Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

Hi all!

I've been lurking now and again around these forums, but just now had real motivation to join and ask a question. I have been a fan of Mr. Sakai's work for a while, even though I had only read the first few volumes of Usagi Yojimbo TPBs. I've been lucky enough to meet him a few times at SDCC over the last few years...even received a really fun sketch a few years back:


Anyway, a few days back, I found a great deal on UY volumes 11-19 that I just couldn't pass up. I have them in my hands, but have only read volumes 1-3 thus far! I'm in a bit of a pickle I want to dive into my new stash of UY greatness, but I don't want to ruin anything that happens in volumes 4-10! I know my best option would be to head on down to the local shop and buy those missing volumes ASAP, but I'm also a poor graduate student and could probably afford one or two, but not another seven on top of the ones I just purchased.

So my question: Would it be ok to skip ahead and read v11-19 or should I attempt to hold off and buy/read the others as I can afford to pick them up to not spoil anything? I read the "newbie guide" and know that there are some that might be bad to read before others (v12?), but I just don't know what would be best to do and thought I should ask the experts here.

Thanks for any advice you can give! I hope I can become a fine, upstanding member of this community in time
Brandon

Personally, I would really, really hold off on reading the books out of sequence. If only because there are some things that are explained you'll be scratching your head on later if you hadn't read about them earlier. And a couple of somewhat "big" points heh...

I personally read "Grasscutter" while I had only read the first seven books. The good point is that Mr. Sakai always settles his stories so that the new reader can't get too confused.

However, I recommand that you read all the volumes in the right order. Some characters aren't the same if you ignore how they appeared, what are their antecedents. I'm particularly thinking of Inazuma or Ikeda.

Personally, I'd recommend reading ALL of the volumes just in case you might miss anything important, but then again I can afford all the books in the series.

With that in mind, you're probably better off picking Vol. 10 - "The Brink of Life and Death". That's one of the best volumes in the series (IMO), and it also introduces the pivotal character of Inazuma.

Hi again!

Thanks for the advice. I thought that reading them in proper order would be the best way to go. It's just difficult having this beautiful stack of books sitting here and not being able to read them I'll probably pick up v4 later this week and hope that I'm able to hold off on diving straight past that one to v11.

Thanks again for all of the great replies!
Brandon