Lone Wolf and Cub Volume 26: Struggle in the Dark [Paperback]

Kazuo Koike (Author), Goseki Kojima (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lone Wolf and Cub (Dark Horse) | Publication Date: October 25, 2002

One could believe the old adage about the grass being greener on the other side. But, if you're referring to the "other side" of the Sanzu, the river between life and death, chances are it will be white, the color of a samurai's death robes. And a lot of that "grass" was probably dispatched by the hand of Itto Ogami. The Yagyu "grass," spies planted for years in local citizenry, has been on the move, gathering in Edo for a final battle. The ronin Itto Ogami has walked a path of demons with Daigoro at his side, on a quest of vengeance and death that has shaken the very foundations of the samurai caste and the shögunate. No one has been able to stop him, not even the crafty, Abeno Kaii and it looks like he's about see his final day, but he won't go out without a battle of wits! Only three more volumes until the long-awaited conclusion of Lone Wolf and Cub. And when it's over, you'll only want to read it again.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (October 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156971598X
• ISBN-13: 978-1569715987
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #351,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #95 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > Dark Horse

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, November 11, 2002

By 

"tokenalf" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lone Wolf and Cub Volume 26: Struggle in the Dark (Paperback)

The epic series is drawing to an end, but it seems it's going to be good to the last drop. Daigoro doesn't figure much in Vol 26, but the continuation of the story is still deft and engaging. Those vehemently opposed to the evil scheming ways of poisoner Kaii will welcome this volume and its especially excrutiating, gory details surrounding his slow, torturous demise. And the message at the end of course, is yet another eye-opening lesson of the cycle of life.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Building up to the climactic duel, December 29, 2002

By 

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

This review is from: Lone Wolf and Cub Volume 26: Struggle in the Dark (Paperback)

The long awaited duel with Ogami Itto will have to wait as the imprisoned Retsudo has to first deal with the master poisoner Abe. Retsudo with the aid of his ninja infiltrators, cunningly traps Abe in a strategem that results in the master poisoner being ordered to commit seppuku (ritual belly cutting) by the enraged Shogun. Meanwhile, Ogami Itto, goes to find Retsudo by simply walking into Edo Castle in the midst of a festival, depending on his bearing and charisma instead of his sword. The best of the tales is probably the sad end of Abe Tanoshi. The master poisoner disgraces his own seppuku ceremony by his refusal to accept his fate until Ogami Itto intervenes. At the end of his life, Abe finally learns a little of what it means to be bushi.

Great stuff - Powerful storytelling and stark visuals with few restraints, but you would expect no less of the Lone Wolf and Cub series.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The end of the road for the poisoner, Abe-No-Kaii, January 29, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lone Wolf and Cub Volume 26: Struggle in the Dark (Paperback)

It has been fairly clear that before Ogami Itto and Retsudo Yagyu can pick up their swords and finish their duel to the death that the question and person of Abe-No-Kaii has to be removed from the equation. The master poisoner's luck finally runs out in "Struggle in the Dark," Volume 28 in the epic Lone Wolf & Cub saga from Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima. Of course, before the final stroke of Ogami Itto's blade there will be a final series of twists and turns:

(128) "Tales of the Grass: Nindo Ukon" offers the fourth story in the last pair of volumes telling of one of the Yagyu grass seeing the sign of the wolf fire and heeding the call to come to Edo. Unlike the characters of the previous tales, Nindo Ukon has some other business to take care of first before he heeds his master's call.

(129) "Struggle in the Dark" resumes the conflict of wills between the master poisoner Abe-No-Kaii and his captive guest, Retsudo Yagyu. By now we know that the grass have started to arrive in Edo and Retsudo uses them to great advantage to force the deadly little game between him and Kaii into its final stage. Throughout these books Koike and Kojima have done their best to replicate the customs and beliefs of this period, and in this story something we learned long ago becomes Retsudo's trump card. In a scene with great meaning for what is to come in this volume, the head of the depleted Yagyu clan offers Kaii some strange advice.

(130) "Song of the Spirit" finally returns us to Ogami Itto, who leaves Daigoro to watch over the two swords standing in the ground and boldly enters Edo to ask a favor of Taruya Toemon, the Machi-Doshiyori who runs the city's greatest festival. Lone Wolf wants permission to use the festival to enter the great castle of Edo. But why?

(131) "Great Reversals" finds Ogami Itto walking the floors of Edo castle in search of Retsudo Yaygu while Kaii tries to face death on his own terms and proves himself to be the great coward we have always known him to be.

(132) "Scarlet Summer, Silver Fall" tells the tale of how Abe-No-Kaii met his fate having been ordered by the Shogun to commit seppuku. This is the right to kill oneself with honor to atone for failure, a right allowed only to the samurai class. Kaii is not really a samurai, but he is expected to act like one. But the poisoner has some surprises left.

Thus ends the largest sub-plot in this manga epic. Now the only impediment remaining to the final act of the death struggle between Ogami Itto and Retsudo Yagyu are the Yagyu grass. I start Volume 27 tonight knowing that the publication of the 28th and final volume in the Lone Wolf & Cub saga has been delayed (a month so far); and I thought I had lucked into perfect timing on when to begin the epic by reading one story a night before bed. Oh, well: Time flows. Seasons turn. But the wheel of Karma cannot be broken."