Lone Wolf and Cub 19: The Moon in Our Hearts [Paperback]

Kazuo Koike (Author), Goseki Kojima (Author), Kazuo Koike (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lone Wolf and Cub (Dark Horse) | Publication Date: March 22, 2002

The time for delay is past. Itto Ogami and Daigoro are headed for Edo, to face Retsudo of the Yagyu once and for all! Stalked by bounty hunters and killers after their reward money, the Lone Wolf now faces deadlier enemies still. Retsudo has called out the nation's most accomplished rifleman, and dispatched a cannon-laden man of war, to intercept the father and son as they navigate treacherous cliffs and the high seas of Japan!

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Thought widely respected as a powerful writer of graphic fiction, Kazuo Koike has spent a lifetime reaching beyond the bounds of the comics medium. Aside from co-creating and writing the incredibly successful Lone Wolf and Cub and Crying Freeman manga, Koike has hosted television programs; founded a golf magazine; produced movies; written popular fiction, poetry, and screenplays; and mentored some of Japan's best manga talent. Koike and artist Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub was first serialized in Japan in 1970 and continued its hugely popular run for many years, being collected as the stories were published, and reprinted worldwide. Koike collected numerous awards for his work on the series throughout the next decade. Starting in 1972, Koike adapted the popular manga into a series of six films, The Baby Cart Asssassin saga, garnering widespread critical acclaim for his screenwriting abilities, and presenting the epic manga basis of the hit films to a world of fans who were hungry for more stories from the Lone Wolf and Cub saga. In 2000, Dark Horse Comics embarked on a landmark publishing program to bring all 8000- plus pages of Lone Wolf and Cub to American audiences for the first time. Over the next two years, Dark Horse will release 28 volumes of this revered material, with each volume containing approximately 300 pages of masterful samurai storytelling.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse Comics; First Printing edition (March 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569715912
• ISBN-13: 978-1569715918
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #451,398 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars On to Edo., April 16, 2002

By 

Dan Norton (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lone Wolf and Cub 19: The Moon in Our Hearts (Paperback)

This episode, Retsudo throws more fodder into Itto's path. An interesting passage in which Retsudo refers to and strategizes Ogami Itto as if he were an entire army, which for all practical purposes he is.

Also, there is an stylized melee in which we see none of the fighting, only the horrfified looks of peasants as they watch the massacre, with the sounds of battle and dying scattered through the images. Pretty grim.

If you're reading this review, you probably don't even need to be - if you've gone through the first 18, you'll keep on going.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ogami Itto and Daigoro finally walk on the moon..., December 20, 2002

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Lone Wolf and Cub 19: The Moon in Our Hearts (Paperback)

You always have to be wary about what is going to happen next in the Lone Wolf & Cub saga, but I have reason to believe that "The Moon in Our Hearts," Volume 19 in this manga epic constitutes the end of a major act. At the end of this volume, in the titular story, Ogami Itto and Daigoro "walk on the moon," and wait until you see what that means. Volume 19 offers up five stories:

(93) "Four Seasons of Death" offers a nice variation of the climatic battle between Lone Wolf and those who try to arrest him in a story where he is mostly a spectator to the action. A young woman on her way to her wedding is kidnapped by her lover, who holes up in a house and threatens to kill them both before letting her marry another.

(94) "Wives and Lovers" offers another different love story between Chiga, the widow of a Fukaya Han retainer and Karube Genjiro, a cavalry officer, who had been searching for four years for the Ronin who murdered her husband. During this time the two have become--well, that is the question here, which only becomes further complicated when the pair cross paths with Lone Wolf and Cub.

(95) "The Marksman" finds Retsudo Yagyu ordering Inaba Shigemasa, the foremost marksman of his age, to gun down Ogami itto, who has abandoned the baby cart to the sea and is climbing cliffs never climbed before by man (with Daigoro hanging around his neck).

(96) "A Mother's Flavor" is a story in which a prostitute spots Lone Wolf & Cub walking through town in the middle of the night and decides that if she follows them she will be free of her servitude. Noting that any one may walk the Shogun's roads, Ogami Itto allows her to follow. The title comes from the fact that Daigoro eats to survive and the taste of their rice means nothing to boy, who does not know "his mother's flavor." Before their paths diverge, the woman tries to do something about that.

(97) "The Moon in Our Hearts" finds Ogami Itto and Daigoro taking to the sea as the extended Yagyu clan comes to Edo for the final showdown. Meanwhile, Retsudo has the Shogun's finest warships patrolling the sea to blow Lone Wolf and Cub out of the water. Kazuo Kokie provides some of the most poetic descriptions of Ogami Itto's quest in this pivotal story that brings the assassin and his son one step closer to the end of their journey.

Once again there is a sense of the quiet before the storm, as Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima focus more of characters and less on a high body count in these five stories. Lone Wolf & Cub is a transcendent "comic book," now on the cusp of its 100th episode while maintaining a level of superior story telling that is unrivaled in the field. If there is something else this grand, I certainly have not heard tell of it to date.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Lone Wolf saga continues, August 2, 2002

By 

Andrew Limsk (Kuala Lumpur, MY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lone Wolf and Cub 19: The Moon in Our Hearts (Paperback)

The genre-defining masterpiece of visual literature that is Lone Wolf and Cub Saga continues in this book. Former Shogun's Executioner, the ronin Itto Ogami and his son Diagoro attempt to enter Edo, the stronghold of the dreaded Yagyu clan of Assassins to settle once and for all the feud that is the focus of the entire saga. Bushido (the Japanese warrior philosophy) is never as well illustrated as it is here as Ogami is forced to cut his way through men who admire him but are honour-bound to stop him. Powerful storytelling and stark, brutal visuals with few restraints.