Summary: An old woman shares a meal with Usagi and Spot. She is returning from a pilgrimage to pray for her son, Atsuo. He offers to carry her to her village.

She tells how her husband had been the town money lender, always there for those in need and never demanding repayment from those who could not afford it. Her son does it differently, with high interest rates and thugs to enforce payment.

She has Usagi spend the night, much to her son's displeasure. Usagi witnesses how poorly the son treats his mother. She sees in Usagi what a son should be like.

Having witnessed Usagi's skill, the old woman tries to hire him to kill her son. When he refuses, she begs him to at least come to dinner one more time...

Thoughts: The ending adds a poignant twist to what seems at first a pleasantly innocuous title.

In the review above, I found myself overusing the feminine pronoun because the old woman is never named. She is referred to as Obaasan or Mother.

This is a heart-wrenching tale. The old woman's grief is palpable throughout. From her care for the beaten man to her memories of singing her young baby lullabies.

"I do pray the gods will be merciful... mother."

This series has turned around sharply. The ongoing series shows much improvement over the scattered anthology issues. These last two issues add to the saga a resounding poignance. Sakai finds it in human compassion amidst the worst of humanity. In the previous issue, we saw a spiteful butcher and an apathetic populace, contrasted with Usagi patiently trying to earn Spot's trust. Here we see a ruthless criminal and his gang, contrasted with the tender understanding that exists between Usagi and the mother. Simple decency shining through hardship inflicted by the less decent is a powerful idea at the core of this series.

Grade: A

Wow, I just read that ending much differently than I ever had before. He goes back into the house at the end...I always read it as him just leaving and never really paid much more attention to it than that...but he goes back in after saying he hopes she finds mercy. Man.

That's one hell of a shock.

Usagi is not walking back into the house again at the end. He's walking through the outer gate.

It would have been an interesting ending, but I don't think it's there, and I'm not sure the Bushido Code would have called for that kind of response.

I really do wish your interpretation held up, but

Sometimes it's no fun being right.

It certainly would have been a bleaker ending if I were right, I'm not sure how I would have reconciled it with his usual disposition. I mean, I guess Bushido could have covered it, but it still would have been dark. 

That's true, I guess with Gen's jokes it seemed less so but the duel and the reasoning behind weren't exactly what you'd call a happy go lucky adventure.