Usagi Yojimbo: Senso 1

[skemono]

So after a lengthy hiatus from the series, Stan Sakai came out with some new Usagi Yojimbo this week. So I shall share some scans of the first issue of the miniseries Senso with you.

Senso takes place twenty years after the regular Usagi Yojimbo series. Characters have finally gotten their act together and Lord Noriyuki is in full-out war with Lord Hikiji. Given that Hikiji is the Shadow Lord, the archvillain of the series who has been covertly or overtly behind a great number of the plots in the series, and he personally gave Usagi the scar over his eye in the same battle where he killed Usagi's former lord, Mifune, this is basically the climax of the entire book.


The first issue ends with a spaceship crashing into the battlefield.

Comments

[violetclm.livejournal.com]

Getting very unpleasant flashbacks to Asterix and the Falling Sky.

[skemono]

? I am unfamiliar with that one.

[violetclm.livejournal.com]

That's the one where all the main characters take a back seat to two spaceships landing by the village, one filled with virtuous All-American Superman/Mickey Mouse expies and the other with evil Japanese aliens and robots, which have super-powered high tech battles together and there is no other plot to speak of.

[misanthr0pe]

Oh, I don't consider any Asterix comic after I turned twelve to be canon. So, everything after 98 never happened.

[q99]

There is a Space Usagi story, but it'd be odd to be here.

[q99]

-Senso takes place twenty years after the regular Usagi Yojimbo series. Characters have finally gotten their act together and Lord Noriyuki is in full-out war with Lord Hikiji.-

Yikes, it takes them 20 years? Still, 'working to resolve major plot threads' is what I want to see in the book, I did get tired of all the bandits, gangs, and so on.

[grazzt]

How old is Noriyuki in the regular timeline, anyway? Twelve? Younger? I wonder if its less "getting your act together" in Noriyuki's case and more "reaching adulthood, then earning the respect of his (mostly) older retainers and potential allies".

[q99]

Maybe around that, though together enough that I don't think he'd need two whole decades to be ready for this sort of thing.

Hm, unless he got clued in some time before and spent years gathering allies and preparing... that'd be interesting.

[skemono]

Clued into what? That Hikiji is evil? Remember that Noriyuki's very first appearance was Tomoe running around protecting him from Hikiji's assassins, so I'm pretty sure he's known that for a long time. If anything, it would be more collecting evidence that proves Hikiji is evil so the shogun will allow Noriyuki to do something about it.

[q99]

Point. Still, 20 years to gather evidence or allies...

[northstarfan]

Thanks for posting. I knew this was coming out, but I just find that I enjoy Usagi more in trades so I don't keep a very close eye on the single issues.

[riddler13]

Ah, the "kill 'em all" ending.

Also, 15 (not 20) years in the future, and pretty much everyone seems very old, as in 30-40 years later.

BTW, how old do you guys think Usagi is? I think he'd be somewhere around his early 30's, whereas I envision Gen closer to my age (late 30's).