FROM THE CREATORS OF LONE WOLF AND CUB: Samurai Executioner

(Admission: I haven't even come close to checking out Samurai Executioner.)

Lady snow blood is a bit purient IMO. Not sold on it yet (still buying them though!)

Another Koike manga worth looking for is 'legend of kamui'. Viz published it abpout 10 years ago..

i like how pocket-sized and inexpensive they are!

My only wish is that the LW&C volumes were a bit bigger, though I understand the format was chosen by the authors. And what would really be lovely is an oversize ART OF-style volume. I'd buy that in a second...

I've not seen Lady Snowblood for sale anywhere in this country (UK)and I'd snap it up like a shot as I love the films.

SECONDED.

the first 12 were miller covers then, i think, then bill sienkiewicz took over for the next 12. they appear to have recycled them (albeit cropped a bit and reduced) for the GN covers. i think there were only 43 or so of those old issues. i have the first 12 and was worried that i'd've already read the first 3 or 4 GN's worth of stories but the old issues seem to have been chosen quite randomly (based on story length? nudity?)

i'm waiting for the golfing tales... 8)

I stopped reading Nausicaa when it went to computer lettering too

http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=13-524

no idea where this comes chronologically though. was SE before or after LW&C?

The main character from "Samurai Excecutioner" is killed by Lone Wolf, so the series predates LW&C.

Also, roffle:

Path of the Assassin, called Hanzo no Mon in Japan, is the story of Hattori Hanzo, the fabled master ninja whose duty it was to protect Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu was the shogun who would unite Japan into one great nation. But before he could do that, he had to grow up and learn how to love the ladies!

I hope this is Koike's coming-of-age sex comedy, like "American Pie" but with more severed limbs.

http://subatomicbrainfreeze.typepad.com/subatomic_brainfreeze/2008/02/im-here-to-talk.html

Can anyone 'round here point me to a good discussion/dissertation on the japanese popcult obsession with rape? I've done some googling but all I can find is either straight outrage or LOL those wacky asians roffling (not that I'm saying that link above belongs to this category. But it doesn't really clarify the issue either.)

(sort've unfair to single Koike out? But he's done both this *and* the script for the first Hanzo The Razor movie...)

I think most of jpop critical theory is focused on tentacles. Rape isn't particularly jpop-specific. I mean, even Uncle Buck has rape.

Well, western popcult has rape, and even comedy rape (though this is a bit more frowned upon, unless of course it's prison rape, which is seen as a bag of roffles), but heroic rape seems specifically a japanese thing from what I know.

Did Lone Wolf rape? I thought the scenario was, "hump this lady for our amusement or we kill you both." frat hazing style.

A recent episode of Mad Men had Don Draper performing borderline hero-rape to save a potato chip account, I think.
But yeah I don't remember Wolverine or Plastic Man doing any hero-raping.

What about that inksplot dude from Watchmen?

Oh, no, I don't think there's anything like that in Lone Wolf, or even Samurai Executioner. Lady Snowblood forces a couple to have sex, which is close, but mostly what I've seen of Koike's tendency towards this is the Hanzo movies and that description of Wounded Man up above. There's other examples of this (Rapeman, for one!), though I'll admit I'm not well versed enough in magna to judge how common it is.

That Lone Wolf story did strike me as incredibly weird, though it wasn't the same as what's being talked about here in Wounded Man, since both participants were being forced into sex by thugs for their amusement. It had a really strange resolution though - one of the hostages who was forced to watch said something like "How could he do that?" (referring to the Lone Wolf) and the woman defends him, saying something to the effect of "He's a real man, that he could keep it up while our lives were being threatened!"

But I suppose it certainly fits into the definition of "hero rape". Oh, that Koike.

I do agree that rape and general sexual harassment seems to be more common and treated more lightly in male-oriented manga and anime than in Western comics. I have no proper explanation for it, except maybe just that Japan seems to be more patriarchal and male-dominated than most Western societies? Now that a lot of female-oriented manga has been translated to Western languages too, it might be interesting to compare how these issues are dealt in them. I haven't read much of that stuff myself though.

The irony is that Japanese manga seems to have a much larger female presence (aimed material, readers and creators) compared to Western comics... it's one of the bigger reasons manga has taken off in the last decade in the US.

Yeah, but I don't think that that female presence has all that much to do with Koike-type stuff.

^ The Koike stuff isn't being read by the FRUITS BASKET crowd, as a rule.

I need to start catching up on LONE WOLF. Those books are gonna break me one day. "Sure, what's another ten bucks?"

Of course they're not read by the same group, but I find it interesting that you get those kinds of extremes in their comics.

I think I got up to Volume 10 of Lone Wolf and Cub before realizing I'd have to shell out another.. $200? ...to get to the end of the story (and this was before they finished putting them out), so right now those books are sitting on my shelf begging to be completed in another lifetime...

Doesn't James Bond as a rule hero-rape? I'm not convinced Koike is exhibiting culturally specific chauvinism unless the scenario involves subway groping or live-in house prostitutes, some phenomenon that is characteristically Japanese.

In the Jonathan Ross interview, Koike goes yes definitely Lone Wolf & Cub and his golf habits are deliberate attempts to revive a specific bygone national warrior spirit, but the hero-rape stuff seems more in the realm of generic myth-making, and even so, it's all reflective on an older-generation dude's romanticization of something rather than something mirroring current society. There's a genre of confessional manga for that kind of stuff.

Of course they're not read by the same group, but I find it interesting that you get those kinds of extremes in their comics.

Just imagine if the same comics culture could produce extremes like Little Dot and The Checkered Demon! That would be amazing and reveal so much about “their” society!

More about what's popular in comics culture than society, smart guy. But fine, your cherry-picking of obscure examples has made my point completely invalid! I am humbled.

Ah, no worries, I'm sure those two obscure examples selling mere hundreds of thousands of copies each say plenty about "your" comics culture - forget about society.

Philip, no idea on James Bond, though I don't find it especially hard to believe. I suppose there's a fair amount of (ho ho ho, now we're really getting into crit-theory wank) codified heroic rape in western popcult, and what's shocking to western viewers is that in japanese popcult it's so up-front? I mean for Hanzo the Razor it's basically his superpower, and you don't get much more explicit than calling a protagonist RAPEMAN. I realise it might be disingenious of me to reach for theories here when basically all I have is three examples, two of which are by the same author and the third from a completley diferent period and genre than the other two, but...I do think that the western *perception* of this exists at least, it'd be nice to read some debunking of it if it's bullshit.

That Jonathan Ross thing is like the only YouTube footage of Koike, which makes me sad.

ha, from a david mitchell interview:

Did you watch a lot of Kurosawa films?

Some, yes. Actually, it would be manga, though. There’s an absolutely wonderful series of stories called Lone Wolf and Cub. It’s about 100 years earlier than my period. Visually, you get the interiors that no amount of scholarly research can give. What authenticity my book might be able to boast owes a great debt to Lone Wolf and Cub. You really should check them out. They really are special—though there’s a necessary quota of what we might think of as something close to soft-core porn.

I realise it might be disingenious of me to reach for theories here when basically all I have is three examples

Four examples: the first volume of Tezuka's Adolf has a scene of heroic rape in it.

> am on volume 8 of SE and bought the last 2 in Comic Showcase closing down sale. after that i just
> need the last 23 volumes of LW&C... (and the 2+ years to read them)
> koogy wonderland (koogs), Tuesday, 25 July 2006 14:38 (4 years ago) Bookmark

4 years actually, i took it kinda slow and finished it this morning (during which time volume 27 went seriously out of print...)

it's online here ( http://www.mangavolume.com/index.php?serie=lone-wolf-and-cub&chapter=lone-wolf-and-cub-133&page_nr=9 ) if you don't mind 8300 single page views and lots of scrolling...

Expected to see some mention of I Ueo Boy/AIUEO Boy/The Starving Man. Feminists are targeted by rapists and one of them is supposed to have a very strong resemblance to Helen Gurley Brown. I've heard its also very racist.

great revive

Also features The Who, Koike said he was friends with them.

Also interesting that he said that he written it for an audience that doesn't exist anymore.

I've hesitated on Lone Wolf & Cub and Samurai Executioner because the artwork is flipped but those big omnibuses look convenient and I'm very intrigued by the sheer acclaim.

The newer stories of Lone Wolf & Cub has a different but quite impressive artist and the art is unflipped.

Did Koike ever have gay sex in his comics? I was once surprised to find that manly Japanese comics of the 60s-70s sometimes featured the male heroes buggering and fisting each other.

Searching for The Starving Man without adding manga brings you straight to Altrinchams finest takeaway.

Don't remember any gay sex in LW&C but I didn't read the whole thing (the format of manga keeps me from going all out as much as anything else - look very weird filed next to my European os US comics and I don't feel commited enough to give 'em their own shelf), I remember what I did read was highly enjoyable adventure stuff. Samurai Executioner just felt like the same thing with the sadism turned up and, as mentioned upthread, rapeyness.

Shelving size is really a big consideration for you?

In the age of limitless Content, any ol' shallow consideration will do to avoid getting buried in too much of it :)

https://www.japansociety.org/page/programs/film/lone-wolf-and-cub

Babycart assassin films on TCM: April 5 and 12
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/1565991%7C0/TCM-Imports-for-April.html

Thanks to the tip on the TCM thread more recently, I was able to DVR Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons and holy shit is it amazing.

Minimalist and maximalist at the same time: really interesting and jarring transitions from utterly quiet scenes without any music to very loud scenes and vice versa. The music is wonderful, over the top use of color (especially red). I loved the scene where Lone Wolf confronts the abbott the first time and the abbott just psychs him out with some zen bullshit. Then the scene where Cub is beaten to turn in the female pickpocket. I'm like, "no way they're going to beat the kid," . . . gulp! All that suspense and menace. I will say having seen one, I will be more prepared for the range of possibilities next time.

The nearest equivalent is the Sergio Leone westerns, I guess, or is there a tradition of these types of movies in Japan that pre-date those?

I kept saying throughout the movie that Tarantino got 50% of his entire vibe from this movie and maybe 80% of Kill Bill. The mundane conversations/situations punctuated by spasms of ott violence.

btw, all 28 of the Lone Wolf And Cub GNs (the 300 page ones) are half price (£2.39) on uk comixology at the moment.

oh, sale ends today 8(

I kept saying throughout the movie that Tarantino got 50% of his entire vibe from this movie and maybe 80% of Kill Bill. The mundane conversations/situations punctuated by spasms of ott violence.

― Quiet Storm Thorgerson (PBKR), Monday, September 28, 2020 9:35 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Have you seen Lady Snowblood though?

No, but I'm going to now.

The nearest equivalent is the Sergio Leone westerns, I guess, or is there a tradition of these types of movies in Japan that pre-date those?

There's a long tradition of samurai films, which got revisionist about as quickly as westerns did, but I'm not sure if that's what you're asking per se.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UVy90UPafcA/WmAG5kiiMzI/AAAAAAABF7o/eUM55YqjCHECY3bSJDfaeTrRx5bXgZ-twCEwYBhgL/s640/y1.gif

^ Yojimbo got remade as Fistful Of Dollars, Seven Samurai as Magnificent Seven

but there's a 3rd Kurosawa movie that got remade as a western that's less familiar - Rashomon got remade as The Outrage featuring Paul Newman in the Mifune role and William Shatner.

(not that Kurosawa was above taking things from western sources - shakespeare, ed mcbain, dusty dusty...)

If you have access to Hoopla through your library, they have the entire LW&C manga on there. All of Samurai Executioner too!

Yojimbo is based on Dashiell Hammett!

Kurosawa films not a lot like lw&c films anyway, slightly more serious and b&w for a start.

Maybe better suggestions would be the other lw&c films (there are half a dozen), both snow blood films, or later zatoichi films (not seen but there are 20 odd). Chambara is the general term for them. There are lists around:

https://m.imdb.com/list/ls003893928/

Well, original question was if there was a tradition of this type of film in Japan that predates spaghetti westerns.

Yojimbo and Sanjuro are the Kurosawas that slot into that tradition imo, but there's plenty of other 60's stuff that's in the more violent, cynical vein of the spaghetti western - as I said, most of the 60's chambara is already revisionist and views the samurai code of honour as nonsense (partially the trauma of war playing into that). Okamoto, Hideo Gosha, Kobayashi. But yeah most of their stuff is in elegant black and white, too.

I haven't seen them but the Sleepy Eyes Of Death series and lots of films with Double Suicide in the title might also be worth a look.

(props to Jaq for pointing me at this)

All of LW&C, SE, PotA, Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman and one other thing (but no golf manga...) in a humble bundle for the next 20 days or so. price currently about £20 for everything, drm-free.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/lone-wolf-cub-koike-from-dark-horse-books

(they look like the 300 page dark horse editions so they'll be reversed to read from left to right, which most newer manga isn't iirc. i don't know if the later omnibus editions of LW&C were different)

("one other thing" = Color of Rage)

I’ve seen almost 400 kung-fu and wuxia movies over the past three years, so when I say I’ve never seen a fight like this before, it’s not hyperbole pic.twitter.com/bot3h4shUW

— Justin Decloux (@DeclouxJ) March 21, 2022