Up to this point, the manga have maintained the larger arc of the Ogami-Yagyu feud in the background -- now the creative team focuses more on the feud. Here we get Ogami in an intense showdown with the Yagyu forces -- with strong ramifications. Daigoro is separated from his father and takes the spotlight for the greater part of this volume.

Fans of the film may note that Baby Cart in Peril (#4) has important material from this volume.

At last, the true depths of the treacherous Retsudo Yagyu's obsession with Ogami Itto are explored, as he unleashes the dogs of war on the Father & Son. As you can see from the cover, with Frank Miller's stunning rendition of a Wolf and it's Cub standing atop a mountain of bodies, this book features a MAJOR battle scene, as Ogami and Daigoro face a seemingly endless horde of Yagyu's forces. The body count is high, but the true cost of the battle is more personal: Lone Wolf is seperated from his Cub. After the stunning battle between Ogami and Retsudo Yagyu himself, I was wondering how the series could possibly get any better. The stories featuring Daigoro on his own showed me exactly how. Great action, even greater characterization, superb writing and art.....Each volume is better than the previous one, and there are still 18 left!

In the last two stories of Volume 9 of Long Wolf and Cub the manga epic set up what we assumed would be a significant story line regarding Ogami Itto's theft of a secret communiqué from the Yagyu. However, this turns out to be something of a feint by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, for there is indeed a major development in Volume 10 "Hostage Child." The title is not exactly one of the give stories collected in this volume, but does represent a more literal meaning for the final story, "Straw Boy":

(50) "The Yagyu Letter" offers up the initial conflict between Ogami Itto and the forces call together by Retsudo Yagyu, beginning with the Kurokuwa. If their swords fail, then there are archers and rifleman to finish off Lone Wolf and Cub.

(51) "The Tears of Daigoro" reveals the subterfuge with the reader as we are finally offered a mano-e-mano duel between Ogami Itto and Retsudo Yagyu. However, the duel quickly becomes irrelevant as we learn what we should have suspected: that Daigoro cannot possibly hold on to his father's shoulders during every single fight. But Daigoro does more than fall down; he becomes separate from his father in what may well prove to be one of the most significant developments in the saga. The rest of the story become Daigoro's adventure as an unusual father and son living alone in the forest try to provide protection from the Yagyu assassins searching for the boy.

(52) "The Fisherwoman's Love" has Daigoro stumbling upon fishermen working a river. Even though he is offered something to eat, the boy who has never learned to accept the kindness of strangers must remain true to the code he has learned from observing his father. But while Daigoro learns to fend for himself after a fashion, there is one in the small village who not only recognizes the shishogan in the boy's eyes but also fears what it means.

(53) "Drifting Shadows" returns the focus to Ogami Itto, who has begun to follow the path of Daigoro and who has the chance to continue his duel with Retsduo Yagyu. The duel has a surprising resolution of sorts, that only adds to the emnity between the pair.

(54) "Straw Boy" is the most heart-rending tale to this point in the epic, which certainly says something. Daigoro is now at the point of starvation and finally comes to the end of his strength and lies down beneath a tree to die. As he lays there traveler after traveler sits under the tree's shade as well, all of them ignoring the dying child. But then two men come alone and hide in the tree, waiting to free their gang leader being transported to jail. Recognizing something in the boy's eye, the gang leader plans to use Daigoro as a "straw boy," which is to say, a hostage if they are trapped by the police.

The fun at this point is how long the separation of Lone Wolf and Cub will continue. It is, of course, foolishness to even hazard a guess and at the rate of one story per evening at bedtime, I can look forward to prolonging this major act of the epic for some time to come and continue to appreciate the irony that some of the best stories in this tale of father and son on the Assassinýs Road are about Daigoro alone.