Manga Japan Written by
Kazuo Koike and illustrated by
Goseki Kojima,
Lone Wolf and Cub was serialized in
Futabasha's
manga magazine
Weekly Manga Action. Its first installment was published on September 10, 1970. The series finished with the 145th installment published on April 1, 1976. Futabasha collected its chapters in 28 volumes, published from May 1972 to May 1976. When
Lone Wolf and Cub was first released in
Japan in 1970, it became wildly popular for its powerful, epic
samurai story and its stark and gruesome depiction of violence during
Tokugawa era Japan. As of October 2006, the manga had sold 8.3 million copies in Japan and 11.8 million worldwide.
Lone Wolf and Cub is one of the most highly regarded manga due to its epic scope, detailed historical accuracy, masterful artwork, and nostalgic yet brutally frank recollection of the
bushido ethos. The story spans 28 volumes of manga, with over 300 pages each (totaling over 8,700 pages in all). Many of the panels of the series are depictions of nature, historical locations in Japan, and traditional activities. A couple of years into the series, a story depicts the fate of Yamada Asaemon, the main character of
Samurai Executioner, also created by Koike and
Kojima. One reviewer notes that Asaemon looks different in this appearance, apparently due to Ogami Ittō having been designed so similarly to the original Asaemon.
North America Lone Wolf and Cub was initially released in North America in a translated English edition by
First Comics in 1987. The monthly series of comic-book-sized issues featured covers by
Frank Miller,
Bill Sienkiewicz,
Matt Wagner,
Mike Ploog, and
Ray Lago. Sales were initially strong but fell sharply as the company went into a general decline. First Comics shut down in 1991 without completing the series, publishing less than a third of the total series over 45 issues. Starting in September 2000,
Dark Horse Comics began to release an English translation of the full series in 28 smaller-sized trade paperback volumes with longer page-counts (from 260 to over 300 pages), similar to the volumes published in Japan. Dark Horse completed the presentation of the entire series, fully translated, with the publication of the 28th volume in December 2002. Dark Horse reused all of Miller's covers from the First Comics edition, as well as several done by Sienkiewicz, and commissioned Wagner,
Guy Davis, and
Vince Locke to produce new covers for several volumes of the collections. In October 2012, Dark Horse completed the release of all 28 volumes in digital format as part of their "
Dark Horse Digital" online service.
Volumes Dark Horse Omnibus collected editions Starting in May 2013, Dark Horse began publishing their translated editions of
Lone Wolf and Cub in softcover Omnibus editions. Partial volumes collected in Omnibus form are marked with an asterisk (*).
Sequels and follow-up series In 2002, a "reimagined" version of the story,
Lone Wolf 2100, was created by writer Mike Kennedy and artist Francisco Ruiz Velasco with Koike's indirect involvement. The story was a
post-apocalyptic take on the tale with several differences, such as a female cub and a worldwide setting: Daisy Ogami, daughter of a renowned scientist, and Itto, her father's cybernetic bodyguard and Daisy's subsequent protector, attempt to escape from the Cygnat Owari Corporation's schemes. Dark Horse announced at the 2006
New York Comic Con that they had licensed
New Lone Wolf and Cub, Kazuo Koike and
Hideki Mori's follow-up to
Lone Wolf and Cub, starring Ogami Itto's son Daigoro, the famous child in the baby cart. In this new series, which picks up immediately after the climactic battle of the original series, the bodies of Ogami Itto and Yagyu Retsudo are left lying on the beach, with Daigoro left alone standing over his father's body (since no one, for political reasons, dares to bury either body or take charge of Daigoro). A bearded samurai, Tōgō Shigetada of the Satsuma clan and master of the
Jigen-ryū style of swordsmanship (based on the actual historical personage Tōgō Shigetaka, creator of
Jigen-ryū), wanders onto the battlefield and assists Daigoro with the
cremation/funeral of Ogami Itto and Yagyu Retsudo. Tōgō, who is on a training journey and also carries a
dotanuki sword similar to Ogami's (and crafted by the same swordsmith), then assumes guardianship of Daigoro, including retrieving the baby cart and teaching/training Daigoro in
Jigen-ryū. The two soon become enmeshed in a plot by the Shogunate conceived by the ruthless
Matsudaira Nobutsuna and spearheaded by his chief henchman
Mamiya Rinzō (also based on an actual historical character) to topple the Satsuma clan and assume control of that fiefdom's great wealth, using Tōgō as an unwitting pawn. When Tōgō discovers that he has been tricked and used, he and Daigoro embark on the road of
meifumado in a quest to kill the shogun (which would force Matsudaira out into the open). However, Rinzō, who is not only a master of disguise but also Matsudaira's natural son, may have an even more devious plan of his own, including subverting the shogun's own ninja and using
opium to ensnare and enslave the shogun himself. This series also introduces non-Japanese characters into the plotlines. Dark Horse began publishing the follow-up series,
New Lone Wolf and Cub, in June 2014; the eleventh and last volume was released in December 2016. A second sequel series, titled (, ), was serialized in s manga magazine
Jin from January 20, 2007, until the magazine's last issue, released on May 21, 2008. The series resumed on s online manga magazine
Katana on April 14, 2009, and finished on July 20, 2010. Five volumes were released by Koike Shoin from July 27, 2007, to September 28, 2012. This series has not currently been translated into English.
Films A total of six
Lone Wolf and Cub films starring
Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Ittō and Tomikawa Akihiro as Daigoro were produced based on the manga. They are also known as the
Sword of Vengeance series, based on the English-language title of the first film, and later as the
Baby Cart series, because young Daigoro travels in a baby carriage pushed by his father. The first three films, directed by Kenji Misumi, were released in 1972 and produced by
Shintaro Katsu, Wakayama's brother and the star of the 26-part
Zatoichi film series. The next three films were produced by Wakayama himself and directed by
Buichi Saitō,
Kenji Misumi, and Yoshiyuki Kuroda, released in 1972, 1973, and 1974, respectively. Wakayama quit making the films after the popular television series began to air.
Shogun Assassin (1980) is an English language compilation for the American audience, edited mainly from the second film, with 11 minutes of footage from the first. Also, the third film,
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades was re-released on DVD in the US under the name
Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death. In 1992 the story was again adapted for film,
Lone Wolf and Cub: Final Conflict, also known as
Handful of Sand or ''A Child's Hand Reaches Up
(Kozure Ōkami: Sono Chiisaki te ni, literally In That Little Hand''), directed by
Akira Inoue and starring
Masakazu Tamura as Ogami Itto. In addition to the six original films (and
Shogun Assassin in 1980), various
television movies have aired in connection with the
television series as pilots, compilations or originals. These include several starring
Kinnosuke Yorozuya (see section
Television series), in 1989 a TV movie called
Lone Wolf With Child: An Assassin on the Road to Hell, better known as
Baby Cart In Purgatory, where
Hideki Takahashi plays Ogami Ittō and
Tomisaburo Wakayama co-stars as Retsudo Yagyu.
Hollywood remake In the 2000s,
Darren Aronofsky attempted to get an official Hollywood version of
Lone Wolf and Cub off the ground but could not secure the rights. In March 2012,
Justin Lin was announced as the director on an American version of
Lone Wolf and Cub. In June 2016, it was announced that producer
Steven Paul had acquired the rights, and in October 2017, it was announced that
Andrew Kevin Walker was writing the script.
Television series Two full-fledged television series based on the manga have been broadcast to date. The first,
Lone Wolf and Cub (
Kozure Ōkami), was produced in a typical
jidaigeki format and broadcast for three seasons from 1973 to 1976, each episode 45 minutes long. Season one originally aired 27 episodes, but the original 2nd episode, "Gomune Oyuki (Oyuki of the Gomune)", was subsequently deleted from all rebroadcasts in Japan and VHS and DVD releases; the reasons why this episode has been excluded are currently unclear. Seasons two and three ran for 26 episodes each.
Kinnosuke Yorozuya played Ogami Ittō and later reprised the role in a 1984 TV movie; Daigoro was played by Katzutaka Nishikawa in the first two seasons and by Takumi Satô in the final season. The series was co-produced by Union Motion Picture Co, Ltd. (
ユニオン映画) and Studio Ship (
スタジオシップ), a company formed by manga author Kazuo Koike, and originally aired on
Nippon TV in Japan. It was subsequently broadcast in the United States as
The Fugitive Samurai in the original Japanese with English subtitles, and released for the Toronto, Canada market by CFMT-TV (now
OMNI 1) in the original Japanese with English subtitles as
The Iron Samurai. It has also been aired in Germany dubbed in German, in Italy dubbed in Italian; around 1980, a Portuguese dub was aired in Brazil as
O Samurai Fugitivo (The Fugitive Samurai) on TVS, actually SBT, and in Spanish, as
El Samurai Fugitivo on the American Spanish TV station Univision. The first season was released on DVD in Japan on December 20, 2006, apparently without subtitles. Twelve of the first 13 episodes were released on DVD in Germany as
Kozure Okami, with audio in Japanese and German. In the U.S.,
Media Blasters released the first season on DVD on April 29, 2008, under its
Tokyo Shock label, containing the original Japanese with English subtitles. All of these releases excluded the deleted-from-distribution second episode, "Gomune Oyuki". The latest television series, also titled
Lone Wolf and Cub (
Kozure Ōkami), aired from 2002 to 2004 in
Japan on
TV Asahi with
Kin'ya Kitaōji in the role of Ogami Ittō and Tsubasa Kobayashi as Daigoro. This series has not yet been made commercially available on DVD or Blu-ray; however, beginning in September 2023, English-subtitled episodes began being uploaded to the YouTube website, courtesy of the "Samurai vs. Ninja" YouTube Channel, and currently all three seasons of the series have been uploaded.
Games In 1987,
video game manufacturer
Nichibutsu released a
beat 'em up arcade video game based on the series, named
Kozure Ōkami in Japan Players guide Ogami Itto through an army of assassins while carrying his infant son on his back. A baby cart powerup enables Ookami to mow down enemies with blasts of fire. The game was only released in arcades. In 1989,
Mayfair Games published
Lone Wolf and Cub Game, a board game designed by Matthew Costello based on the franchise. GM Magazine reviewed the game, highlighting the illustrations, well-written encounters, and sturdy components; however, the reviewer found that the basic rules and limited options made for a dull experience on repeat plays. In
Square's 2001
PlayStation 2 video game
Final Fantasy X, there is an
aeon named Yojimbo, a being the summoner
Yuna can summon to battle, along with his dog Daigoro. He must be paid the game's form of money to use attacks varying in strength and weapon. With his design resembling that of ancient Japanese designs, his worker-employer relationship with Yuna, the aesthetic with his weaponry and mannerisms, and the name of his dog, many elements from Ittō were used to design this summon. In 2012, a
pachinko game adaptation called
Kozure Ōkami was released in Japan. Many were advised to purchase copies of various graphic novels to keep up with public demand, listing many popular publications. One of the most prominent graphic novels listed was
Lone Wolf and Cub, focusing on the Japanese elements in the storytelling. They would continue to add the volumes of the graphic novel well into 2003. ==Influence==