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Jul 19, 2011 5:53 AM
#1

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Jan 2010
269
THIS IS A MANGA ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS ANYTHING BEYOND THIS CHAPTER.
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HOLY SHIT...words cannot describe this ending. This is the only masterpiece ever written in the history of manga. What a fight and magnificent story telling. It's sad that Itto passed before completing his path of vengeance, but the ending seemed somewhat fitting seeing as how Yagyu sent all the Grass after him. If Itto and Yagyu faced each other head on without the interference of the Grass, I'm pretty sure Itto would be the victor. Nonetheless, epic story telling and ending. Best samurai manga to date by far. Only thing that had me disliking the manga for a bit was Abe. Couldn't understand why he was kept alive so long, or why they had to show him drinking pee. Guess that was just to show how screwed up he was a person, still nasty though.
VitaXJul 19, 2011 5:50 PM
Apr 27, 2014 8:37 AM
#2

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Mar 2008
24335
Amazing.

The overall story might have stalled once or twice, and I might have mixed feelings about our head taster, but wow. That ending.
I was a little worried the ending wouldn't quite match up to some of the perfect episodes we had along the way, but that was as intense as it gets.

Cub and Wolf, a masterful classic.
Jun 2, 2014 3:05 PM
#3

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Oct 2012
195
Well, as far as storytelling style goes - that's the strongest aspect of this manga for sure.
A big thumbs up for trying to stick to reality facts as much as possible too.

As for art - well, not comparable with vagabond of course, but I enjoyed it more than blade of immortal for example.

I did not realy enjoy how the story was presented with 70% of the manga being 1 chapter stories, which followed pretty similiar pattern, but the amount of depth each of those chapters packed was sure amazing.

When manga started to end - the 1 chapter stories stopped, but the overall storytelling level also dropped a level and it felt more action based.

Overall it was enjoyable, the only fact that I disliked is that while trying to keep so much to reality and getting so many facts straight, they actually ruined the realism with the main character..
Itto pretty much ignores every trap possible and usually simply brute forces out of it without getting a scratch for big part of the manga...
Then another big flaw: he easily took out an eye from retsudo while being in HUGE disadvantage, but during first duel they suddenly became even... and on second and last duel he was at disadvantage again and died.. pretty stupid if you ask me.

Suddenly due to those facts even blade of immortal becomes easier to accept as reality, since every fight has heavy consequences, a good trap can easily kill even immortal, but itto here never realy gets as much as scratch until the very end, even with all possible disadvantage and against guns too..


9/10 for how much depth every single chapter packed and how absolutely entangling the writing was.
Sep 18, 2017 2:10 PM
#4

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Jun 2014
84
Storywise a true masterpiece. The historical correctness, dialogues, feels and action were top notch. The one chapter stories got tedious sometimes though. This manga could easily have been 100 chapters without losing quality. 8/10
Jan 26, 2018 5:00 PM
#5
SHSL Good Luck

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Apr 2015
7109
That ending was absolutely outstanding. I've never read a conclusion that impactful. Wow, I knew Ogami outcome since it was predictable, the way it was done was splendid. And Yagyuu's final moment was outstanding too. It's subtle, but you can see the change each character went through throughout the series. I'm probably never gonna read the sequel because I don't want to see a continuation to this. This was a perfect ending. My only gripe is that not all chapters were consistent. It's episodic/chapter-sodic, but some of the stories felt a bit underdeveloped. Some of the stories should've been more than a chapter. But other than that, this series is a masterpiece in its own rights.

8.5/10
Sep 28, 2018 1:14 PM
#6
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Nov 2015
1056
Comparison with Vagabond doesn't sit well for me. Vagabond is kind of a suoer detailed, realistically drawn manga. This, symbolic, surreal even. I love both, but I love this art style more.

The fight scenes use wild brush strokes to depict movement, wind directions... which can seem messy and rough but exactly is beautiful because of that quality.

Many frames are so magically composed, and it can get real symbolic sometimes, the most recent instant is chap 141, the bright lanterns shining in total blackness (substituting of course for the troupes drawing to the fight scene, but the composition of the drawing is surreal and ghostly)

I don't even need to get to the scsenery drawings. They're insane.

The best part is still the episodic stories for me. Can't top that. I don't dig it as much, the whole Edo arc. Then again, my bias is history, geography lessons and a lot, lot of traveling.

Must re-read. Used to think of Retsudo as a straight forward villain, power hungry. What's his original deal with the Itto family anyway? Did he do that out of jealousy or did he care for the Tokugawa clan, as towards his loyalty seems really believable, and he's even sympathetic.

Did he find an heir in Daigoro? Certainly he deserves his death for all the things he did to the Itto clan, but the Yagyu seems to have a noble role for the shogunate.
Mar 11, 2019 1:15 PM
#7

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Nov 2016
31798
These last couple of chapters have been nothing short of amazing, fitting to conclude this masterpiece of storytelling.

Stories, characters, drawings, dialogues, realistic depiction, themes, everything was just incredibly high level. But the aspect which impressed me the most was still the episodic portion. I was able to experience a bunch of different stories which proved pretty much every single time to be either interesting, exciting, cheerful or poignant.

Lone Wolf and Cub definitely became an all time favorite manga, one that I will cherish for long.

One Piece episode 914 & 915 & 1027 were a mistake and 957 brought the salvation - FMmatron


Apr 15, 2020 7:16 PM
#8

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May 2015
1337
Wow, what an incredible journey and experience it's been reading this masterpiece. I slowly read this manga over the course of 3 months because it was too good to let go. Too good to be read quickly. I allowed myself to thoroughly enjoy the writing, the history, the artwork, everything. I'm usually not one for episodic storytelling, but it worked perfectly in this manga and I had no problem with it. Every chapter was masterfully written with beautiful artwork to back it up.
There's absolutely nothing about this manga that I can complain about other than I wish it wasn't over. It's perfection. The word masterpiece gets thrown around, but this manga is in a league above. Truly a masterpiece above masterpieces. I give it an 11/10. Simply beautiful.
May 25, 2020 3:41 AM
#9

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Nov 2011
4000
You can easily see why this manga is considered one of the greats, for its time the story was so deep, the setting so complex and the characters were so well structured. However it has to be said, this should have ended like 10 volumes ago, the part with Kai especially seemed dragged on and unnecessary, he should have been killed off like any of the other assassins. That aside, it was an exceptional piece of art. 8.

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Mar 21, 2021 9:49 PM
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Nov 2019
9
Zee530 said:
You can easily see why this manga is considered one of the greats, for its time the story was so deep, the setting so complex and the characters were so well structured. However it has to be said, this should have ended like 10 volumes ago, the part with Kai especially seemed dragged on and unnecessary, he should have been killed off like any of the other assassins. That aside, it was an exceptional piece of art. 8.
Zee530 said:
You can easily see why this manga is considered one of the greats, for its time the story was so deep, the setting so complex and the characters were so well structured. However it has to be said, this should have ended like 10 volumes ago, the part with Kai especially seemed dragged on and unnecessary, he should have been killed off like any of the other assassins. That aside, it was an exceptional piece of art. 8.
should be 10/10 best manga ever written. Much better than berserk
Aug 13, 2021 5:48 AM

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Aug 2018
2485
The finale of Itto's and his sons long journey has been reached. What an ending, truly one of a kind when it comes to Manga's or literature in general. I'm more than happy we didn't get to see Itto and his son lives happily after defeating bad guy Retsudo type of ending. But instead we were shown something that truly can be described as top tier ending of endings.

Seeing Itto pass away was damn sad, but he really gave all he got and slain many many powerfull foes who doubted his abilities as a Bushi. Whats even sadder is that Daigoro had to witness every last bit of this suffering and death, only thing that made this even better was that final stab to Retsudo.

Generaly speaking this manga is a masterpiece both storywise and artistically. Itto and Daigoro relationship as father and son was very interesting and done superbly. Retsudo as a villain was fantastic, probaby one of the best in all of Manga and often forgotten sadly. He went from some old guy who suffers shamefull losses by sending his assassins after Itto during whole story only to become one of the most honorable and likable characters who are not actually good guys. I can't really get myself to call him villain too much because you can completely understand his doings and reasons for them.

To think that all this was written in 1970-1976, way before all the modern manga masterpieces is already mindblowing on its own way. The duo of these two people who made it happen are truly big respect worthy legends in manga industry. I'm gonna end this by saying that it really has been an amazing expierece reading such an artistic beauty of a Manga, even if it could've been a little shorter the final arcs really lived to the whole potential and delivered something unique and inspirational for future mangaka generations. I could only wish along with other same minded individuals here that more people knew and read this manga because there are many reasons why this piece of work should not be forgotten and ranked among best works of Japanese comic industry.
FigvaAug 16, 2021 5:25 AM
Dec 10, 2022 3:26 AM

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Aug 2017
3036
zomik said:
Wow, what an incredible journey and experience it's been reading this masterpiece. I slowly read this manga over the course of 3 months because it was too good to let go. Too good to be read quickly. I allowed myself to thoroughly enjoy the writing, the history, the artwork, everything. I'm usually not one for episodic storytelling, but it worked perfectly in this manga and I had no problem with it. Every chapter was masterfully written with beautiful artwork to back it up.

I spread it over several years...what a journey that was!

Now I wonder what kind of sequel did Kazuo Koike write, now with Hideki Mori, after Goseki Kojima's passing...one sequel is translated by Dark Horse but a follow-up one is not...
Apr 22, 2023 3:48 PM

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Oct 2014
1154
Funny that Daigoro never looked as distraught at any moment as much as in the scene where his father killed those hawks. 

So many boring and repetitive chapters with disgusting and depressing content but overall a well crafted and overall very good manga. I enjoyed every single Daigoro chapter a lot. Would like to read the sequel one day but the last 3 volumes look very hard to obtain from a quick check online so guess I'll have to leave it for now.
Dec 27, 2023 12:11 AM

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May 2020
1982
What an ending. Itto going so far but falling just short of finishing off Retsudo was tragic. Daigoro being the one to deliver the final blow to Retsudo and the Yagyu is pretty fitting. Retsudo could've probably ended Daigoro but I guess in his heart, he knew he would never be able to rebuild the Yagyu to their previous glory. Letting Daigoro kill him was probably his way of atoning for all that he did.

Overall, this was a pretty solid read. The art and story was amazing but the episodic nature of the manga during the early volumes really drags after a while. The episodic tales are pretty good stories in themselves but it gets boring after a while, knowing that Itto just cannot be beaten, no matter what you try to do to him.

That to me, is this manga's biggest flaw : Itto is just too invulnerable. Yes, he's one of foremast swordsman in Japan but he regularly beats groups of 30 or more men on his own, with a freakin toddler on his back. There's strong and then there's this guy. Assassin, ninjas and gunmen, no matter what you throw at him, he always beats them. After a while there's just no stakes to their journey, at least until they return to Edo.

I can see why this manga is iconic as it is and it was definitely worth the read.
May 20, 11:32 AM

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Aug 2022
3015
Great ending. I always kinda expected Ittou to die, but I still held onto some hope that he'd survive. At least Daigoro is alive. Retsudo was an amazing antagonist. At first I greatly disliked him, but the more I read the more he grew on me. I'll eventually check out the sequel, although I wonder if it'll be able to hold up to this masterpiece.

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