End of Lone Wolf and Cub...(Questions SPOILERS!!!)

[CWmax]

SPOILER ALERT .........


I was wondering about the end of LWaC.......After Ogami Itto dies on his feet...Daigoro stabs Retsudo, who then embraces Daigoro and we pull back...and that's the end....Do you think Retsudo Yagyu dies from his wound? Has Retsudo killed digoro with his "Ninja Deth Touch"?

?

CW

[Steve Hubbell]

Diagoro is alive and well in an all-new series by Kazuo Koike and Mori Hideki, back to travelling the Japanese country-side in his babycart, but with a new guardian / mentor pushing the cart.

There are two good sites for information on Lone Wolf and Cub (besides here. )

the Yahoo Group devoted to Lone Wolf and Cub, which requires registering with Yahoo and joining group. Not a whole lot of activity recently, but some nice summeries of the plot of the early volumes of the New Lone Wolf and Cub series which is being published in Japan currently. (I just received the copy of volume #4 which I had ordered through Kinokuniya Bookstore in San Francisco.)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kozure_okami/

The other site is Dark Horse Comics Manga Mania Forum, where all things manga are discussed (occassionally, even Dark Horse publications). They had a nice thread going a while back speculating on the final scenes from Lone Wolf and Cub volume #28 and exactly who all died there.

http://www.darkhorse.com/boards/viewfor ... ceeb1f9cba

Abayo...

[CWmax]

Well...Isn't that a kick in the pants!?

Kinda dissapointing too...I would have expected that the Yagyu would have HAD to kill Daigoro ...After all of the trouble caused by Lone Wolf and Cub- Retsudo suddenly has a change of heart???

Hmmm...I kinda thought that Daigoro was killed- Because they focus on Retsudo's hands in a few panels as he embraces Daigoro- And Retsudo had explained previously about his '5-finger death touch'- I figured he killed Daigoro and ends up recovering from his wound....Retsudo kept making the point that the Tokugawa and the Yagyu fates are one....So the Yagyu would have to survive the story....oh well

...I guess I favor a tragic ending for LWAC-

CW

[Steve Hubbell]

twenty-five years ago when Koike and Kojima brought the series to its original end, they might have had that in mind, but I think they left themselves room to go either way if they wanted to go back to either character.

In an interview a few years ago, before the new series started, Koike talks about plans for the new series and about Diagoro being grown up or growing up. But the kid is still riding around in the babycart at this point in the new series....

[CWmax]

agghhh....The more I think about it -

How could Retsudo NOT kill the son of Ogami Itto? After all of that trouble- After sacrificing all of his children, all of his ninja, all of his allies, uprooting the grass spies that had been in place for generations, after risking everything and walking the fine line of treason against the Shogun---Now he is going to have a change of heart and let the spawn of his enemy- indeed- his enemy-Daigoro live?!?

Unless......
....
...

He recognized the perfect Bushido that was embodied in Ogami Itto......even as an assassin...His bushido is perfect....Perhaps Retsudo is reflecting on his own faltering honor in having set Itto up in the first place -All because he coveted the post of Kogikaishakunin for the Yagyu? Is Retsudo suddenly ashamed at this point, when he compares his behaviour to Ittos perfection?----

I don't know - I think thak Retsudo would need finish off Diagoro- He would rationalize it by saying his actions are insuring the survival of the Yagyu- Thereby performing a service to the Shogun......



hhhmmmmm.......but Daigoro is alive in a new series......hmmmmmm




CW

[Steve Hubbell]

Makes you wonder what kinds of debates all those millions of Japanese readers had back in 1977 when the end of the series was first published there...

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Dear Readers,
In the tv version I remember Retsudo embraces Daigoro as his new son in reverence for Ittoh's Bushido ways. When will Dark Horse publish the new series?
Best wishes to all!
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