Vagabond Volume 32

Vagabond is a long-running samurai manga by Takehiko Inoue adapted from Eiji Yoshikawa's novel Musashi, telling the life of the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi as he seeks the Way through the sword, struggling between killing and awakening. This is Volume 32 of the series. Earlier, Musashi had just fought alone against seventy men of the Yoshioka school in an ambush and escaped gravely wounded, his old injury to the right leg still unhealed and making travel difficult; ronin and nameless swordsmen came ceaselessly to challenge him, all hoping to make their names by defeating this legendary figure. Along the way he meets Ito Ittosai once more. This man was the very model of the "sword demon" warrior that Musashi had admired in his youth—fierce, proud, with not a trace of mercy in his eyes—and now he provokes and goads Musashi into drawing his blade. Musashi does not know of Ittosai's connection to Sasaki Kojiro, and so this confrontation becomes an occasion for him to reexamine the meaning of "the strongest" and "unrivaled under heaven." Meanwhile, the death of Yagyu Sekishusai causes the last of the old generation of calm, detached swordsmen to exit the stage one by one. Beyond its fierce duels, this volume focuses more on Musashi's inner fear and obsession: the cycle of chasing empty fame, the concealment of his own inadequacy, and how to return to the simple state of mind he had when he first gripped a sword. With richly textured brushwork, Takehiko Inoue weaves the martial Way, life and death, and self-knowledge into a volume that is both quiet and sharp.