"The Shogunate must not learn the secrets of our religion!" Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden #7 thoughts

I suppose one of the most impressive things about Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo is that the series is constantly able to tread new ground and delve into previously-unexplored concepts. This is no mean feat for a 30+ year old title. Without transporting the series into a different setting (outside of Space Usagi, which has its own continuity) and without succumbing to tie-ins to other titles (other than the occasional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jam), Usagi Yojimbo finds new ideas by simply exploring different aspects of feudal-era Japan.

Most recently the series ran Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden, a seven-issue limited series with an intriguing hook: two men are murdered and Usagi joins his old friend Inspector Ishida in examining the crime. However, the dead men are Christians at a time when Christianity is an illegal religion. As the story advances, they learn the dead men were carrying a Bible. A thief plundered the dead men and now various people are after the book; the killers turns out to be agents of the Shogunate, so it's the law vs. the law - Ishida as a local police inspector against the superior authority of the government.

Along with the recent Martin Scorcese film Silence, Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden is one of the few American pieces of pop culture exploring this interesting period of Japan/Christian history. The text pieces by Sakai were very fascinating, especially in the final issue where he describes how Japanese Christians would use mirrors to fashion the symbol of the cross.

The climax of the tale involves a very neat little sleight-of-hand with a genuinely surprising reveal on the final page which changes how the previous 6 issues are interpreted, which is again no small feat. Stan Sakai remains a master of comic art storytelling and Usagi Yojimbo continues to prove itself his masterpiece.