Usagi Yojimbo is one of the best series on the Polish market. Here are seven reasons why you should read the story of the long-eared Ronin.
Lonely author and work
Sakai’s state creates Usagi practically alone. He makes up stories, writes scripts, draws and deals with lettering. He has complete control of the plot, characters and final form of his comic, which translates into its high quality.
For over 35 years of the series’ existence, only Sergio Aragonés, Tom Luth and Julie Fujii-Sakai helped him. The first of them came up with a plot for the Spirit of the General and inked a black and white version of Return to the Adachi Plain . The latter is responsible for the colors of most covers and some episodes (including the newest, published by IDW). In turn, Stan’s wife co-created episodes from the Chibi Usagi series about these versions of bohaets. Sakai does not mind that other creators will continue his work someday, while emphasizing that he does not intend to retire for now. Everything indicates that there are still many adventures of the samurai rabbit ahead of us.
Stan Sakai (right;)) at Pyrkon 2019
Educational value
Stan Sakai is very serious about preparing to work on the story. From the cards of Usagi Yojimbo, we can learn, among other things, how samurai swords, decorative kimonos and festival kites were made, how they lived, what they ate and what was afraid of the seventeenth-century Japanese, and why Christians during the shogunate times had to hide their faith. The content-related correctness is so important to the author that when in one of the issues the readers noticed the placement of stones on the board for go that was inconsistent with the rules of the game, he decided to correct the drawing for the purposes of collective editions. As he emphasizes in interviews, the Internet turned out to be a blessing for him, which greatly accelerated and facilitated the search for the necessary sources of information and graphic materials.
