Lone Wolf and Cub Chapter 142 Discussion

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

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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                        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.

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.

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

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.

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