Yaiba

File:Yaiba-vol-1.jpg

Yaiba Manga, Volume 1

YAIBA, also known as Kenyuu Densetsu Yaiba (剣勇伝説YAIBA ,Swordsman Legend Yaiba), is the second manga series created by Gosho Aoyama. It ran from 1988 to 1993 in Shonen Sunday and later had an anime that ran from April 9, 1993 to April 1, 1994. It was collected into 24 volumes. A video game for the Super Famicom, as well as a game for the Nintendo Game Boy, were also both released.

The story was about a young samurai and his adventures in modern day Japan. There have been numerous references to it in Detective Conan.

Plot Summary

In order to train his son, Yaiba Kurogane, to be a great samurai, Kenjuro Kurogane raises him in the African wilderness. But during training one day, they (along with their new pet tiger Kagetora) are caught in a box of pineapples about to be shipped to Japan. At the Tokyo airport, Kenjuro runs into his old kendo rival Raizo Mine and his daughter, Sayaka. Kenjuro leaves Yaiba with Raizo and Sayaka (despite their protestations) and heads off on a journey.

Meanwhile, Yaiba makes instant enemies with Sayaka's school's kendo star, Takeshi Onimaru. After losing in a duel to Yaiba, Onimaru begins training with his families Fuujin-ken (Wind God Sword) and becomes possessed and starts to take over Japan. To combat this, Yaiba seeks out the Raijin-ken (Lightning God Sword) and is trained by the legendary samurai Musashi Miyamoto. Onimaru sends wave after wave of minions after Yaiba and his friends, leading to a final showdown at his flying castle.

In Part 2 of the story, Yaiba's use of the sacred Dragon Orbs to help defeat Onimaru reawakens the evil princess of the Rabbit People, Kaguya. Kaguya seeks out the youth of all of the women of the world for herself. Ultimately, Yaiba has to join forces with Onimaru to defeat Kaguya and her strongest minion Gekko.

Episodes

Jpn#	Eng#	Episode title	Original airdate	English airdate	Plot	Manga source
1	1	Heisei’s Samurai Yaiba Appears	April 9, 1993
No summary yet First appearance of Yaiba Kurogane, Kenjuro Kurogane, Kagetora, Shonosuke, Sayaka Mine, Raizo Mine, Shizuka Mine, Sayaka's Grandmother, and Takeshi Onimaru.
2	2	The Revived Sword of Fuujin	April 16, 1993
No summary yet
3	3	Sword of Raijin/Sword of Fuujin	April 23, 1993
No summary yet
4	4	The Eight Demons: Frog Man’s Assault	April 30, 1993
No summary yet
5	5	Special Attack Whirlwind Sword	May 7, 1993
No summary yet
6	6	Frightening Slug Man Appears	May 14, 1993
No summary yet
7	7	The Eight Demons: Spider Man’s Weakness!?	May 21, 1993
No summary yet
8	8	Vampire: Bat Guy!	May 28, 1993
No summary yet
9	9	The Secret of the Onimaru Manjuu	June 4, 1993
No summary yet
10	10	The Revival of the Master Swordsman, Kojiro	June 11, 1993
No summary yet
11	11	Who Is the Strongest Swordsman!?	June 18, 1993
No summary yet
12	12	The Birth of the Lightning Slash	June 25, 1993
No summary yet
13	13	Gigantic Anglerfish!? Infiltrate Onimaru Castle	July 2, 1993
No summary yet
14	14	Vanished? The Enemy Chameleon	July 9, 1993
No summary yet
15	15	Kojiro’s Betrayal!?	July 16, 1993
No summary yet
16	16	The Strongest Machine of the Four Guardians Attacks!	July 23, 1993
No summary yet
17	17	Wind and Thunder Clash! Yaiba vs. Onimaru	July 30, 1993
No summary yet
18	18	Searching for the Legendary Orb	August 6, 1993
No summary yet
19	19	What Kind of an Orb is the Golden Orb?	August 13, 1993
No summary yet
20	20	Legend of the Red Dragon!! Shiro Amakusa Appears!	August 20, 1993
No summary yet
21	21	Feverish Hell! Steal the Flame Orb!!	August 27, 1993
No summary yet
22	22	The World Renowned Thief, Goemon	September 3, 1993
No summary yet
23	23	Huge Battle! Buddha vs. Osaka Onimaru Castle	September 10, 1993
No summary yet
24	24	Friend or Foe? The Revival of Jubei Yagyu!	September 17, 1993
No summary yet
25	25	The Waiting Trap!? The Decisive Battle of Kawanakajima	September 24, 1993
No summary yet
26	26	The Darkness Orb is the Entrance to the Dark World	October 1, 1993
No summary yet
27	27	Throw Away Your Dream! Special Training Deadly Sword	October 8, 1993
No summary yet
28	28	Fast Ball Match! Strike Out Benkei	October 15, 1993
No summary yet
29	29	What!? 100,000 Legendary Orbs	October 22, 1993
No summary yet
30	30	Stinger of Petrification! Monkey Basho	October 29, 1993
No summary yet
31	31	Aim for the Ryuujin Orb on Mount Fuji!	November 5, 1993
No summary yet
32	32	Yaiba Loses the Seven Orbs!?	November 12, 1993
No summary yet
33	33	Ryuujin’s Ruthless Test	November 19, 1993
No summary yet
34	34	Disappearing Companions	November 26, 1993
No summary yet
35	35	The Strongest in History! The Ryuujin Sword!!	December 3, 1993
No summary yet
36	36	Invaders From the Moon - The Empress Kaguya	December 10, 1993
No summary yet
37	37	Large Sinking! Onimaru’s Floating Castle	December 17, 1993
No summary yet
38	38	Tokyo Flooding Strategy!	December 24, 1993
No summary yet
39	39	The Moon Alien Merged with the Gas Tank!?	December 27, 1993
No summary yet
40	40	Birth of the New Ryuujin Legend!!	January 7, 1994
No summary yet
41	41	Carry Out the Women Rescue Mission	January 14, 1994
No summary yet
42	42	Jubei Loses His Body!?	January 21, 1994
No summary yet
43	43	Sayaka’s In Trouble! Hurry, Yaiba	January 28, 1994
No summary yet
44	44	The Targeted Dragon Priestess - Sayaka	February 4, 1994
No summary yet
45	45	Gekko’s Return! The Demon King’s Sword	February 11, 1994
No summary yet
46	46	Yaiba, Defeated By the Demon King’s Sword	February 18, 1994
No summary yet
47	47	Onimaru Returns! Save Sayaka!!	February 25, 1994
No summary yet
48	48	Take That! Combined Technique Wave of Wind Thunder	March 4, 1994
No summary yet
49	49	The Terrible True Figure of Kaguya!	March 11, 1994
No summary yet
50	50	Desperate Situation! Yaiba Loses His Sword	March 18, 1994
No summary yet
51	51	The White Ryuujin Appears!!	March 25, 1994
No summary yet
52	52	I’m Yaiba Kurogane, a Samurai!	April 1, 1994
No summary yet

Arcs

1. 8 Demons Arc (Lightning God Sword / Wind God Sword)
2. Onimaru Castle Arc
3. Dragon Orb Arc
4. Kaguya Arc (Dragon God Sword / Demon King Sword)

• <Anime ended here>

1. Pyramid Arc (Supreme King Sword)
2. Underworld Arc
3. Great Dragon Arc
4. Nobunaga Tournament Arc (Wood Sword)

Music

Opening themes

#	Episodes	Song name	Artist	Release date	Oricon chart peak
1	1~52	Yūki ga Areba	Kabuki Rocks	May 7, 1993

Closing themes

#	Episodes	Song name	Artist	Release date	Oricon chart peak
1	1~52	Shinchigakunaki Tatakai	Kabuki Rocks	May 7, 1993

Characters

Cast of Yaiba: Yaiba (foreground); Musashi, Kojiro, Sayaka, Namako-Otoko, Gerozaemon, Onimaru (background, from left to right)

• Yaiba Kurogane
• Sayaka Mine - see also Mine family
• Musashi Miyamoto
• Takeshi Onimaru
• Kenjuro Kurogane
• Kagetora & Shonosuke - Yaiba's pet tiger and vulture respectively. Yaiba meets (and nearly eats) Kagetora in the first chapter before leaving the jungle, but how he met Shonosuke is never explained.
• Sayaka's grandmother - Raizo's mother who runs the household. She is very knowledgable in kendo and even trains Yaiba a bit before Musashi appears.
• Gerozaimon Geroda - A frog man, originally one of Onimaru's minions, revived by using a normal frog as the host body. After losing to Yaiba and learning from another minion that Onimaru views him as expendable, he reforms and joins Yaiba for the remainder of the series. Although mostly comical, he has been shown to be a skilled fighter, mainly using his sticky tongue and a battle axe to fight.
• Kumo-Otoko (Spider man) - Another of Onimaru's minions, he ends up becoming his right hand man and secretary. After his introduction, he is mostly comical and is rarely shown to be competant at anything.
• Namako-Otoko (Sea cucumber man) - Another one of Onimaru's former minions who sides with Yaiba. He is mostly inactive after reforming but is usually seen on Sayaka's shoulder.
• Kojiro Sasaki - Musashi's famous rival, revived by Onimaru to defeat Yaiba. Kojiro makes several attempts to defeat Yaiba or at least steal the Raijin-ken, but ultimately he ends up joining him against Onimaru. He fights using an extendable sword and is a notorious womanizer.
• Jubei Yagyu - The famous historical one-eyed samurai, revived by Onimaru using a wolf as the host body. Though he usually looks normal, he becomes an uncontrollable werewolf when drunk. Because they have the same master (Musashi), he reforms and joins Yaiba after losing to him.
• Kaguya - The bunny princess of the moon and second major antagonist of the series. Awakened by Yaiba using the dragon orbs, she and her army seek to invade the earth. Her kiss can drain a person's youth.
• Tsukikage - Kaguya's right-hand man and Gekko's older brother.
• Gekko - Kaguya's most powerful warrior, an antropomorphic rabbit with a scar over one eye. He is ruthless and so powerful Yaiba and Onimaru have to team up to stop him.
• Moroha Kurogane - Yaiba's long lost little sister, raised by their mother to hate Kenjuro. She joins her brother for the final arc.
• Soshi Okita - The final villian of the series.

Yaiba in Detective Conan

• In volume 2 of Conan, Yaiba is seen playing on a TV. Likewise, in the last episode of the Yaiba anime, Conan and Ran are seen on a TV.
• The characer Kamen Yaiba is a parody of Kamen Rider using Yaiba instead of Rider.
• In the first OVA, Conan vs. Kid. vs. Yaiba, Mitsuhiko lends Conan all 24 volumes of Yaiba. Also, various characters in the Yaiba series play a major role in the OVA.
• Ran's cell-phone strap has a key-chain figure of Namako-Otoko attached to it.
• At the Halloween Party Murder Case, people dressed as Onimaru, Gerozaemon, Kumo-Otoko, the kappa Kerokichi (a one-time character) can be seen.
• The names of the characters in the movie Star Blade VI are rearranged versions of the historical names in Yaiba and have similarities to each character: Dark Sashim (ダーク・サシム) is Musashi (ムサシ) and uses two swords, Bay Jew (ベイ・ジュウ) is Jubei (十兵衛) and has an eyepatch, Kisasa (キササ) is Sasaki (Kojiro) (佐々木) and uses a long sword, and Dark Takio (ダーク・タキオ) is Okita (沖田) and resembles and evil god.
• In the Onsen Murder Case, Professor Agasa invents a device for testing onsen temperatures and quality that is designed to look like Ishikawa Goemon, but rather than a traditional Goemon design it resembles the revived Goemon from the Dragon Orbs Arc.
• Many of the same voice actors appear in Yaiba and Detective Conan: Minami Takayama (Yaiba and Conan), Kotono Mitsuishi (Sayaka and Kir), Ryo Horikawa (Onimaru and Heiji), and Unsho Ishizuka (Raizo and Nakamori). Other DC actors voiced one-time characters in Yaiba: Kappei Yamaguchi (Kerokichi and Shinichi/Kaitou Kid), Wataru Takagi (Starfishman and Genta/Takagi), and Fumihiko Tachiki (Yakitori-kun and Vodka).

Yaiba in Magic Kaito

• In chapter 18 of Magic Kaito (which the first Conan OVA is based on), Kid attempts to steal a sacred sword from the Mine house and ends up fighting Yaiba. Also, Kuroba and Nakamori are mentioned in the the final chapter of Yaiba.

Gallery

Yaiba in Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory.

Onimaru vs. Yaiba.

See also

• Manga
• Gosho Aoyama