The Worst Ronin | Review

The Worst Ronin
Writer: Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Artist: Faith Schaffer
HarperAlley; $26.99
Publisher’s age rating: 14+

Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Faith Schaffer’s The Worst Ronin is set in a feudal Japan that has been remixed to include modern technology like cellphones, TV, and movies. It’s also a far more cosmopolitan place than the famously homogeneous Japan, with characters having various shades of skin colors, including dark skin for our heroine Chihiro.

Chihiro is sixteen years old and the daughter of a renowned samurai. He is now retired due to an injury, but he trains with her regularly. Chihiro hopes to one day be admitted into the prestigious Keisi Academy, although her prospects aren’t good—the academy has only ever admitted a single woman, and it didn’t work out all that great.

That woman would be Tatsuo Nakano, a now legendary female samurai who refused to kill herself when her daimyo died and went ronin (the book opens with diners at a restaurant watching a movie about her, and Chihiro has Tatsuo’s poster on her wall).

When Chihiro’s father is conscripted to travel to a village to deal with a yamauba demon feasting on children, she goes in his stead and ends up meeting Tatsuo on the road. Her idol is not at all what she imagined. Foul-tempered, foul-mouthed, and constantly drinking, she has no time for romantic ideas of heroism or traditional samurai concepts like honor.

You know what they say about meeting your heroes.

Regardless, Tatsuo now works for hire, and Chihiro has money, so the pair set off to face the demon together (with a little urging from Tatsuo’s horse, who is very opinionated and emotionally expressive for a horse).

The mismatched allies grate against one another in buddy-cop-movie fashion during their journey but end up complementing one another’s strengths when it comes time for the showdown with the demon.

That, it turns out, isn’t the climactic battle of the book, as political machinations among the nation’s ruling class intrude on the world of the samurai, dispelling Chihiro’s romantic notions and proving Tatsuo’s more cynical worldview the more correct one.

Suddenly, Chihiro must face the biggest challenge of her life, one that mirrors events from Tatsuo’s own past, and Tatsuo is there by her side to help her. Surprisingly, a cell phone is involved, which makes the hybrid setting seem retroactively more important than it originally seemed.

Faith Schaffer’s art style is a little rough around the edges and may take some getting used to upon reading. There’s a definite anime and manga influence to the style, but it’s not highly polished, and has a somewhat endearing fan-like quality to it. Schaffer’s background is in animation though, which might explain why the storytelling is so strong.

Just as the feudal Japan of The Worst Ronin is a unique setting—a blurb from Jordan Morris on the back refers to it as a “swords-and-cell-phones epic”—the book’s look is unlike that of any other.

It’s worth noting that there is of course a fair degree of a violence and blood in the proceedings, though most of it highly stylized in the manner of classic samurai movies rather than visceral and gory.

The language is also pretty salty, like that of an R-rated movie, thanks in large part to Tatsuo’s dialogue. This might give some librarians and parents pause when it comes to ordering, recommending or shelving the book, but it should be fine for most YA readers who are, of course, the natural audience for the book.

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