FANTAGRAPHICS USAGI YOJIMBO SERIES
Usagi was first conceived as a supporting character in The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, a brief series that predates Usagi Yojimbo. However, once as Sakai was idly doodling, he drew rabbit ears tied in a topknot on his proposed hero and was pleased by the distinctive image. Sakai originally planned for Usagi and other characters to be human in stories explicitly modeled after the life of Miyamoto Musashi. 3.3 Other collections and graphic novels.Rolling Stone named Usagi Yojimbo no. 43 in their '50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels'. Usagi was named the 31st-greatest comic book character by Empire magazine and was ranked 92nd in IGN's list of the top 100 comic book heroes. Usagi's popularity influenced Fantagraphics to then release the Usagi Yojimbo Summer Special in October 1986 and then to give the ronin rabbit his own ongoing series with issue #1 being published in July 1987. Stan Sakai accepted an offer to move his warrior rabbit to Fantagraphics Books where he appeared in several issues of the new anthropomorphic anthology series Critters. Early positive reviews and an advertisement in Bud Plant's Spring Catalog in 1985 helped propel the character's popularity. Usagi Yojimbo first appeared in Albedo Anthropomorphics #2, published by Thoughts and Images in November 1984. Those efforts have been successful enough for the series to be awarded a Parents' Choice Award in 1990 for its educational value through Sakai's "skillful weaving of facts and legends into his work". There are often stories whose purpose is to illustrate various elements of Japanese arts and crafts, such as the fashioning of kites, swords, and pottery. The architecture, clothes, weapons and other objects are drawn with a faithfulness to period style.
The stories include many references to Japanese history and Japanese folklore, and sometimes include mythical creatures. The books are primarily episodic, with underlying larger plots which create long extended storylines-though there are some novel-length narratives. The series follows the standard traditional Japanese naming-convention for all featured characters: their family names followed by their given names. The series is also influenced somewhat by Groo the Wanderer by Sergio Aragonés (Sakai is the letterer for that series), but the overall tone of Usagi Yojimbo is more serious and reflective. Usagi Yojimbo is heavily influenced by Japanese cinema it has included references to the work of Akira Kurosawa (the title of the series is derived from Kurosawa's 1960 film Yojimbo), as well as to icons of popular Japanese cinema, such as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi, and Godzilla. Usagi wanders the land on a musha shugyō (warrior's pilgrimage), occasionally selling his services as a bodyguard. The main character is a rabbit rōnin, Miyamoto Usagi, whom Sakai based partially on the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. It is set primarily at the beginning of the Edo period of Japanese history and features anthropomorphic animals replacing humans.
Usagi Yojimbo ( 兎用心棒, Usagi Yōjinbō, " rabbit bodyguard") is a comic book series created by Stan Sakai.
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