One of the best collections in the series, Daisho tells the story of Usagi's attempts to recover his swords from a bandit. Includes a fascinating sequence that explains how samurai swords were made in early 17th-century Japan. ( )

The Daisho storyline was engrossing and had a sidetrack about making swords which was interesting. This collection also had the flashback story about Lady Hirano and how she and Usagi find themselves trapped by life. He discovered his love had married and he can't do anything about it. She being required to marry in order to bind two clans together. Then again, Usagi has the possibility of finding love again in the future while Hirano is forced into an arranged marriage so the situations aren't the same. ( )

It still blows me away that Sakai can find ways to deepen and expand Usagi's tales. I mean how many "Ronin Rabbit gets in a scrape" stories can you write? Somehow, Sakai always makes it engaging. ( )

As reflected in his name, Miyamoto Usagi is more of a Musashi-style ronin d'exploits than a Yojimboesque "man with no name" type, but there's nothing wrong with that, and this series still sets the bar for Western manga (followed, depending on how you place Larry Hama, by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, also a Sakai creation, and Ninja High School at a so-distant-as-to-be-invisible third). Here, Usagi saves a village from bandits, has a creepy encounter with some lizards and a blind shakuhachi player, rescues his daisho from a rebel general with the help of two bickering bounty hunters, and, in a story with his past, falls deeply for a princess in his charge in a love doomed by taimen and giri. Throughout, he is stolid and sincere, and kills many, and looks oh-so-cute doing it. Bunny samurai! ( )