Usagi Yojimbo is printed entirely in black
and white to emulate the old black and white films of the samurai cinema genre.
By employing the genre conventions of samurai cinema, Stan Sakai uses
Architextuality to drive the narrative. He also uses intertextual references
that contribute to the architextuality of the comic.
Intertextuality
appears in the form of the title character, Usagi (rabbit), who is a ronin (a
vagabond samurai) who is hired as a yojimbo (a bodyguard). Sakai pays homage to
Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 film Yojimbo by
loosely modeling Usagi Yojimbo after
Kurosawa’s story featuring a ronin who is also hired as a bodyguard because of
his masterful swordplay. Another instance of intertextuality is the character
of Zato-ino (blind masseur boar), which is a play on Zatoichi, a blind masseur
and skilled swordsman, who is a prolific character in samurai cinema (there
have been over 20 films with him as the title character).
In
terms of architextuality, characters that are typical of the samurai cinema
genre appear. These characters include ninjas, brigands, lords, and other
samurais. They appear in situations that are typical of their characters. For
example, ninjas appear to ambush Usagi from the shadows on page 26. A reader
who is versed in the genre conventions of samurai cinema knows to expect ninjas
when he or she sees shuriken or ninja stars (as Anne Magnussen would say, they
are an indexical sign).
Pages 26 and 27
Sakai
uses shots and editing techniques that are common in not only samurai cinema
but action movies. These shots include extreme close-ups, such as the one of
the old woman on page 4, that suggest that something is amiss and wide-angle
shots that feature showdowns where the characters fiercely charge at each
other, like on page 106 and 107 where the reader knows the protagonist is
likely to be victorious from prior experience with the genre. In terms of
editing techniques, Sakai introduces a succession of panels displaying a battle
in slow motion on page 27, and he intercuts three different shots of three
different adversaries lunging at Usagi to insinuate simultaneity on page 26,
both of which are common in action films.
Page 4
- Tara
Yousif
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