Lone Wolf and Cub is a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki
Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films
starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring
Kinnosuke Yorozuya, and is widely recognized as an important and
influential work. Lone Wolf and Cub chronicles the story
of Ogami Ittō, the Shogun's executioner who uses a dōtanuki battle sword.
Disgraced by false accusations from the Yagyū clan, he is forced to take the
path of the assassin. Along with his three-year-old son, Daigorō, they seek
revenge on the Yagyū clan and are known as "Lone Wolf and Cub".
Plot Ogami Ittō, formidable warrior and a
master of the suiō-ryū swordsmanship, serves as the Kogi Kaishakunin, a
position of high power in the Tokugawa shogunate. Along with the oniwaban and
the assassins, Ogami Ittō is responsible for enforcing the will of the Shogun
over the daimyo. For those samurai and lords ordered to commit seppuku, the
Kogi Kaishakunin assists their deaths by decapitating them to relieve the agony
of disembowelment; in this role, he is entitled and empowered to wear the crest
of the Shogunate, in effect acting in place of the Shogun.
After Ogami Ittō's wife Azami gives birth to their son, Daigorō, Ogami Ittō
returns to find her and all of their household brutally murdered, with only
the newborn Daigorō surviving. The supposed culprits are three former
retainers of an abolished clan, avenging the execution of their lord by Ogami
Ittō. However, the entire matter was planned by Ura-Yagyū Yagyū Retsudō,
leader of the Ura-Yagyū clan, in order to seize Ogami's post as part of a
masterplan to control the three key positions of power: the spy system, the
official assassins and the Shogunate Decapitator. During the initial
incursion, an ihai with the shogun's crest on it was placed inside the Ogami
family shrine, signifying a supposed wish for the shogun's death. When the
tablet is "discovered" during the murder investigation, its presence condemns
Ittō as a traitor and thus he is forced to forfeit his post.
The one-year-old Daigorō is given a choice by his father: a ball or a sword.
If Daigorō chose the ball, his father would kill him, sending Daigorō to be
with his mother; however, the child crawls toward the sword and reaches for
its hilt. This assigns him the path of a rōnin, wandering the country with his
father as "demons"—the assassin-for-hire team that becomes known as Lone Wolf and
Cub, vowing to destroy the Yagyū clan to avenge Azami's death and Ittō's
disgrace. On meifumadō, the cursed journey for
vengeance, Ogami Ittō and Daigorō experience numerous adventures,
encountering all of Yagyū Retsudō's children and the entire Kurokuwa ninja
clan, and eventually facing Retsudō himself. The last duel between Ogami
Ittō and Yagyū Retsudō runs 178 pages—one of the longest single
fight-scenes ever published in comics. Toward the end of their journeys, Ogami
Ittō's dōtanuki sword is surreptitiously damaged by a supposed sword-polisher who
is really an elite "Grass" ninja of the Yagyū clan. When attacked by the last of
the Grass ninja, the sword breaks due to Yagyū tampering, and Ittō receives
wounds that are ultimately fatal. Deadlocked in mid-battle with Retsudō,
Ittō's spirit leaves his body after a lifetime of fatigue and bloodshed,
unable to destroy his longtime enemy and ending his path of meifumadō.
The story finishes with Daigorō taking up Retsudō's spear and charging in fury.
Retsudō opens his arms, disregarding all defense, and allows Daigorō to drive the
spear into his body. Embracing Daigorō with tears, Yagyū Retsudō names him
"grandson of my heart", closing the cycle of vengeance and hatred between
the clans and concluding the epic. Characters
Ogami Ittō—The shogun's executioner, Ittō decides to avenge the death of his
wife, Ogami Azami and to restore his clan.
Ogami Daigorō—The son of Ittō and Azami, Daigorō becomes a stronger warrior as
the story progresses. Yagyū Retsudō—The leader of the Shadow
Yagyū clan, Retsudō tries everything in his power to ensure that Ittō dies.
Abe Tanomo)—The shogun's food taster and a master of poisons; originally ordered
to assist Retsudō in disposing of Ittō, Tanomo dishonorably tries to kill Ittō,
Daigorō and Retsudō. Media
= Manga= When Lone Wolf and Cub was first
released in Japan in 1970, it became wildly popular for its powerful, epic
samurai story and its stark and gruesome depiction of violence during Tokugawa
era Japan. Lone Wolf and Cub is one of most highly
regarded manga due to its epic scope, detailed historical accuracy, masterful
artwork and nostalgic recollection of the bushido ethos. The story spans 28
volumes of manga, with over 300 pages each. Many of the frames of the series
are hauntingly beautiful depictions of nature, historical locations in Japan
and traditional activities done in the classical ukiyo-e style.
Lone Wolf and Cub was initially released in North America in a translated English
edition by First Comics in 1987, as a series of monthly, comic-book-sized,
square-bound prestige-format black-and-white comics containing
between 64 and 128 pages, with covers by Frank Miller, and later by Bill
Sienkiewicz, Matt Wagner, Mike Ploog, and Ray Lago. Sales were initially
strong, but fell sharply as the company went into a general decline. First
Comics shut down in 1991 without completing the series, publishing less
than a third of the total series in 45 prestige-format issues.
Starting in September 2000, Dark Horse Comics began to release the full series
in 28 smaller-sized trade paperback volumes, similar to the volumes
published in Japan, completing the series with the 28th volume in December
2002. Dark Horse reused all of Miller's covers from the First Comics edition, as
well as several done by Sienkiewicz, and commissioned Wagner, Guy Davis, and
Vince Locke to produce new covers for several volumes of the collections. In
October 2012, Dark Horse completed the release of all 28 volumes in digital
format, as part of their "Dark Horse Digital" online service.
Manga chapters Dark Horse Omnibus collected editions
Starting in May 2013, Dark Horse began publishing their translated editions of
Lone Wolf and Cub in value-priced Omnibus editions.
Partial volumes collected in Omnibus form are marked with an asterisk.
Sequels and follow-up series In 2002, a "reimagined" version of the
story, Lone Wolf 2100 was created by writer Mike Kennedy and artist Francisco
Ruiz Velasco with Koike's indirect involvement. The story was a
post-apocalyptic take on the tale with several differences, such as a female
cub and a worldwide setting: Daisy Ogami, daughter of a renowned scientist,
and Itto, her father's bodyguard and subsequent protector, attempt to escape
from the Cygnat Owari Corporation's schemes.
Dark Horse announced at the 2006 New York Comic Con that they have licensed
Shin Lone Wolf & Cub, Kazuo Koike and Hideki Mori's follow-up to Lone Wolf and
Cub, starring Ogami Itto's son Daigoro, the famous child in the baby cart, after
the conclusion of the original revenge epic. In this new series, which picks up
immediately after the climactic battle of the original series, the bodies of
Ogami Itto and Yagyu Retsudo are left lying on the beach with Daigoro left
alone standing over his father's body. A mysterious bearded samurai, Tōgō
Shigetada of the Satsuma clan and master of the Jigen-ryū style of swordsmanship,
wanders onto the battlefield and assists Daigoro with the cremation/funeral of
Ogami Itto and Yagyu Retsudo. Tōgō, who is on a training journey and also
carries a dotanuki sword similar to Ogami's, then assumes guardianship of
Daigoro, including retrieving the baby cart and teaching/training Daigoro in
Jigen-ryū; the two soon become enmeshed in a plot by the Shogunate to topple the
Satsuma clan and assume control of that fiefdom's great wealth. This series also
introduces non-Japanese characters into the plotlines. Dark Horse began
publishing the follow-up series, under the title New Lone Wolf and Cub, in June
2014; as of October 2015, the first six volumes have been released.
= Films= A total of seven Lone Wolf and Cub films
starring Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Ittō and Tomikawa Akihiro as Daigoro
have been produced based on the manga. They are also known as the Sword of
Vengeance series, based on the English-language title of the first
film, and later as the Baby Cart series, because young Daigoro travels in a baby
carriage pushed by his father. The first three films, directed by Kenji
Misumi, were released in 1972 and produced by Shintaro Katsu, Tomisaburo
Wakayama's brother and the star of the 26 part Zatoichi film series. The next
three films were produced by Wakayama himself and directed by Buichi Saito,
Kenji Misumi and Yoshiyuki Kuroda, released in 1972, 1973, and 1974
respectively. Shogun Assassin was an English language
compilation for the American audience, edited mainly from the second film, with
11 minutes of footage from the first. Also, the third film, Lone Wolf and Cub:
Baby Cart to Hades was re-released on DVD in the US under the name Shogun
Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death. In addition to the six original films,
various television movies have aired in connection with the television series as
pilots, compilations or originals. These include several starring Kinnosuke
Yorozuya, in 1989 a TV movie called Lone Wolf With Child: An Assassin on the Road
to Hell better known as Baby Cart In Purgatory where Hideki Takahashi plays
Ogami Ittō and Tomisaburo Wakayama co-stars as Retsudo Yagyu.
In 1992 the story was once more made into a film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Final
Conflict also known as Handful of Sand or A Child's Hand Reaches Up, directed
by Akira Inoue and starring Tamura Masakazu.
Hollywood remake In 2012, Justin Lin was announced as a
director on an American version of Lone Wolf and Cub.
= Television series= Two full-fledged television series based
on the manga have been broadcast to date.
The first, Lone Wolf and Cub was produced in a typical jidaigeki format
and broadcast for three seasons from 1973 to 1976, each episode 45 minutes
long. Season one originally aired 27 episodes, but the original 2nd episode
"Gomune Oyuki" was subsequently deleted from all rebroadcasts in Japan and VHS
and DVD releases. Seasons two and three ran for 26 episodes each. Kinnosuke
Yorozuya played Ogami Ittō, and later reprised the role in a 1984 TV movie;
Daigoro was played by Katzutaka Nishikawa in the first two seasons and
by Takumi Satô in the final season. The series was shown in the United
States on Nippon TV as The Fugitive Samurai in the original Japanese with
English subtitles and released for the Toronto, Canada market by CFMT-TV in the
original Japanese with English subtitles as The Iron Samurai. It has also been
aired in Germany dubbed in German, in Italy dubbed in Italian; around 1980, a
Portuguese dub was aired in Brazil as O Samurai Fugitivo on TVS, actually SBT,
and in Spanish, as El Samurai Fugitivo on the American Spanish TV station
Univision. The first season was released on DVD in
Japan on December 20, 2006, apparently without subtitles. Twelve of the first
13 episodes were released on DVD in Germany as Kozure Okami, with audio in
Japanese and German. In the US, Media Blasters released the first season on
DVD on April 29, 2008 under its Tokyo Shock Label, containing the original
Japanese with English subtitles. All of these releases excluded the deleted from
distribution 2nd episode "Gomune Oyuki". It is unclear as to why this episode is
no longer made available. The latest television series, also
titled Lone Wolf and Cub, aired from 2002 to 2004 in Japan with Kinya Kitaoji
in the role of Ogami Ittō and Tsubasa Kobayashi as Daigoro. This series is not
available on DVD. = Video game=
In 1987, video game manufacturer Nichibutsu released a Japan-only beat
'em up based on the series named Kozure Ōkami. Players guide Ogami Itto through
an army of assassins while carrying his infant son on his back. A baby cart
powerup enables Ookami to mow down enemies with blasts of fire. The game is
considered a rarity by the Video Arcade Preservation Society as there are no
known instances of the game being owned, although it is available in ROM form for
MAME. Influence
Lone Wolf and Cub has influenced American comics, most notably Frank
Miller in his Sin City and Ronin series. Novelist Max Allan Collins acknowledged
the influence of Lone Wolf and Cub on his graphic novel Road to Perdition in
an interview to the BBC, declaring that "Road To Perdition is 'an unabashed
homage' to Lone Wolf And Cub". Darren Aronofsky had been trying to get
an official Hollywood version off the ground, but never really had the rights
in the first place. Animal versions of Ogami Itto and
Daigoro are recurring characters in Stan Sakai's comic series Usagi Yojimbo as
Yagi and Gorogoro - the Lone Goat and Kid.
References External links
Dark Horse Comics: Lone Wolf and Cub manga
Kodure Ookami at the Killer List of Videogames