Vagabond (manga)

The story starts in 1600, in the aftermath of the decisive Battle of Sekigahara. Two 17-year-old teenagers who joined the losing side, Takezō Shinmen and Matahachi Hon'iden, lie wounded in the battlefield and pursued by survivor hunters. They manage to escape and swear to become Invincible Under The Heavens (天下無双, Tenka Musō). They find housing with two women, but are soon attacked by the Tsujikaze gang, and in the confusion of the fight their paths separate: Takezō decides to become a vagabond and wander the world challenging strong opponents, and Matahachi chooses to stay with the women. Takezō returns to his hometown, the Miyamoto village, to tell Matahachi's mother, Osugi Hon'iden, that her son is alive. However, Osugi reacts hostile because the village detests Takezō for his extremely violent and antisocial tendencies, and because the future of the Hon'iden gentry family is compromised now that their heir Matahachi is missing. Osugi pulls strings to accuse Takezō of being a criminal. Takezō fights his pursuers but is eventually caught by the monk Takuan Sōhō, who makes him reconsider his purpose in life. Takuan frees him and, to make him start his life anew, renames him Musashi Miyamoto.

After a 4 years timeskip, Musashi's arrival to Kyōto, his fight against the Yoshioka swords. Musashi takes several students but area catches a fire, leading to the fight being postponsed. Musashi is rescued by Matahachi and treated by Takuan. Musashi decides to continue his training with a young boy, Jōtarō, wanting him to teach him. In Musashi and Jōtarō's arrival to the Hōzōin spears, Musashi's first fight against the Hōzōin, its aftermath, Musashi's second fight against Hōzōin Inshun. Inshun's superiority causes Musashi to escape driven by fear but trains a for a rematch where he briefly overpowers his rival. Its aftermath, Otsū's situation with the Yagyū, while Matahachi becomes famous while stealing the name of a famous samurai known as Kojirō Sasaki. Musashi and Jōtarō's arrive to the Yagyū swords, the events while deliberating how to enter the Yagyū headquarters, Musashi's meeting with the 4 seniors, his solo fight against the Yagyū men, his encounter with Sekishūsai Yagyū and their talk, the fight's aftermath. Musashi's training, Matahachi and his family's troubles, the events directly leading to Musashi's fight against Baiken Shishido.

The story then reverts to 17 years before the story's start, featuring Kojirō Sasaki's difficult upbringing with Jisai Kanemaki adopting him, various displays of character backstories, and his growth as a genius samurai despite being disabled. At his coming-of-age, Ittōsai returns dragging Kojirō to a night fight. He travels of with Ittōsai and Gonnosuke with a brief encounter with Takezō at the battlefield of Sekihagara, their splitting, the situation of Sadakore's squad, the fights against the peasant groups, Kojirō's fight against Sadakore's squad.

After Kojiro's arc ends, Musashi meets Kojiro again while playing with a snowman simulating a brief swordfight in the process. Musashi meets Matahachi who expresses jealousy over Musashi's achievements and apparent relationship with Otsu. This angers Musashi and leaves his old friend. Musashi then fights the 70 Yoshioka all alone. Although he kills all of them, one of the leaves him with a severe wound. The aftermath of Musashi's solo battle, has him his return to wandering despite being offered the position of mentor. Meanwhile, Matahachi's mother passes away, leaving his son to tell the story of the manga.

Musashi's new wandering leads him meet the orphan Iori, whom he decides to raise while dealing with a village with poor fields. Musashi, Iori and Toyozaemon's journey to the retirement estate of Yūsai Hosokawa, Otsū and Jōtarō's situation living with the Yagyū, while Kojirō deals with the Hosokawa.

While borrowing content from the Musashi novel, Takehiko Inoue took liberties when writing Vagabond, most notably the fight between the protagonist and the 70 Yoshioka which was one of the hardest to draw.

After finishing the basketball manga Slam Dunk, Takehiko Inoue wanted to write something more realistic. While Slam Dunk was aimed to a young demography, Vagabond is aimed towards an adult one. Nevertheless, he did not find differences between the baskebtall players and samurais since he claimed that none of them like losing. In retrospect, Inoue's experience with changing demographies feels obligatory as he believes manga authors should challenge themselves.[6] Furthermore, he called Vagabond as an experiment about him writing in contrast to the his more simplistic he made before.[7] Inoue started Vagabond having wondered what the character was like when he read Musashi. Having come off of drawing a sports manga, he wanted to create a series about more basic concepts, such as "life and death, the human condition, etc.". Rather than portray Musashi's later life in his "enlightened state", which has been written about often, the author chose to depict the lesser known "young man reaching that point of enlightenment when he comes from a place of being so like an animal". In 2009, he stated that he made his weekly deadline thanks to only having to draw the people, with his five assistants drawing the backgrounds.[8] When drawing, Inoue avoids speed lines and instead keeps showing bodies based on his understanding how human bodies work.[9]

Since not much is known about the real Musashi, Inoue wanted to give his own take which he considers more modern than other related works. He regards the artwork for Vagabond as a challenge in contrast to Slam Dunk and Real.[10] The author clarifies there are other activities besides fighting which are important for the protagonist. Should Inoue make Miyamoto constantly follow fights, the main character would die. Rather than tell a story, Inoue wants to shows the life of Miyamoto which he considers poetry. When Musashi comes face to face with Sekishusai, Inoue tries to make the artwork appeal to the readers.[11] In contrast to popular belief, Inoue's Musashi does not follow bushido but instead a more unique path with a growth path that he finds realistic.[9] Moreover, he does not consider Musashi a samurai, but instead as a ronnin.[6] Other changes Inoue put when writing the manga was to make the supporting characters have different personalities from the novel. Inoue also expressed difficulties when drawing scene were the characters are wounded, most notably when Musashi battles the 70 Yoshioka which took a lot of energy to properly make. This scene was also a new idea he had when writing the manga as he felt that Musashi required a major challenge than in the novel.[12]

In April 2009, Inoue told Nishinippon Shimbun that he suspected Vagabond would be ending "within one or two years". Claiming that he did not know how it would end, but that it had entered its final stages.[13] In January 2010, he confirmed it would be ending within the year.[14] However, in September during a hiatus due to health concerns, Inoue announced that the ending had been delayed until 2011.[15] Inoue posted an update on his website in December 2010, stating that Vagabond would not return until he regained "enthusiasm" for the series.[4]

After eighteen-months, Vagabond returned to Morning as a monthly series in March 2012.[16] The manga went on what was supposed to be a four-month hiatus in February 2014, with the reason stated being for Inoue to work on research.[17] However, it was not until January 2015 that the series resumed.[18] The series is currently on an extended hiatus since May 21, 2015, with its 327th chapter, "The Man named Tadaoki", being the latest chapter.[19]

Written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue, Vagabond is based on Eiji Yoshikawa's 1935 novel Musashi. It started serialization in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Morning on September 17, 1998.[lower-alpha 1] Inoue started the series Real in Weekly Young Jump in 1999, and serialized it alongside Vagabond. As of July 2014, the Vagabond chapters have been collected into 37 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha.

Viz Media began releasing Vagabond in English in North America in 2002.[22] Their release retains the color pages from the series' magazine run, and the company has published 37 volumes as of April 21, 2015.[23] Viz's release is distributed in Australasia by Madman Entertainment.[24] In 2008, Viz began re-releasing the series in a format that collects three of the volumes into one.[25] There are currently 12 VIZBIG editions released.[26]

Two art books for the series were released on October 23, 2006; Water containing the manga's colored art and new pieces, and Sumi (墨) containing the black and white art as well as early rough sketches. Both were published in North America by Viz on September 16, 2008.[27][28]

• Vagabond on the official Morning website (in Japanese)
• Takehiko Inoue official website
• Vagabond (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia