PicoBlog

I know, I know these don’t get very many views and to carry on writing about Vagabond doesn’t seem to excite the readers quite like other topics might (don’t worry I’ve plans for a second post to-day). But the truth is I love writing about Musashi and Vagabondo, as the manga is definitely a stellar piece of art that will be remembered for generations in my view.

And like all great pieces of literature it is worth remembering and should be analysed in great detail. This is because of the beauty of not only the artworks but also of the characterizations which are unmatched and incredibly deep.

The most notable characters such as Musashi, Takuan Soho and Otsu along with Matahachi, will be analysed in their own right but to start with I wanted to get into Oko and her role in Chapters 3-5.

Originally a character from the Musashi novel, she ends her days in that monumental piece of literature a poor farmer’s wife, having returned to the life of brigandry she started with. Except at that point she has become utterly estranged from her daughter whom she sought to pimp out, with her daughter Akemi having begun her own family and found true happiness.

In the Manga though, there is a decidedly vicious edge to Oko, with the character ending up with even less I suspect than in the novel. But we’ll get to that in another article, for now we’ll just analyse her initial interactions with the heroes.

At the start she seems welcoming, yet as the chapters unfold she becomes increasingly shifty, and prone towards side-eyeing them, sizing them up and making little underhanded if flirtatious remarks.

Oko seems to prefer Takezo (Musashi) on account of his greater masculinity from the somewhat vain dandy, and self-centred Matahachi. However, rather than being drawn in by her Takezo is alarmed and afraid, preferring to keep his distance from her, and favouring the company of Akemi (her daughter).

Matahachi for his part, is naturally quite drawn in by Oko’s beauty and seductive nature. The trouble for him is that he’s thinking with little Matahachi, and since Oko is aware of his fascination for her she has no need to try very hard to seduce him, preying on him like a vulture even as she targets his friend.

After finding out that Tsujikaze the Bandit slew Oko’s first husband, the four ‘heroes’ or misfits stash away her collection of stolen goods (stolen from the local battlefield of Sekigahara) and prepare for the coming battle. They fall to drinking (naturally) and it is at this time that Takezo reveals himself to be a light-weight where liquour is concerned to the amusement of his friend who derides him for not being the sort of heavy-weight drinking he (Matahachi is).

But we the readers are revealed why Takezo dislikes Oko, why he seeks to avoid her and is not drawn in by her charms; he is lonely. I know this sounds strange, but as his mother abandoned him in his childhood and his father was abusive, Takezo is hesitant about potentially loose women and avoids them like the plague.

Abandoned as a child, he has a nightmare of asking his father about her only to be struck and told he has the ‘eyes of a beast’. This complete and total rejection, along with the abandonment of the person he loved most in the whole world is enough to give anyone trust issues.

Oko though is not aware of this, and when he rejects her she is filled with poisonous hatred for him, for this ‘humiliation’. The ensuing battle sees Takezo and Matahachi make short work of a number of the brigands, with Tsujikaze fleeing with Takezo giving chase in order to slay the bandit.

The two of them share a laugh, and Oko is intimidated but already pondering ways to split them apart, and to entrap them.

Oko as she is drawn in Vagabondo if we’re being honest is drawn something like a serpent, which is an apt comparison. She seems to slither, and her head almost seems to sway from side to side, as she observes the duo at all times with a seemingly unblinking gaze.

Neither of them suspect what is to come, neither of them predict just how manipulative she and Akemi can be. They should, but they don’t.

Oko lies and pretends to be captured by the Tsujikaze gang, with Takezo charging in to the rescue to slaughter them all. Oko for her part seduces the foolish Matahachi who after a good time in the forest agrees to abandon his oldest friend and forsake his impending nuptials to Otsu and elopes with Oko.

Takezo is quite reasonably enraged at this (not only because he loved Matahachi like a brother, but because deep down he was in love with Otsu and wished only to return the man she loved safe and sound to guarantee her happiness). He is also angered at having been used like that by Oko and Akemi, whom he had taken under his protection.

Oko for her part I think represents something more than another femme fatale in fiction. There is something more to the character, there is an element of sociopathy and narcissism to her that no other character has on the same level.

She actively pimps out her daughter, actively torments Matahachi once she is married to him, cheating on him with a certain regularity prostituting herself with little remorse. Oko also seeks to entrap the heir of the Yoshioka family, so that she might gain for herself a cushy life, while Akemi for her part in the manga at least comes to genuinely love Yoshioka Seijuro.

Oko is depraved, cares only for herself and let it not be forgotten that she seduces a youth of 15 years of age, while she is nearer to 30. I need not expand on this detail, and yet it is one that few care to ponder as it demonstrates how ruthless she is. She’d seduce a child to get ahead, robbing him of his future and trapping him into a loveless marriage to her. Certainly he had his role to play in that, but at the same time it is difficult not to feel a little bit of pity for Matahachi as he is a child after all.

Rooted in shadows, prone to using sex like a weapon and a tool, and consumed by disdain for others, Oko in some ways is the first real villain of the story. It is she who defeats Matahachi, and her shadow that looms over the ensuing arc in which Takezo must struggle through and against the people of the village of Miyamoto.

There is something sinister about how she reduces her husband to a ‘welfare’ state totally dependant on her, only to cast him out when the going gets tough and how she very nearly with her manipulations drives Takezo to his death at the hands of the villagers of Miyamoto (if indirectly so).

A dragon in her own right, at least the sort that kidnaps the unwary and holds them to ransom and hoards wealth for herself, Oko is honestly both one of the more successful villains in manga history and also one of the least successful. As she is left with very little in the end, as she in time gets her comeupponce and is left to rot alone, and forsaken.

But would she even care? Bear in mind, she is likely to spend the rest of her days in the pleasure quarter of Kyoto, cursing those around her and ruing the day she ever met Takezo and Matahachi. I could think of no greater punishment for her than that.

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