FROM THE CREATORS OF LONE WOLF AND CUB: Samurai Executioner

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