Cbr18bingo Right – It’s manga, so you read it right to left
I heard about Lone Wolf & Cub a few years ago but had been unable to find a copy of it until recently. Last year, Dark Horse published a deluxe edition of this manga classic, which was first published in Japan starting in 1970. Kazuo Koike’s original story has been translated by Dana Lewis. In addition to Goseki Kojima’s masterful and dynamic ink drawings, this deluxe edition includes a few of his color covers as a well as some color covers by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley.
Lone Wolf & Cub is the story of a samurai, the Shogun’s executioner Ogami Itto, who has been wrongly accused and dishonored. With his wife murdered and his 3-year-old son in tow, Ogami Itto becomes Lone Wolf, a ronin (a samurai with no master) who becomes an assassin for hire in his quest for vengeance for the wrongs done to him. Volume 1 contains 16 chapters of this tale, and each chapter is quite bloody. This is a story for teens and up, given both the violence and some sexual content. While Lone Wolf is willing to take on pretty much any assassination job for pay, he does stipulate that the one who hires him must divulge all the information related to the case, and he can tell when clients are withholding information from him. He and his little boy meet plenty of unsavory people in their journeys — corrupt officials, murderers, thieves, other samurai who seem to have no scruples. But he also encounters impoverished communities, women who have been wronged and abandoned, upright officials, samurai and priests — people who come to admire what he does, need his help, or perhaps turn a blind eye to his activities.
The presence of Lone Wolf’s “cub” Daigoro might make the reader think that this will humanize Lone Wolf, that it will somehow make him more tender and vulnerable. Certainly, Lone Wolf’s enemies think so and come to regret it. Lone Wolf loves his son and tries to both protect and teach him on their journey, but for one trained as a samurai as Lone Wolf is, following the way of the warrior (Bushido) is everything, and if necessary everything will be sacrificed for it. Many concepts related to the samurai warrior code and Buddhism are key to this story. While on his road to vengeance, Lone Wolf is also trying to become a perfect warrior, one who can achieve “mu,” which is a kind of mental/spiritual state in which you are freed of attachment to the world and life. This translation of Lone Wolf & Cub still includes a lot of terms in Japanese, and I found the glossary at the end of the book to be helpful as I read.
I’m invested enough in this story that I hope to be able to find the next volume and see what happens with Lone Wolf and his son. Volume 1 is 700 pages, but much of it is the gorgeous art. I am amazed at the way Goseki Kojima creates such sharp and detailed panels just using black ink on paper. Faces, buildings, outdoor environments are all drawn with superior detail and nuance. I think Lone Wolf & Cub is a must-read for fans of manga and Japan’s feudal period.
