FEATURE
The Man Behind
Usagi
By Antonio Vega
Stan Sakai discusses his childhood in Hawaii, the creation of his beloved character Miyamoto Usagi, & his career in the comic book industry.
“I just find Japanese history and culture— mythology—so fascinating,” says Stan Sakai, the creator of the popular Usagi Yojimbo comic-book series. “I have done stories about kite making, sword making, pottery—I even did one about seaweed farming.” Set in a version of feudal Japan populated by anthropomorphic animals, Usagi Yojimbo has been entertaining readers for three and a half decades and turned Sakai into a revered name among comic-book fans. However, before rising to the heights of the comicbook world, Sakai was just a boy growing up in Hawaii who would spend many a weekend at the movie theater, enthralled by classic samurai films. Origin Tale Although Sakai grew up in Hawaii, he was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan to a second-generation Japanese American father and a Japanese mother. “My dad
was born on Kauai. He enlisted after high school. He was too young to be in the war itself but he was stationed in Japan right after the war, and he met my mom there. They got married. Theirs was one of the first American military–Japanese national marriages to be approved by the U.S. government.” About two years after Sakai was born, he—along with his parents and his older brother—left Japan to live in Honolulu. Sakai would go on to attend Waikiki Elementary School before advancing to Kaimuki Intermediate (now Kaimuki Middle) and then Kaimuki High School. Sakai says it was during these years that he started down the path that would lead him where he is today. “I’ve always liked to draw. Myself and maybe one or two other guys were the class artists. It was in high school where I took my first art class. I really enjoyed drawing. I also enjoyed comics. Comic books gave me my love of 9
reading in general.” Alongside friends like Dennis Fujitake and Gary Kato, both of whom would also go on to become professional artists, Sakai began creating his own comics in his early teens. However, he says that at first, he didn’t think that he could one day actually earn a living by doing this—that is, until the legendary co-creator of such comic book characters as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men—the late Stan Lee—opened Sakai’s eyes to this possibility. Sakai explains that until Stan Lee came around, it was not that common for the many individuals who worked on a comic to get credited for their work within the pages of those comics. Lee, however, made it a point to give credit to these hard(Above) Stan Sakai in front of mural of Miyamoto Usagi www.readwasabi.com
• AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2019