Lone Wolf and Cub Chapter 142 Discussion

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

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.

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.

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.