Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

Question to Stan or the readership: In UY 90, on page 10 panel 5, Tomoe mentions that after Aoyama was driven insane by the apparition, that the "marriage" was called off and he hung himself. What "marriage" is Tomoe referring to? I tried finding reference to Aoyama marrying someone else, in the preceeding panels, but could find nothing. Is there some text missing from the story or am I just blind? In UY 91, page 21, panel 3, Usagi said he was "free to marry above his station". Again, reference to marriage....but what marriage???

You're right. I went to that issue, and found it didn't make sense. I don't know how I could have made so obvious a mistake, so I went to the original art. For some reason, some of Tomoe's dialogue was removed.

The original art has Tomoe's dialogue on page 9, panel 6 as: "But he did not return her (Okiku's) affection. In fact, he (Aoyama) was to be wed to the daughter of an upper-ranking samurai." The names in parentheses were added so as to indicate to whom she was referring.

That is probably why there is a touch more empty space in that particular word balloon. I'll send an e-mail to Diana to fix it for the trade.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Todd...you are too cool for school.

I actually didn't catch it the first read. I think when I first read it my mind put the marriage to Okiku and Aoyama... I actually caught it while I was analyzing the story for parallels between Usagi and Tomoe's "hidden" relationship. Ingenious for Stan to introduce this story to subliminally point out similarities between Usagi and Tomoe and why it would be very difficult if not impossible to formalize their relationship.