Vagabond

Vagabond is Inoue's retelling of Eiji Yoshikawa's novel about Musashi Miyamoto, the real swordsman who became a legend in 1600s Japan. It opens with a furious young killer and slowly turns into a study of what a violent man does with himself once he runs out of people to beat. The duels are some of the best action ever drawn in ink, but the book keeps stopping to watch rice grow and rivers move. Inoue switches from pen to brush partway through, and the art becomes something closer to painting. It is a long, demanding book, and it stops mid-story because Inoue has been on hiatus for years.