Usagi Yojimbo vol. 29: Two Hundred Jizo

While “Senso” marked Stan Sakai’s return to his signature creation, this latest volume of “Usagi Yojimbo” finally catches the series up to where it stopped before going on hiatus.  It’s also one of the better volumes in recent memory.  Not just another great example of the consistent quality of the title, but featuring some excellent stories even by “Usagi’s” high standards.  The opening one, “The Artist,” is solid enough but “Murder at the Inn” is a very well-crafted whodunit.  Featuring the long-absent and missed Inspector Ishida, a paper merchant is murdered at an inn along with the criminal Ishida and Usagi were transporting to town.  The story is very well-paced with an interesting cast of characters/suspects that all have their motives, which makes the reasoning employed by Ishida that much more fun to see as he ferrets out the real killer.  Particularly when you realize that one of the clues is a visual one planted by Sakai with consistency to the time the murder is committed.

The story, “Two Hundred Jizo” may come off as somewhat familiar to longtime readers as it’s another story where Usagi has to free a town from bandits.  At least the action is quite solid and the use of the jizo in the climax was well-orchestrated.  Then you have the final two stories, “The Ice Runners” and “Shoyu” which show us once again why Sakai will never run out of material for this series.  Both take a particular part of feudal Japan’s culture — the running of ice from the mountains for tribute, how soy sauce is made — and spin entertaining tales out of them. “Ice Runners” gets some dramatic urgency from the race against the clock inherent in that job, while “Shoyu” offers an involving visual look at the making of soy sauce while spinning a tale about rival businessmen.  I was surprised to be as engaged with this story as I was since I’m honestly not that big a fan of soy sauce itself.

This volume also offers up some bonuses from the Dark Horse Website and Sakai’s “Usagi Yojimbo Sketchbooks.”  We get two amusing comics featuring Sakai’s attempts to interview Usagi, both involving violent and fatal consequences.  More interesting is the story “Sukanku” as it offers a window into the creator’s process as he shows it to us from conception — a conversation with Sergio Aragones — to plotting, roughs, and eventually pencils.  It’s the kind of bonus material that I like to see and a fitting end to this great volume.