Stan Sakai finds quite a few things to be amazing. As in: "If you have never had fresh pineapple right off the stalk, it's just amazing." And also: "My stepdaughter Emi just bought me an amazing book on the fine art of Japanese mud-ball making. There are craftsmen that make these mud spheres-I'd never heard of it, but as soon as I saw it, I thought, 'I have to do a story about that.'"
Sakai is genuine in both his wonder and wide-ranging interest, which in part explains his success: He is arguably the most prolific cartoonist to come out of Hawaii. His best-known work, Usagi Yojimbo-which recounts the exploits of an anthropomorphized rabbit/samurai in seventeenth-century Japan-began publishing as a solo comic series in 1986, and these days it comes out at a rate of nine to ten issues per year, with at least one full-length graphic novel also published most years (he estimates there are forty volumes in the Usagi novel series so far, though he's lost count). His work has been translated into at least eighteen languages, and he has won every major award there is in the comic publishing industry, multiple times. He worked for twenty-five years with the late Stan Lee (of Marvel Comics fame) and still does lettering for Sergio Aragones' Groo the Wanderer-Aragones rose to prominence at Mad magazine. A Netflix series, Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, began airing last year and is into its second season. Sakai created a new graphic novel series with his wife, Julie, who is herself a skilled artist working in the chibi style common to Japanese anime (animation) and manga (comics and graphic novels), in which certain aspects of characters are highly exaggerated. (Chibi is also sometimes referred to as "super deformation.") The first installment in the new series, Chibi Usagi: Attack of the Heebie Chibis, won the 2022 Eisner Award-often referred to as the "Oscars of the comic world"-as the Best New Publication for Younger Children. The previous year, Sakai was inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame, after winning awards over the years for everything from "Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition" to "Best Letterer" and "Best Serialized Story." There is a profusion of original art, plush toys, figurines, socks, mugs and more for sale online, and a new line of Chibi Usagi designs selling exclusively at Uniqlo in Ala Moana Center.
Sakai's world wasn't always this expansive. He grew up in Kapahulu in the 1950s, attending Waikiki Elementary (where he met his future first wife, Sharon), then Kaimuki Intermediate and High before going off to college a mile or so farther uphill at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. And while he says he had some great mentors-including high school art teacher Lorraine Kawahara (to whom he would later dedicate a book) and, while at UH, Dave Thorne, whom Sakai refers to as "the cartoon guru of Hawaii"-being a comic book artist seemed to be out of reach. "I've always been interested in art, as was my older brother, Ed, and I loved comic books," he says, speaking from his home studio in Arizona. "I knew I wanted to do something in art, but this was way before computers, FedEx and everything. You pretty much had to live in New York to be in comic books, so I figured maybe I'd go into advertising or something."
In hindsight, Sakai's early life laid the groundwork for his later success. His grandfather settled on Kauai in the nineteenth century as part of the early wave of Japanese migration to the Islands, and his father, Akio, was born on that island. Akio met Sakai's mother, Teruko, while serving in the US military in post-WWII Japan-theirs was one of the first military-civilian marriages authorized by the occupation forces-and Stan and Ed were both born in Japan (Stan in Kyoto in 1953). The family returned to Kauai when Stan was two, and then ultimately moved to Oahu. Younger brother Kenneth was born in the Islands.
"I grew up right at the base of Diamond Head, and that was great," he recalls. "It was a fifteen-minute walk to the beach." Also nearby was the now-defunct Kapahulu Theater. "Every weekend they would show chanbara, samurai action movies, and every weekend I'd be there. I grew up watching those movies-the Samurai Trilogy by Hiroshi Inagaki was one of my favorites. My mom was also a great resource: She would tell me all these stories, and I was reading manga before they were called manga-they were just Japanese comics, and she would read them aloud and explain them to me."
“The fact that he does everything by hand—comes up with the story, does the writing, does the penciling, does the inking, does the lettering,” says fellow Hawaii comic artist Jon J. Murakami, “that’s just phenomenal.” Above, Sakai draws a page for Usagi Yojimbo vol. 5 no. 1.
While at UH, Sakai was among the founders of the House of Cartoons, a group of Hawaii artists mentored by Thorne. He married high school sweetheart Sharon in 1977, and together they moved to California and plugged into the art scene. It was there that Miyamoto Usagi, the rabbit-warrior hero of Usagi Yojimbo, came into being, synthesizing Sakai's early influences: Usagi, or rabbits, are prominent in Japanese folklore, some of which was passed on from his mother; meanwhile, the life of the warrior/philosopher/artist Miyamoto Musashi (who lived circa 1584-1645) was fictionalized in Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy. (Inagaki's film was released in three installments from 1954 to 1956, but there was also Akira Kurosawa's 1961 Yojimbo: Like Toshiro Mifuni's character in that film, Miyamoto Usagi is a ronin-a samurai of the Edo Period with no lord or master. The term yojimbo translates simply as bodyguard.)
Usagi Yojimbo has other subtle nods to Sakai's past. One supporting character, Inspector Shida, is modeled loosely on Chang Apana, the early twentieth-century Honolulu detective who himself was the model for author Earl Derr Biggers' fictional Charlie Chan. "Chang Apana was just a name I had heard in passing when I was growing up, but then I did a bit more research and thought, 'He's just amazing-I mean, short little man, but he carried bullwhips. At first my character designs for Inspector Shida were for one of those big, heroic types, but after reading more about Apana, I thought that would actually be a neat dichotomy, having a smaller, quiet guy as a hero."
And then there are the pineapples. A few years back while visiting Hawai'i, he harvested a pineapple that older brother Ed had planted in their parents' front yard. "That got me to thinking, 'Did they have pineapple in Usagi's time?' I found it was unknown in feudal Japan, so I figured it would be a nice thing, like hiding an Easter egg in the story-and also to honor my connection to Hawaii and to my dad-to put a pineapple in every issue. So ever since a story called The Hidden, which is about the persecution of Christians in feudal Japan, there's been one hidden somewhere in every story, in this person's clothing or a snowball that's shaped like a pineapple. ... I think I've only missed a few in the past seven or eight years."
(TOP AND BOTTOM) The reference library and drawing table of an artist still in process. “I’m past retirement age, but I’m not retiring anytime soon,” says Sakai. “I’m busier than ever. It seems like every story I do becomes a springboard for another, and right now I’ve got stories I want to do that won’t see print for another ten years.”
Sakai's casual mention of the subject of The Hidden hints at one of the things he's known for: the level of historical detail in his narratives. "I do as much research as I can, but within reason," he says, though "within reason" appears to be a slippery slope. "I read a lot and watch documentaries," he says. "There's often something, some weird aspect of Japanese culture or history, that makes me think, 'What can I do with that?' For instance, my parents went to Japan once, and they brought back pictures of a seaweed farm. Then I heard there was a museum in Salem, Massachusetts, that had an exhibit on Japanese seaweed farming. So I went there and did research, and that became a story. Another story I did, Grasscutter, took about five years to finish-that's probably the most research-intensive story I've done, but then it won the Eisner Award for best serialized story and ended up being used as a textbook in Japanese history classes, which just astounds me."
Sakai is also one of a dwindling breed of artists who still does everything by hand: He plots out the story in notebooks and sketches everything in pencil, then fills in each panel using ink he imports from Japan. He then turns things over to stepdaughter Emi, who serves as his colorist. "The computer is mainly used for research," he says. "I have a huge library, but I don't go to it as often as I once did, because the internet is so accessible. ... It's also great for keeping in touch with friends."
When Sakai was starting out, it was common for artists to sign over ownership of their characters to publishers, but he followed friend Sergio Aragones' lead in holding onto all of his intellectual property rights, which gives him complete control over where and how Usagi appears-for instance, making possible several collaborations with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It also gives him complete control over his creative output. "Usually you send a story to the publisher or the editor, and the editor assigns a colorist in New York for the book, whereas Emi is right here and we work closely together. She will ask things like, 'What do you think the mood for this should be?' And because I own the character, I can do whatever is right for it. The contracts with all my publishers have always stipulated that whatever I send in, they publish. They don't get to see anything about the story until I send it in. That freedom is almost unheard of in the industry."
Jon J. Murakami is one of the busiest cartoonists in Hawaii these days. "Calabash," which began its run in 2007, is still published every other Sunday in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and he recently released his third book-length compilation of the strips. His Gordon Rider comic book, which debuted in 2005, marked issue 15 at this year's Kawaii Kon, which is Honolulu's version of Comicon, albeit devoted to anime and manga. If Thorne and Corky Trinidad-an editorial cartoonist for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin from 1969 through his passing in 2009-were among the first generation of local cartoonists and Sakai the second, Murakami says he's somewhere between the third and fourth. He first came to know of Sakai through Usagi Yojimbo, then was introduced to him by Thorne, and they are now close friends.
"With anything in Hawaii, we're always proud of people who take that leap to do things, whether they're an artist or an actor or anybody, really," he says. "But even more so as an artist: Back when Usagi Yojimbo was first published, we were so remote from everyone else-there really wasn't a way to show your work aside from whoever saw your portfolio, or word of mouth. And here was a person from Hawai'i who did it, who was making his own comic-that was very inspirational for local cartoonists. Most of us use the computer now because we can't stand our own handwriting," he laughs. "The fact that he does everything by hand-comes up with the story, does the writing, does the penciling, does the inking, does the lettering-that's just phenomenal. Even I wonder, 'How do you have enough time for all this? How do you keep coming up with this stuff?' I do comic strips but they're just snippets, little episodes, you know? Stan works on a grand scale."
But never mind the artist, what about Stan Sakai the man? "He's a dear, dear friend," says Murakami. "He's very humble, and he hasn't forgotten where he's come from. There was a fundraiser when his wife, Sharon, was battling cancer, called the Sakai Project"-a book of Usagi Yojimbo-inspired art, released in 2014-"and all these really big-name artists came to contribute. The turnout was amazing, and you realized that everybody did this because they just love Stan. ... He's just such a great guy in the industry."
Sharon passed away in 2014, and Sakai married Julie a year later. Usagi Studios is now a family business. Stan and Julie publish Chibi Usagi under the shared pseudonym JUST Sakai (for JUlie and STan). Emi, Julie's daughter and Stan's colorist, is a professional photographer and also heads up Usagi Studios' merchandising department. Julie's son Daniel serves as their licensing agent. As for how Stan remains so productive, it's not too complicated: He works seven days a week, for six to seven hours per day. "I used to do more, but the kids kind of put a curfew on us," he chuckles. "They bought us a TV and subscriptions to all these streaming services and said, 'You can't work, you have to just sit and watch.' So in the evenings, after dinner, it's usually Korean dramas."
And while the life of a samurai holds few guarantees, there appears to be no end in sight for Miyamoto Usagi. "I'm past the age of retirement, but I'm not retiring anytime soon. ... Actually, I'm busier than ever," says Sakai. "It seems like every story I do becomes a springboard for another, and right now I've got stories that I want to do that probably won't see print for another ten years. In the meantime I have gotten to meet my heroes. I worked for all those years with Stan Lee; I knew Jack Kirby [also of Marvel Comics] and Moebius in Europe. I met Osamu Tezuka in Japan-he was like the god of manga. ... It's just amazing."
