Synopsis
In 16th-century Japan, Shinmen Takezou is a wild, rough young man, in both his appearance and his actions. His aggressive nature has won him the collective reproach and fear of his village, leading him and his best friend, Matahachi Honiden, to run away in search of something grander than provincial life. The pair enlist in the Toyotomi army, yearning for glory—but when the Toyotomi suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of the Tokugawa Clan at the Battle of Sekigahara, the friends barely make it out alive.
After the two are separated, Shinmen returns home on a self-appointed mission to notify the Hon’iden family of Matahachi’s survival. He instead finds himself a wanted criminal, framed for his friend’s supposed murder based on his history of violence. Upon being captured, he is strung up on a tree and left to die. An itinerant monk, the distinguished Takuan Soho, takes pity on the “devil child,” secretly freeing Shinmen and christening him with a new name to avoid pursuit by the authorities: Musashi Miyamoto.
Background
In 2000, Vagabond won the Japan Media Arts Festival Manga Grand Prize and the 24th Kodansha Manga Award in the general category. The series won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2002 and has had over 82 million copies sold worldwide.
Vagabond has been published in English by VIZ Media under the VIZ Signature imprint since April 5, 2002, and in large 3-in-1 omnibuses under the VIZBIG imprint since September 16, 2008. The English release got Takehiko Inoue a nomination for the Eisner Award in the Best Writer/Artist category in 2003. It also has been published in Brazilian Portuguese by Panini Comics/Planet Manga since February 2016.
Characters
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