Three Seasons
Usagi in this story is not really a postman but Usagi has been hired by merchant Araki to be the yojimbo of Toshi-san that should deliver a sum of gold. In this story, Toshi travels with a banner that indicates clearly that he works for merchant Araki. They are trapped, Usagi has understand that they were a decoy and throw the gold, because Usagi known it was no gold inside the chest.

UY book 20 Contraband
Usagi met a guy that is dying (one more time !), this guy gave him a package to delivert to Ayane of the red peony. Ayane is the daughter of dead man. Usagi escorts her, her father was a doctor that dealed with foreigners. Ayane gave the package to Usagi and gave her life in order Usagi can go through a roadblock. Usagi delivered the package, he thought it was foreign medicine, but it was a crucifix.

See you,

Stéphane

(sorry Fanfan, no secret messages this time , I was just hoping for a little more of a Dojo turn-out, since there are a lot of answers which qualify and the contest was more to see how other fans might interpret those occurrences.)

Dear Steve,
Thank you very much for the fun!
Here are a few UY deliveries:
Samurai part 2- Katsuichi asks young UY to "fetch me some firewood" UY delivers.
The Tea Cup- UY accidentally breaks the cup he was trying to deliver
Runaways part 2 UY delivers a Princess. "When you deliver me to Lord Hirano I'll go back to my old life--the life I loathe.
Green Persimmon_ UY delivers the coastline map location and lunar time to Lord Noriyuki and upsets Hikiji
Grass Cutter 2 UY delivers the sword to Atsuta Shrine
Courtesan- UY delivers Kotaro to Ishida
Netsuke- UY delivers tortoise netsuke to its deceased owner
Return of Lone Wolf and Kid- UY delivers Gorogoro to his father
Contraband- UY delivers a package to Ayane @ the Red Peony Inn and then delivers the same package from Ayane to Hirata the fish monger
Thank you very much for putting on this contest.
Best wishes,
go

[Fanfan]

So Go you have won one bonus prize ! i have not already printed it but it will come soon (in fact i have to print 300 big prints, and it costs a fortune...)

Runaways part 2 : excellent answer i didn't think about it at all, it is my favorite answer with my interpretation of Yurei's story in Usagi Book 6

I didn't mention GrassCutter because i found it too obvious, and there was another stories in which Usagi took a message from a dying man (we can find one more in Usagi book one)

[go]

Dear Readers,
Thank you very much for the contest, Steve.
Thank you, Fanfan, in advance for your kind bonus prize.
I had a difficult day at school and it was very therapeutic to search through the paperbacks to find examples of UY delivering.
Of course most of my thanks go to Sensei Sakai for creating all of this fun and sharing it with us.
Best wishes to all!
go

[morna-san]

I'm sorry I completely missed this. I thought I was keeping up but I guess I didn't do a very thorough job of it.

I totally would've tried if I hadn't.



sorry.