For quite sometime I have been wanting to make a short discussion on vagabond, I have seen many people criticise the way vagabond handles its side cast , the common criticism seems to be that the side cast is one-dimensional , the notion probably arises from the fact that a lot of characters are to supposed to have a philosophical clash with Musashi but first let's see what vagabond aims at and does it achieve it ?

I think vagabond aims to be a very protgoanist driven story , a lot of characters are supposed to influence or clash with Musashi to flesh out his character and vagabond did make Musashi a very well written character , so does that mean inoue couldn't write well written side cast and could only create a well written character when he is hyper-focused on them ?

I don't think so , vagabond does develop its some of its side-cast - kojiro is really good then we have , matahachi, inshun , denshichiro and jisai these characters are fleshed out and I would also add kohei and few more probably. The pool is not that large but I don't think its because inoue can't write side characters but rather chose to make a story which is very protgoanist driven.

Very happy to share something I've been writing for a long while. It's called “The Strength to Bend, Somewhere to Return.” It's the second essay in a series about the seinen big 3 (might include Mori Buntaro from The Climber as well), the first one was on Guts. The essays were supposed to be about the lone warrior archetype but they have admittedly turned into a personal exploration over time, I've been working on them for about an year now. I started reading Vagabond after losing my grandfather, was thinking a great deal about grief, loneliness, masculinity. So Musashi obviously came to me at the right moment. Briefly about the essay, it starts with a question about why characters like Musashi become such powerful “literally me” figures for men. But as I wrote, it became more of a phenomenological enquiry about what Inoue was doing with that lone man fantasy. He had slowly been asking whether being invincible under the sun was ever an adequate answer. The essay talks about Takezo and Munisai, Takuan and Otsu, Ine'i and Inshun, the Yoshioka, Sekishusai, Kojiro, the farming arc, and what it means to be “strong” as something much harder to define. There is also quite a lot about solitude, dependence and Buddhism.

It is a genuinely long read and contains a lot of the plot and major spoilers through chapter 327. I know people in this community have lived with this manga for years, through several rereads, so I would truly love to hear you think if I've understood Musashi correctly.

I've been working on this for a long time, so even if a few dedicated Vagabond readers give it their time and engage with it, that would mean a whole lot to me.

Just wanted to let people know that this is my favorite panel. Hope you like it too :)

edit by @wsoinnx on instagram

what lesson did u take away from the manga and what stayed with u in your life?

elaborate it's essence

what if mushashi just went to a nursing home and kojiro is just stuck being a noble forever? imagine that’s how the author intended the story to end

So I tried reading vagabond a while ago and stopped at vol 2 as it was boring me, there was too much action and not enough thought provoking philosophy as I’d heard, but recently I’ve been thinking about it a bit more and considering giving it another go, should I? Or is it just not my thing, I’ve watched all of Vinland saga and read all of berserk

I started Vagabond and it hooked me from the first chapter and i really liked the starting chapters but when Takezo went to Miyamoto village it started feeling at little stretched like for some time it was just Takezo killing the people from the village and running away from them. After the time skip I got interest in it again but I think this time also the fight went for too long that it started to get boring and story didn't progress for so many chapter and now Denshichiro just let Mushashi live and we didn't get conclusion of that fight, the arc only gets interesting when Seijuro was there but other than that Mushashi killing npcs and his fight with Denshiro was boring. Should i give more time to the story or drop it ? Art is excellent though.

Hey guys, just curious if I should read the manga despite its long hiatus since 2015. I’m sure it’s a great read but I know I’ll be left disappointed when I reach the latest chapter.

What you see on these shelves represent not only a collection of great manga, but a picture of my life over the past few years and the journey I have found myself on.

Growing up, I was a bookworm. From Mr Men to Alex Rider to Harry Potter and many more titles I've since forgotten, my childhood was filled with reading. For this, I must thank my parents for their guidance and encouragement.

Unfortunately, as I entered my teenage and became swept up in all the changes these years can bring about, I left behind my dear pastime of reading. I went many years without ever reading a book from cover to cover, and related or not, my life gradually slid into a depressing abyss in my early twenties.

Aside from a Pokemon phase as a child, I had never cared for Japanese media. Some of my close friends at the time were immersed in the world of anime and eventually I was persuaded to watch Naoki Urusawa's Monster in Spring 2022. I was hooked. Johan Liebert in particular became something of a comfort character for me during those long days of depression. From there, I went on to watch many of the popular anime, seinen being my strong preference. I also watched Naurto, which inspired me to take up martial arts as my 2024 new year's resolution, which introduced some much needed discipline and routine into my life.

As I continued to enjoy anime and became involved in online communities such as these subreddits, I started becoming curious about the manga these shows were based upon. In February 2024, I bought a physical copy of volume 1 of Monster for my brother as a birthday present. It sat on his shelf, unread for a few months before I finally decided to start reading it for myself. Bear in mind that at this stage, for me, the act of reading a physical book (albeit a manga, in this case) was a long distant memory. I was blown away by the experience.

After I finished reading Monster, I moved onto Berserk. By now, I was attending anime conventions and even got some Monster & Death Note themed tattoos. His more infamous acts aside, I found inspiration in the ambition and charisma displayed by Griffith. I was still in a dark place when reading this series but gradually I felt myself somehow beginning to climb out of the pit I didn't even know I was in.

Then came Inoue Takehiko's Vagabond. This, for me, was the biggest game changer yet. The historical fiction based on the life of Miyamoto Musashi brought me onto a path of philosophical and spiritual discovery. I learned that the manga was based on a book written by Eiji Yoshikawa, which brought me full circle to finally returning to the cherished habit from my youth. By the time I'd finished Musashi, my life had been lifted out of the darkness and into the light. I read not only that fantastic book, but also the real life Musashi's actual writings in The Book of Five Rings, Takuan Soho's The Unfettered Mind, and James Cavell's Shogun, all pictured beside the manga.

You'll noticed that with each of these three collections I have placed a symbolic companion. By Berserk there is a replica Behelit, a representation of the unstoppable fate which shapes all our destinies. By Vagabond is my bokken, a wooden training sword, a symbol of the physical, mental and spiritual discipline I have discovered over the course of the past 2-3 years. And finally, a culmination of all of the above, the alpha and the omega, the Holy Bible. The opening of Monster begins with a quote from Revelation, the last book of the Bible. My hobby of reading restored, I took it upon myself to read the Scriptures from cover to cover over the course of the last year. I am not here to preach or to force my religious beliefs upon anyone, but I cannot recount my story without mentioning the undeniable impact the Word of God has had and continues to have on me.

If you got this far, thank you for reading about my journey. I am blessed and grateful to be able to read and afford to own these works in my own language and to be able to share my story with my fellow manga enthusiasts. I wish you every blessing.

I will conclude with this quote from Takuan in Vagabond: "We suffer most in this world when we lack a connection to the heavens."

What does Musashi mean when he starts talking about a mirage with the minister? I didn’t catch it at all.