Product Description

Collects five stories that feature samurai adventures.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154838 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

The story continues...
This book continues in a similar way to the last one; mostly stand-alone stories about Ogami and Daigoro, usually involving an assasination, but with one story that tells us about Lone Wolf's past. I found that the level of interest peaked with the central story (which is about Daigoro's birth and Ogami Itto being framed), as the first and last are fairly simple assasination tales. However, even the less interesting Lone Wolf and cub stories are on a par with some of the best comic stories, and maintain the high level of research across the series.

The second and fourth stories in the book offer a couple of interesting twists on the usual kind of story. In Half Mat, One Mat, Fistful of Rice we see how Ogami thinks through his attack in a duel. It's a very cinematic and almost dream-like sequence in which we see him plan out each possibility in his mind. In The Virgin and the Whore, Ogami defends the honour of a would-be prostitute with his ever-intruiging samurai ethics, and we find that he has been hired to assasinate quite an unusual target.

Even though the book ends on a fairly average (for Lone Wolf and Cub) story, this doesn't detract, I wanted to read the next book straight away. I would really like to read more tales about the main plot-line, but then the other stories are just as important in building up Ogami's character, especially the one where Ogami is asked to leave the assasin's road. Even though the series is taking its time by this point in revealing the story, it is very carefully structured.

The back of the book features the second instalment of The Ronin Report, which explains some details about the way of Bushido. It also gives some titles of books for further reading.

Koike & Kojima expand this manga epic's depth and breadth
I am working my way through the manga epic Lone Wolf & Cub one chapter at a day and have now completed Volume 3, "The Flute of the Fallen Tiger." Through these five stories writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima slowly expand the breadth and depth of their story:

(15) "The Flute of the Fallen Tiger"would not have been my choice for the volume's titular story (I would definitely have gone with #17), but it does look at some very different ways of fighting for Ogami Itto to deal with in this episode.

(16) "Half Mat, One Mat, A Fistful of Rice" is not the most significant story in this volume, but definitely the most interesting as Lone Wolf & Cub encounter Shino Sakon, a Mijin school master who has become a beggar ronin and who tries to talk Ogami Itto out of walking the Assassin's Road. The climatic and bloody swordfights that usually constitute the climax of these stories are never my favorite part, but in this one we have the novel approach of Lone Wolf thinking through a series of attacks, looking for one that can end with him winning. I found this a very interesting approach, more so than the usual hacking off of limbs and such.

(17) "The White Path Between the Rivers" provides a rare but tantalizing look at the backstory of Lone Wolf and Cub, wherein we find out the grim details of Daigoro's birth and learn how Ogami Itto became the target of political intrigue. In helps answer why, in part, he refuses to stop walking the Assassin's Road. Koike and Kojima had been stingy with this look at the ronin's motivation, which is what makes these stories all the more special.

(18) "The Virgin and the Whore" plays off the standard formula of these Assassin's Road stories as Ogami takes up the cause of a young prostitute. Of course, appearances are almost always deceiving in this stories. This is also one of those stories where the attention to historical detail is impressive, this time with regards to the practice of prostitution during Japan's Edo Period.

(19) "Close Quarters" provides an assignment for the assassin that hinges on the economics of a han controlling a forest and presents another clever use of Diagoro by his father.

The back of the volume includes the next installment of "The Ronin Report" by Tim Ervin-Gore looking at "bushido," the code of the warrior by which Lone Wolf lives his life.

Further essential reading down the Assasins road....
The saga continues in the third volume of this un-missable and beautifully packaged comic tour-de-force. Volume three contains two of my favourite stories- the title tale featuring the super-bad Hidari brothers and their fearsome arsenal, and 'Half Mat, One Mat, a Fistful of Rice', wherein a noble-warrior with a strange line in combat techniques tries to force Itto Ogami form the Assasins Road out of sympathy for his 'cub'. Small enough to fit in your pocket but packed with enough magic to fill a Marvel comics warehouse...read and enjoy