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Usagi Yojmbo #6 is a wonderful reexamination of the first Yojimbo story, in its 35th anniversary!
Writer and Artist: Stan Sakai Cover Artist: Stan Sakai
Usagi Yojimbo #6 retells the first story of our hero bunny, reviving the exact moment when he became a ronin: when his Lord was betrayed and died in battle. Unable to save him, Usagi does the next best thing: he takes his master′s head and preserves it from his enemy, hiding it in the woods, and deciding not to take a new master ever again.
As Sakai says in the explanation accompanying this comic, his inspiration was a folktale, the Demon Hag (Onibaba) of Adachigahara. In this curious yokai story, a woman shelters a group of men but forbids them to peek into her bedroom. When they naturally disobey, they find a pile of corpses. This woman is, in fact, a demon that has been scouring the land. This story took root in Sakai′s mind and becomes an 8-page story that was first published 35 years ago.
Of course, now Sakai is a master story teller, so this first glimpse of his tale receives a new expansion, becoming a 24…
