A Key Manga Title, Complete Set of First Printings

[Lone Wolf and Cub (complete manga series)] Kozure okami

Koike, Kazuo and Goseki Kojima

Notes: A complete 28-volume set of the first Japanese tankobon printings of wildly popular and profoundly influential manga series published in English as Lone Wolf and Cub. Like most manga, Kozure okami first appeared in short segments in manga periodicals, beginning in 1970. The series was collected into books (tankobon) and published over five years in twenty-eight small volumes totalling some 8000 pages. Even before the series had finished, it was adapted into several films. In Japan, there have been six movies, two TV series, and several video games based on the series. Kozure okami has sold nearly 10 million copies in Japan and millions more in translation, including English versions by two American publishers.

The series follows a disgraced samurai and his young son who become assassins set on a gory campaign of revenge. The story, by Koike, is spare, and the force of the narrative is conveyed in the drawings by Goseki. The series was a major influence on Frank Miller, the groundbreaking American comic artist behind Sin City, a re-imagining of Batman, and 300. He drew the covers of the first American issues of Lone Wolf and Cub before the translation was available: “I was able to ‘read’ a hundred pages of a Japanese comic the other day without ever becoming confused. And it was written in Japanese! They rely totally on the visuals. They approach comics as a pure form more than American comic artists do” (Manga: A Cultural Anthology, p. 240).

Given the vast numbers of copies of Kozure okami printed in Japan, complete sets of the original tankobon editions are difficult to assemble (OCLC seems to record one early set in the US, at UC Riverside, but the records are hard to parse and there may be others). This set includes the first printing of each volume, in dust jackets, and preserving the original obis (wrap-around bands). It would be difficult to assemble a better or more complete set.

5 by 7/1/8 inches. Color pages at the front of the first volume; color title page in the other 27 volumes; contents in black and white.

Edition + Condition: Twenty-eight first printings (identified by the publication date followed by the first edition statement, 初版発行). All very good to near fine in wrappers, with near fine dust jackets and very good or better obis. The top edges are somewhat dusty. The spine of the first volume is slanted.

Publication: Tokyo: Futabasha, 1972–1976 (Showa 47–51).

Item No: #361016

Sold