The Brink of Life and Death

by Stan Sakai

While journeying over mountains, into valleys, through towns and farmlands, and along rugged coasts, searching for harmony, Usagi faces a unique cast of characters: a village of seaweed farmers, an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1595822801
• ISBN13: 9781595822802
• Release Date: December 2010
• Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 11 to 15 years
• Grade Range: Grades 6 to 10

Customer Reviews

It keeps getting better and better.

The stories are getting way advanced as the years go by for Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is quickly becoming a fond character of mine, and I look forward to reading his tales. Stan Sakai makes them so compelling at times that I feel as if I'm traveling along with the rabbit bodyguard. His illustrations, humor, text, dialogue, and history are rich and brimming with life in every page. Former books only add up to each future installment, and this book begins what seems to be a powerful and lengthy plot (Grasscutter).

Usagi gets back on track with powerful stories and developments

Usagi Yojimbo is the kind of quality work that transcends time, genres, demographics, and even age groups. It crafts a delicate and beautiful balance between honor and savagery, cute innocence and dark brutality, simple heart-warming stories and multi-part epics that shape a dense continuity. Whether or not you've ever been a fan of feudal Japanese culture, furry anthro characters, or independent, non-superhero comics, Usagi Yojimbo is a comic that can't help but impress even the harshest critic. "Brink of Life and Death" (book 10 in the Usagi series) delivers powerful story after powerful story, all while working tirelessly to develop the supporting cast of the series. It begins with "Noodles," an otherwise unassuming Kitsune story that leads to tragedy. It's a gripping story with one unforgettable moment that still haunts me to this day. The volume goes on to introduce Priest Sanshobo, one of the strongest and most compelling of all of Usagi's supporting cast. We're also given Sanshobo's moving origin story, which practically makes this volume worth reading all by itself. "The Bat, The Cat, and The Rabbit" further develops Chizu as a compelling supporting character, as well as making her a potential love interest for Usagi (watch out, Tomoe!). We're given one filler issue (though it's a darn good one!), and then the volume concludes with the second appearance of Inazuma. While I'm not personally a fan of Inazuma at all, this is the one issue where I felt she really came to life as an amazing character. Never again do we truly get a glimpse of the kind of determined madness that leads a lone samurai to confer with a room full of corpses. "Brink of Life and Death" is the kind of volume that can be easily overlooked because it does not feature a multi-part storyline with which it can easily be associated. However, each individual story in this volume truly shines on its own, and several also make large contributions to the Usagi Yojimbo continuity. For these reasons, I absolutely recommend this volume as essential Usagi reading.

The Wanderings of Usagi Yojimbo

Stan Sakai is one of the most gifted current graphic novelists. He is a one man show, doing the artwork and the story. Although all the characters of this series are animal-like humanoids, you think of them as people rather than as animals. However, their animal characteristics underscore the personality traits of the individuals. In this volume, Usagi Yojimbo, the rabbit ronin who is doomed to wander medieval Japan tastes the life fishermen, and runs into the usual cast of characters who populate this series, e.g., the thief Kitsune (in a very poignant story about the cruelty of the age), and Chizu the neko ninja. The brilliance of the Usagi Yojimbo series is the combination of artwork that alone can tell the story, and a plotline that engages the reader rather than just entertains.

Very good stories!

Usagi Yojimbo, is a ronin, a masterless samurai who is travelling the MUSHA SHUGYO ( Warrior Pilgrimage ) to hone his spiritual and martial skills, in his travelling these 10 stories form this book, with the good storytelling of Stan Sakai and the evocative world of the feudal Japan from the XVI centuryIn this volume we are introduced to three important characters and the stories behind them. The most important is the story of Inazuma a young woman converted in Samurai with a reward upon her head. Then the story of Sanshobo a priest who was a HATAMOTO ( banner-man )and resign that life retiring himself to a monastery. The last story is about a man, Jei, who see himself like an instrument of gods to destroy the evil. We'll find again these characters in the volume "Grasscutter" and can read more of this fascinating story: the adventures of Usagi Yojimbo. You will not regret to buy this book.

Usagi Yojimbo Review

After reading Daisho, Shades of Death, and Seasons, I knew that I could expect beautifully simple drawings and well thought out story lines in Brink of Life and Death. But Stan Sakai still managed to surprise me with a compassionate two part story titled Noodles, and this was just one of the wonderful stories portrayed through the adventures of Miyamoto Usagi. Brink focuses on the earlier wanderings of Usagi, but I guess I have to read some more to understand exactly how Usagi met some of his associates. This is yet another excellent collection of that wonderful series the readers of which have come to love, Usagi Yojimbo, the Ronin.