Usagi Yojimbo #13-15: "Kappa," "Zylla," and "Silk Fair"

After that long, dramatic, and historically-focused story, Usagi Yojimbo swings in the other direction with these shorter episodes that lean humorous and fantastical. Well, it's more accurate to say that one of them leans humorous, one of them leans fantastical, and one of them leans both.


"Kappa," of course, is named after the water demons from Japanese folklore. While the details vary from story to story, kappa are generally said to be malevolent river-dwelling creatures who look like anthropomorphic turtles with indentations full of water on top of their heads, and who ambush and kill humans either to drink their blood or just out of sheer malice. They're virtually unkillable unless you can somehow empty the bowl of water on their heads, at which point they're rendered powerless and mortal until they can refill it.

Anyway, this story is very matter-of-fact in introducing the titular monster. While wandering across a marshy land, Usagi encounters a kappa who demands that mortals passing through its territory either give it a gift or feed its bloodthirst. As luck would have it, Usagi has just found a handful of ripe, juicy wild cucumbers (an unusual find at this time of year) and had been planning to eat them himself, but he'd rather give them up than have to fight a kappa.

Right, that's another thing about kappas. They're a bit like European vampires in that various stories give them a range of really fiddly, counterintuitive little quirks and weaknesses, such as "is compelled to bow back if bowed to" or "hungers for cucumbers even more than human blood."

Anyway, something that struck me about this page (aside from the whacky little waterbending trick that the kappa levitates itself on in that first panel, I mean) is how Usagi is almost nonchalant about this. No sign of fear or disbelief on his face (at least, not moreso than the rational fear he'd have for any dangerous opponent). Total rote repetition of how to bargain with kappas if you're faced with one, like he's met a dozen before this one. More just disappointed at losing his cucumbers than anything else. It gives the impression of a rather more magic-filled world than UY usually does, where demons and spirits are the type of thing everyone has to deal with from time to time rather than rare and frightening aberrations from the norm. Contrast this with how the mutated General Toda was framed in the pilot, or how the cat-demon was in "Village of Fear," both in terms of buildup-to-the-reveal and in how Usagi and others textually seemed to feel about them.

I'm not saying this way is necessarily better or worse. Just, it struck me as an interesting change.

After trudging morosely through the swamp for a while longer, Usagi is glad to find an inhabited cottage whose lone occupant is willing to provide dinner and lodging for a weary traveller. She's kinda spoopy, though. Like, even if we hadn't already encountered one supernatural being in this episode, this lady would ring my spoop alarm.

When the subject of the kappa is raised, the woman is horrified to hear that Usagi picked the cucumbers. She had specifically nurtured those plants out of season so that her son would have something to bribe the kappa with when he comes to visit her, and he's due on this very night! No word on how she herself is able to navigate the kappa's domain, but Usagi doesn't have time to ask about that. He needs to go out there and try to save her son.

He gets back to the kappa's river just in time to see it paralyze the cucumber-less man and start to pull him below the water for drowning and subsequent exsanguination. It's not happy that Usagi came back here without another gift for it, and it's even less happy to hear him tell it that it can't eat the other guy either.

It doesn't use its paralysis power on Usagi, for whatever reason. I guess either it's a 1/day ability, or Usagi just made the saving throw. Even without that though, this thing lives up to its mythical reputation, and proves to be one of the toughest opponents Usagi has ever faced. I especially like the way it dives into the water and then launches itself back out at him from a completely different direction with a mere split-second in between. Like it isn't swimming so much as teleporting through the water. There's also one part where it manages to pull Usagi under the water for a moment before he wrestles himself free, and the way it's drawn is pretty damned horrifying.

The underwater distortion effect, the bubble work, the agony on the half-drowned Usagi's face in the third panel...​

Still, he gets their heads back above the surface somehow. And then just barely manages to flip the thing's head back and judo-flip it onto the riverbank, emptying its head-bowl and standing between it and the water source. Another piece of non-universal kappa lore is that they are unable to break a promise, so when Usagi makes it swear it won't attack people who pass through its territory anymore he knows it's good for it.

With the old woman's son un-paralyzed and no longer sinking into the riverbed, Usagi starts walking him to his mother's house. When Usagi explains the situation to him though, the man provides a final, not-really-all-that-surprising, twist.

BUT THEN WHO WAS CUCUMBER???


Well, I dunno if ghost-lady was intentionally aiming for revenge, but it seems to have worked out for her regardless. Lucky kitty samurai, too, to have such actively protective ancestor-spirits. Yeah, he definitely owes them these pilgrimages.

Effective enough little fantasy-adventure story. I'm amused that Usagi seems more freaked out by learning about the kindly ghost than he was by the blood-sucking swamp devil, but I guess that expression might be down to him realizing that he'd met another supernatural being without realizing it. Which, to be fair, his ability to recognize those has saved his life repeatedly in the past, so I can see how this might be a disconcerting revelation.

I'm still kind of tickled by how un-spooky this story was. There was some visceral nastiness during the fight scene, but otherwise it was just really matter-of-fact about things that I'd have expected it to play for tension and fear.


Next is Usagi Yojimbo #14, "Zylla." Another supernatural incident, but way goofier than the one preceding it. This one involves Usagi setting the destruction of Tokyo in motion, though it takes 300 years to take effect.

We start with a pair of comically dimwitted monkey woodcutters finding a gigantic egg and deciding that the most sensible course of action would be to drag it straight to the nearby hot springs to hard-boil it.

Yup, this is going exactly where you think that it's going. It turns out that King Ghidora cameo way back when wasn't just a one-off.

Meanwhile, at a nearby inn, Usagi asks where he can find something to help with his backache, and is directed to the hot spring. This story is set immediately after the events of "Bounty Hunter II," meaning Usagi still has plenty of reward money on hand and makes the mistake of flashing it around. So, when he heads off to the hot springs, some local punks decide to sneak after him and rob him while he's in the pool and his swords and moneybag are out of his reach.

I'm sure that you will all be very surprised to learn that the heat of the hot springs catalyses the egg's hatching.

Maybe I shouldn't have made fun of the peasants. No one is bringing their intellectual A-game to this story lol.​

When a large creature makes odd noises at him from behind the thicket, Usagi assumes its just an unusually big frog-sauropod-critter and tosses it one of his riceballs to snack on. The pleased sound it makes while eating sounds like "zylla," so Usagi decides that that's its name for now. When the punks arrive and try to rob him, the altercation ends up destroying some of the hatchling's bush cover. And also letting it see the person who just fed it get swarmed by punks. Between one thing and the other, Zylla decides to use its radioactive breath weapon for the first time in its life.

Hence, the god Zylla has its name contracted. I feel like it should be "kamizilla" in that case, since Usagi would be speaking Japanese, but close enough.

Usagi gets over his fear, since the creature still seems friendly enough toward him. After finishing his soak, he tosses it the last of his riceballs and tells it that its free to follow him to Edo if it wants to. Unfortunately, the creature would wait over three centuries before following his invitation to the city once known as Edo, and it would grow to many times its current size by the time it came looking for rice balls. Nice going, Usagi.


First of all, I looked it up, and this Usagi Yojimbo comic has indeed been recognized as canon by all past and current Godzilla IP holders since it was published.

Second, while the comic's etymology for the name "godzilla" is just another of Sakai's groanworthy dad jokes, the humor in this short is otherwise top notch from beginning to end. Both from the premise itself, and from the succession of one-off gags that come alongside it. Like, here's our introduction to the woodcutters before they find the egg:

And here's them being excited to go hard-boil and eat the giant alien egg that they know nothing about four panels later:

It's like that pretty much the whole way through. It's probably the goofily kid-friendly style that Sakai drew Baby Godzilla in - when we know he doesn't normally do that for dangerous monsters in this comic - that really ties it all together for me.


Finally, "Silk Fair." No magic in this one, but yes silliness. We open on Usagi engaging in his usual hobby of stumbling upon brigandry in progress and chopping the perpetrators into bits. In this case, the brigands had been in the process of beating their victim to death for disappointing them with his poverty. By that same token, the rescuee has nothing to reward Usagi with, but he can at least walk him to his town where he can hopefully find work. If there are bandits around, there ought to be someone looking to hire a yojimbo.

The town in question is centred around the extensive Kaiko Silkworks complex. Usagi is surprised that these people are so poor, once he sees the quantity and quality of silk fabrics they produce. The explanation comes when he meets the magistrate, Mr. Kaiko, himself.

Comically greedy, corner-cutting robber baron, running what is basically a 19th century American company town in 17th century Japan makeup. I'm not sure if this exact type of exploitative capital enterprise historically existed in the Tokugawa Shogunate, but I mean, we made friends with baby godzilla last chapter, so whatever lol.

It also becomes clear that Kaiko could have gotten the local bandits taken care of a long time ago if he was willing to shell out for proper legbreakers instead of...erm...this guy:

Matsutaro charges a ridiculously low rate for a mercenary, but it comes with free room and board. He's pretty clearly just an intimidating-looking drunkard whose managed to land himself a job sitting around looking scary while he drinks as much as he can get away with.

Usagi doesn't buy his BS. The bandits increasingly aren't buying his BS. The only ones who buy his BS are Kaiko with his motivated reasoning, and the workers who he's a bigger threat to than he is to the bandits.

Parasites parasitizing parasites.

Usagi is given lodging for the night by the grateful gopher or beaver or whatever that guy is supposed to be, despite how little he and his family have to share. Which is pretty damning, because its a big family with quite a few members old enough to work, and with a successful high-value goods production center like this one, well. There's a babby gopher - right on the cusp of wage slave age - who wants to be a samurai when he grows up, and is excited when he manages to wheedle Usagi into showing off his sword moves.

So, Usagi's plan. You know he's come up with one by this point. And, it ends up being - in style if not in substance - a little bit "off" for Miyamoto Usagi. He's done trickery before, but the way he goes about it in this case is snarky and flamboyant in a way he isn't usually. Some of these lines would feel more natural coming from Bugs Bunny than they do from this other illustrated lagomorph. Well, anyway.

Step one is to get rid of Matsutaro.

Usagi tricks him into thinking he forgot that the fleece fair - before which the bandits will almost certainly make their last-ditch attempt to steal the goods so they can be gone before the nobles with their armed caravans arrive - is tomorrow. Which is great, because it relies on Usagi knowing that Matsutaro knows that he's a dumb drunk who can't be bothered to keep track of the calendar. Really self-aware dipshit, this one. As planned, Matsutaro flees down before he has to do any actual fighting. Matsutaro still probably considers this a win for himself, since he got to freeload for however long.

Step two is to tell a worker or two that the bandits are coming, and that Matsutaro has already fled from them. Soon, enough of them are running and screaming to get Boss Kaiko's attention. And, sure enough Matsutaro is gone, which to Kaiko means that a large bandit group really must be on its way.

See what I mean about this being the wrong kind of snark for Usagi?​

Usagi tells Kaiko that since the bandits can finally get their hands on the actual treasure this time, they're unlikely to bother the impoverished workers. Just the silk. And the people who have nice food and jewelry and clothes and families who can pay ransom for them and stuff. And, since Kaiko made such a great impression on Usagi the previous night, Usagi is just going to climb up onto this here rooftop and enjoy watching the show.

Kaiko is so hilariously, self-awarely evil it's amazing.

Gold.​

Kaiko reluctantly agrees.

Step three is to go out there and aggro the bandits. Usagi has never had trouble doing this in the past, and he doesn't start now.

Best part from this fight scene is "Go get him, but be careful of his swords!" and then in the next panel "Fool! I JUST told you to be careful of those!" Couldn't screencap it due to the page layout, but I assure you that the comedic timing is perfect.

It's a large gang, but Usagi leads them across a field of improvised caltrops made from silk needles and into an ambush led by that gopher kid who wants to be a samurai when he grows up throwing silk ribbons that trip the baddies up. Usagi is consequently able to take most of the raiders alive, which probably translates to a bounty from the local lord.

The workers make good on their own bounty too.

Might even be able to send that kid to samurai school. Or maybe even to that lion dude who trained Usagi, if he's still around.


This didn't have to be a comedy episode. The (well-worn, but serviceable) plot would have worked just as well for a more tonally typical instalment. The decision to play it for laughs resulted in a fine product, but I'm curious about why that decision was made.

While everything here besides Usagi's slightly-out-of-character quippiness worked for me, the real standout was actually Matsutaro the security scammer. A lot of subtle work went into writing his reaction to a Real Deal guardian-for-hire showing up and threatening his job security. He's desparate to get Kaiko to send Usagi away, and he's overselling the act because of this, but every couple of panels he seems to *realize* that he's going too far and hastily dials it back a little bit before he ends up incriminating himself or provoking Usagi into drawing steel. He doesn't have much screentime, but the author managed to pack a lot of subtle stuff like this into it. Because of this, Usagi playing on that very same self-awareness-of-his-own-ineptitude of Matsutaro's to get rid of him in the final act feels like the most natural thing in the world.

I actually wouldn't mind a spin-off series about Matsutaro's own dishonest, unambitious, cringefail adventures. Where he keeps fucking himself over at least as badly as he fucks other people over, but somehow manages to just barely scrape by with enough money for cheap booze. Just hateable enough that he's fun to root against without being too unpleasant to carry a series.


More Usagi Yojimbo coming within the next week or two.