Usagi Yojimbo

Usagi Yojimbo (兎用心棒, Usagi Yōjinbō; "rabbit bodyguard") is a comic book series written and illustrated by Stan Sakai. It is set primarily at the beginning of the Edo period of Japanese history and features anthropomorphic animals in place of humans. The main character is a rabbit rōnin, Miyamoto Usagi, whom Sakai based partially on the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. Usagi wanders the land on a musha shugyō (a warrior's pilgrimage), occasionally selling his services as a bodyguard. 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 1961 film Yojimbo), as well as to icons of Japanese pop culture, such as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi, and Godzilla. The series is also partially influenced 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. The series follows the standard traditional Japanese naming-convention for all featured characters: their family names come before their given names. The books are primarily episodic but occasionally featured underlying interconnected plots that form long extended storylines, though there are some novel-length narratives. The stories include many references to Japanese history and folklore, and sometimes include mythical creatures. The architecture, clothes, weapons and other objects are drawn with a faithfulness to the period's style. There are often stories with the purpose to illustrate various elements of Japanese arts and crafts, such as the fashioning of kites, swords, and pottery. 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." Usagi Yojimbo debuted in Albedo Anthropomorphics #2, published by Thoughts and Images...