Usagi Yojimbo: 40th Anniversary Reader

Dark Horse Books and creator Sakai celebrate four decades of Sakai’s rabbit ronin character, Usagi Yojimbo, with a collection of the very best stories from across the history of the series. “A Mother’s Love” finds an elderly woman beseeching Usagi’s help in ridding her village of a gang led by her own son. In “The Artist,” Usagi vows to defend a portrait artist marked for death by government officials who fear his approach to painting threatens to undermine centuries of Japanese artistic tradition. Old friends preparing to set out on disparate paths share a traditional tea ceremony in the genuinely heart wrenching “Chanoyu.” The hero finds himself taking refuge from a storm alongside a warrior who believes he’s been tasked by the Gods to eliminate evil in “Blade of the Gods.” The plight of soldiers unable to move beyond past battles features in “The Way of the Samurai” and “Buntori,” setting the stage for the tale of Usagi’s return to the site of his greatest defeat in search of redemption in “Adachi.”