Yuhiko Inoue began serializing manga in Kodansha's Weekly Morning magazine in 1998, and in 2015 it was suspended for a long time and opened a skylight. Featuring Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro, the script is based on Eiji Yoshikawa's 1935 news novel Miyamoto Musashi published in the Asahi Shimbun, but Yuhiko Inoue's manga is a major change from Eiji Yoshikawa's original novel.
The biggest difference between the manga and the original novel is that the other protagonist of the manga, Sasaki Kojiro, is that the reason why we don't call Kojiro the second protagonist is because Yuhiko Inoue's manga portrays him as another protagonist.
The part describing Musashi, the Miyamoto Musashi chapter, is 1-13 volumes, and the Kojiro part, the Sasaki Kojiro chapter, is 14-20 volumes.
Inohiko Inoue portrays Kojiro Sasaki as a disabled person with congenital hearing impairment whose ears cannot hear sounds, but whose vision and sense of touch are more developed than those of ordinary people.
The manga seems to want to make Kojiro a samurai who combines his sword with one sword, so what kind of chemical reaction will occur when the collision of the two ideas will occur compared to Musashi's "Everything can be a sword"?
In the widely publicized Iwaki Island duel, Kojiro uses the famous knife "clothes stick", and Musashi uses a wooden knife modified from a boat oar, which is also in line with the two martial arts concepts created by the manga.
However, Yuhiko Inoue encountered great difficulties in shaping Sasaki Kojiro, because in the original novel of Eiji Yoshikawa, Kojiro was portrayed as a supporting role, and kojiro was enriched into a protagonist, and he had to add drama to him, although Yuhiko Inoue's painting skills won a good reputation in "Roninko", but he was not good at polishing the script and making up stories, if there was an original writer like Kazuo Koike who created with him at this time, "Roninko" may be more exciting.
This point is actually very interesting, so let's continue to talk along the line of "Sasaki Kojiro".
Yuhiko Inoue was unable to plump up the character of Sasa Kojiro, mainly because he referenced the original manga, Eiji Yoshikawa's novel.
There are few historical records about Miyamoto Musashi, and the mythical gods that have been passed down by the people began with the miyamoto Musashi novel created by Eiji Yoshikawa in 1935, and Eiji Yoshikawa's motivation for creating this novel stemmed from a controversy in the Japanese literary and art circles.
In addition, the popularity of miyamoto Musashi novels is also related to the background of the war at that time.
In 1929, Kodansha published a complete collection of talks, which contained some descriptions summarizing the Sword Lord's "Miyamoto Musashi":
"In his lifetime, he fought more than 60 times, never lost, and was known as the god of martial arts and a hero of the ages."
This evaluation caused a debate in 1932 in the 7th year of Showa, namely the "Musashi Dispute", between two major literary and artistic figures in Japanese literary circles, namely Naoki Thirty-Five and Kikuchi Hiroshi.
The point put forward by Naoki Thirty-Five (Naoki Prize) is that Miyamoto Musashi is indeed a first-class swordsman, but he has not reached the spiritual realm of Kamizumi Nobuki, so it is a bit exaggerated to call him a celebrity.
Kikuchi Hiroshi (founder of "Spring and Autumn of Literature and Art") retorted to him, saying that Musashi had reached the realm of "seeing fame as dung", and that he had become a person, and the title of celebrity was given to whom.
At that time, Naoki Thirty-Five asked Yoshikawa what he thought, and Yoshikawa agreed with Kikuchi Hiroshi's point of view, thinking that Miyamoto Musashi was great, and Naoki asked him what basis he had. Eiji Yoshikawa was silent at the time, but three years later, in 1935, he wrote the novel Miyamoto Musashi in response to Naoki Thirty-Five.
In 1939, Hideharu Yoshikawa, who published miyamoto Musashi, pointed out the minsheng road was praised by the military
One of the reasons why Eiji Yoshikawa's novel "Miyamoto Musashi" gained great popularity was that it was very grounded, full of various elements that the general public liked to hear, and this novel was serialized in the newspaper "Asahi Shimbun" at the time, so the text was minimalist, the story was short and eye-catching, and even if you had not read the previous serial part, from a certain paragraph in the middle, you would be immediately attracted.
In the novel, Yoshikawa portrays Musashi as a sword-Zen practitioner, and of course, there are some routines, such as in order to create the image of Musashi's weak man to sell misery to the reader, Yoshikawa deliberately arranged Miyamoto Musashi to the side of the Western army daimyo Ukita Hideya who was defeated at the Battle of Sekigahara, which is inconsistent with history and is completely fictional.
According to the Kuroda Domain In the 7th year of Keichō and the 9th year of the Kuroda Domain, during the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Musashi's father, Shin-no-mitsuji, fought as a sequence of Kuroda officers and soldiers of the Tokugawa Ieyasu side of the Eastern Army, and Musashi's last service was also the Hosokawa Domain of the Hosokawa Tadayoshi clan of the Eastern Army.
In addition, the plot in the novel is gripping, making people completely unable to guess the ending, take Musashi's famous battle "Battle of Yoshioka", in Yoshikawa Hideharu novel, Musashi at that time did not have a certain victory in the face of Yoshioka Shinoburo, Andrana's state of battle was flawless, Musashi first killed the Ota Black Soldiersuke who sneaked in from behind, and then flew towards The Head of the Black Soldier, the other party lost his mind and took the opportunity to kill Denchirō, which was very thrilling, so that the reader pinched a sweat.
Eiji Yoshikawa's emphasis in the novel on the spirit of Miyamoto Musashi's "sword-Zen unity" is actually to put it bluntly, it is the asceticism of the hard-working monks, because it was a war period, the low-level public tightened their belts and lived very bitterly, and the praise of hardship in the novel is conducive to maintaining stability, so later in 1942, the Japanese military threw an olive branch and asked Hideharu Yoshikawa to be a military writer for several generals in the military.
For example, "Admiral and His Men" was written for Vice Admiral Takafumi Yamaguchi (who died at the Battle of Midway), and "Commander of the Yasuda Marine Corps" was written for Yoshita Yasuda (who died in Papua New Guinea).
However, after Musashi became famous, it was very illogical to live in the mountains and forests to practice, according to the Japanese tradition, the samurai who learned the sword technique were all for the sake of fame, and the reader's examination for meritorious name is a truth, this concept is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, so later when the modern samurai class was weakened, it triggered a lot of samurai protests, because the only way for them to survive is gone, and there is a movie "Cut Belly" that describes the contradiction between the samurai and the daimyo who raised them.
After the war, Yamada's novel "Reincarnation of the Demon World" depicted Miyamoto Musashi, that is, although this person was skilled in swordsmanship, he was not smooth and could not be a man, and as a result, he pursued his career all his life without success, and finally ended up hating in the mountain forest.
Therefore, Yoshikawa Hideharu portrayed Musashi as a low-key and stoic ascetic monk in the context of the war at that time, which was very grounded, and if he wrote Musashi as a strong martial artist and a suro who robbed the rich and helped the poor, the situation in Japan might be turbulent, the common people disintegrated neon from within, and the War of Resistance Against Japan could be fought for a few few years less.
There are also many "happy news" in this novel, such as Zhu Shi, who was raped by Kiyoshiro Yoshioka, who later broke the jar and fell into the Wind Moon Field, and then got involved with Musashi's Fa Xiao Yuhachi, who was used to plot to launch a coup d'état to assassinate the general, and then picked up a swordplay identification document, so he pretended to be Kojiro pit and was abducted.
As the protagonist, Miyamoto Musashi is an out-and-out grassroots hero who relies on himself all the way, but Kojiro, the last opponent in the original novel, is portrayed as a sleek, somewhat arrogant and conceited person, and Hideharu Yoshikawa uses a lot of details to describe it, making everyone feel a lot of disgust for this beautiful man.
Before Sasaki Kojiro appeared was his brother Kusaka Tengo, who was a cup, but his martial arts were thrown to death by a group of coolie farmers, and before he died, tengi master Nakatsuki asked him to carry the swordplay identification book that he brought to Kojiro, which was also obtained by the then selling coolie Yahachi (Musashi Fa Xiao), thus opening the career of the counterfeit Kojiro.
Before the duel on Iwakuri Island, there was a description of Kojiro's career, he was reused as the head of the Hosokawa family martial arts, the Hosokawa family asked the fallen former head of the martial arts to compete with Kojiro, Kojiro was very cunning to kneel, said I am not as good as you, the former head of the church is also very interesting, also kneeled, said don't say goodbye, you are too humble, both of them tacitly passed the level of fish dead net breaking.
The final duel, in the novel is hyped up, a pass of ten hundred, it came true, and then before the duel someone advised Kojiro to survey the terrain, Kojiro was unusual, said no, when the time comes to adapt, in fact, this is to die.
Musashi was very calm, before setting off, he also drew a picture, painted a picture, and then arrived at Iwaki Island, Musashi arrived, Kojiro arrived first, Kojiro held up the long sword "clothes stick" and rushed over, drew the sword, hurriedly panicked sword sheath also did not want to throw into the water, wanted to take advantage of Musashi's foothold in the water is not stable to engage him, as a result Musashi was through hundreds of battles, said "Kojiro you lost, the human sword is one, the sword is gone, the human pill ~."
Kojiro cleverly forced Musashi to stand in the water, but this time it was noon, Musashi was facing the sun with his back to the sun, the sun was particularly dazzling, Musashi threw the red headband in the direction of Kojiro, Kojiro panicked, he couldn't see clearly, brushed a knife and cut it in half, and thought it was to kill Musashi, and as a result, Musashi picked up the wooden paddle knife and smashed Kojiro's brain shell.
In Musashi's later years, he wrote a book of martial arts, the Book of Five Wheels, in which kojiro used this long knife, which had this description, "Those who use this kind of weapon to take advantage of the long knife are not very good at heart." ”
That is to say, in the last part of Yoshikawa's novel, Kojiro is portrayed as such an unlucky person, making it difficult for Inoue to wash him white.
There is also a famous clip in the novel, which is the plot of Miyamoto Musashi's adopted son Iori Zhidou Kojiro, when Kojiro and his gang of 5 or 6 people entered the tavern where Iori worked, Iori knew Kojiro, had no good feelings for him, and suffered from not being able to find Musashi at that time, so he was upset and so he was evil and scared, took a cup of hot water and threw it at Kojiro, but he did not expect that Kojiro did not dodge, splitting his head and covering his face.
Then Kojiro was about to get Iori with a white face, let the subordinates tie Iori five flowers, asked his human way to cure him, and also splashed him with a glass of water, but the elder of the Hosokawa family suddenly appeared, and Kojiro did not dare to make a mistake, so he had to eat dumb and lose it.
It is estimated that whenever Yuhiko Inoue thinks of Kojiro's urgent white face, it is difficult to compile "Roninko" down.
Finally, with an Easter egg, Yuhiko Inoue's painting of Sasaki Kojiro as "hearing impaired" may have come from Eiji Yoshikawa's "Miyamoto Musashi" Kusanagi ghost - Kojiro's brother-in-law, who was thrown to death by someone thrown a stone in the coolie field, and Yoshikawa described the appearance of this brother from the ear down to the chin like muscle atrophy, but on the contrary, it gave people a feeling of bravery.