Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo is one of the great American comics. Wandering rabbit ronin Miyamoto Usagi’s adventures, be they one-shots, serials, or alternate universe tales, are reliably exciting and thoughtful. For my money, the series’ high points (Grasscutter and the long story told across Duel at Kitanoji, Travels with Jotaro, and Fathers and Sons) are about as close to perfect as comics get. While Usagi’s adventures are tales of Japan’s Edo period, over his 42 years in comics, the good-hearted samurai and his descendants have appeared in the present (He pals around with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a fair bunch) or the far future (the above-linked Space Usagi and the Netflix series Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Yojimbo Chronicles). Now, with Usagi Yojimbo: Kaito ‘84, Sakai has entrusted artist Jared Cullum and writer Zack Rosenberg with hopping back to the year Usagi was created for a period heist comic. One issue in, Kaitō ‘84 is promising, but potential pitfalls are visible.
1984. Something is afoot in Osaka. The Neko Gang, a group of criminal ninja, are growing strong. Shadowy members of the Diet are making mysterious gambits. The Blood Kintsugi Spear, a recently discovered Edo-period artifact, is due to go on display at the Osaka Castle Museum. Everyone in Osaka is trying to get by, one way or another. And amidst their 17,472,000 stories, master thief Kaitō Usagi steals from the rich to give to the poor, alongside his easier-going cousin Yukichi Yamamoto. Kaitō is a good and righteous man, but he’s not an especially happy one. He takes down scores both because it helps people and because it’s what he does best. He had a crew once, but something caused them to split up. Yukichi sticks with him because Kaitō’s been looking out for him and getting into scraps on his behalf since high school, but it might not be what he wants most in life. So, when Kaitō finds himself strongarmed into a job whose payday might well be very sweet, he sees it as a chance to do right by the people closest to him, even if he cannot shake his reservations.
Dark Horse
Kaitō ‘84’s greatest strengths are its atmosphere and Kaitō himself. ‘84’s Osaka is a place both vibrant and careworn, where everyday folks build themselves the lives they can and the powerful flaunt their glories with private largesse that is both ostentatious and discrete. Cullum’s color work brings a grayness to his Osaka that is gritty without being colorless. It reminds me of the look of Eiichi Kudo’s terrific, incredibly cool 1981 stumblebum disaster bisexual detective movie Yokohama BJ Blues, and it makes for an interesting counter-visual to the idealized 1980s of the popular imagination.
Kaitō, likewise, is quite well realized. One of Usagi Yojimbo’s long-running story arcs is Miyamoto Usagi’s gradual dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the samurai code, which, over his adventures, he has seen cost too many people far too much. He remains an honorable, dedicated man who arguably embodies the best of the samurai ideal, but it’s an ideal he doesn’t quite believe in. Kaitō is likewise both cynical and honorable, but he’s teetering on the edge of burnout and reads as self-denying and self-loathing to the point of self-destruction. I think it is telling that Kaitō ‘84 introduces a counterpart to Mariko (Miyamoto Usagi’s first love, who he ultimately parted ways with) in this first issue, but has not yet introduced one to Tomoe (The woman samurai who Usagi befriends and ultimately falls in love with during his adventures) Usagi’s cynicism is rooted in experience, while Kaitō’s seems rooted in exhaustion. Based on where Kaito ‘84’s first issue leaves off, he’ll be going through a crucible that could either see him face himself and emerge stronger or devour himself and achieve nothing but failure. It’s strong, intriguing character work from Rosenberg, and it gives Cullum space to do expressive, memorable cartooning for Kaitō.
Dark Horse
With that said, Kaito ‘84’s first issue is primarily set up, and the sheer amount of material that it is setting up is something to keep an eye on. There’s the primary heist that Kaitō will be leading, his relationship with Yukichi, his relationship with his former gang, his past with Mariko, the schemes of the Neko Gang, and the shadow games of Osaka’s power players. That is a lot to juggle in a comparatively limited amount of space, and the fact that the book’s weakest section is its lengthy flashback to Kaitō and Yukichi’s time in high school gives cause for concern.
The opening action sequence is excellent, efficiently establishing Kaitō and Yukichi’s characters and calling through a solid fight that turns into a good chase and ends with a lovely moment that proves Kaitō has his ancestor’s good heart and care for children. The introduction of the heist and Osaka’s power players brings in an interesting dynamic that riffs on and inverts one of Usagi Yojimbo’s longest standing relationships and gives Cullum space to show the physical effects of wealth and power, namely that everything is cleaner, even if the situation itself is sinister. The flashback, however, mostly reiterates Kaitō and Yukichi’s already established relationship via a fight scene that feels awkward and stiff compared to the opening action sequence. It also raises the question of how significant Kaitō’s past and the people he once knew will be to the main story, given the brief introduction of Mariko.
Dark Horse
Indeed, Kaito ‘84’s other potential snare is tied to its introduction of its supporting cast. Kaitō and Yukichi may have inherited their ancestors’ looks and basic relationship, but they’ve established themselves as distinct characters. ‘84’s Mariko and a few other players mentioned and briefly seen have not yet had the opportunity to make themselves their own characters. Acknowledging that Kaito ‘84 is in conversation with the main series, and that its limited space means that drawing on the main series’ established character relationships is an important tool for efficient storytelling, there is a risk of muting the series’ uniqueness in repeatedly invoking Usagi Yojimbo’s text. It will be something to watch out for.
With that said, Kaito ‘84 is a promising start to an intriguing Usagi Yojimbo side story. I’m looking forwards to seeing where it goes, and by and large, I’m optimistic.
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