Line #0 YMMV/LoneWolfAndCub


1	* AdaptationDisplacement: The film adaptations tend to be more well-known than the manga.
2	* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: ''Good lord'' is it ever. The series is well known and highly respected for its high quality linework, with Kojima's grounded and gloriously dark art style really contributing to the mood and atmosphere of its period.
3	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi4VTkNHKq8 main theme]] from ''Shogun Assassin'' is a glorious ear worm that would not have sounded out of place in a commercial for a 1980s sports car.
4	* DesignatedHero: Ogami Itto, sort of. Of course, he has plenty of noble qualities to his name and almost comes across as an ideal hero at times, but he is also still a ruthless hitman who puts his toddler-aged son's life in danger as part of his job, as well as exposing Daigoro to traumatic violence regularly. He does, however, explain this as part of his way of life, and claims to be beyond conventional norms of right and wrong, so it is hard to tell how much your really supposed to consider him the hero.
5	* FairForItsDay: A casual glance at the Trope Page should make clear the topic of sexuality and females is handled in a ''mixed way'' at the very least, especially when viewed from a modern perspective. But as noted in the afterword of Volume 9, by the setting's time period, and the time in which the manga was released, the series was actually rather progressive in how it portrays women, with tons of strong-willed and competent girls of all walks of life, heroic and villainous. Itto himself is very progressive for a Bushi, and is shown as having immense respect and admiration for women rising above the social status Japanese society has imposed upon them.
6	* FranchiseOriginalSin: Many have read or watched ''Manga/MadBull34'' and/or ''Manga/CryingFreeman'' and wondered how Kazuo Koike could go from making this seminal masterpiece to them. ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' features many of the same elements that critics have eviscerated those stories for: ridiculously over-the-top action, pulpy and unrealistic story beats, a juvenile and borderline-misogynistic attitude towards rape and sexuality that affects almost all the female characters, scatological humor, and ridiculously, even hilariously evil villains. But, ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' did a much better job of landing its dramatic and personal stories, grounding the [[{{Narm}} excess]] so that it [[NarmCharm still comes across effectively as human drama]]. It was also set in a distant, violent past, rather than a contemporary setting, dissociating the audience from events to a point and increasing the ceiling of WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, and was often heavily-researched and showed it, to the point of many chapters devoting themselves to showing off some aspect of medieval Japanese life, in stark contrast to the ridiculous depictions of New York or the Chinese triads more informed by action movies than anything else.
7	* {{Macekre}}: In ''Shogun Assassin'', all mentions of the complicated clan warfare that drives most of the plot is removed in favor of vague references to "The Shogun". Most of the footage comes from the second ''Lone Wolf & Cub'' movie, ''Babycart at the River Styx'', with the first twelve minutes of the first movie, ''Sword of Vengeance'' bolted on to the front as an introduction. The replacement score by W. Michael Lewis and [[Music/PaulRevereAndTheRaiders Mark Lindsay]] [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic is pretty good]], though.
8	* MagnificentBastard: Both the protagonist and antagonist are viciously efficient operators:
9	** [[AntiHero Ogami Itto]] is a stoic, charismatic warrior unjustly [[FrameUp framed]] by the Yagyu clan. On the run with his three year old son Daigoro, Itto constantly showcases his strategic genius in his assassinations. In one instance, he allows himself to be captured by the enemy to get close to a target, revealing that the warning they received was written by him. In another, he uses Daigoro drowning as bait to trick a target's bodyguard into trying to save him so Itto can kill him. Itto singlehandedly brings down the powerful Yagyu clan on his own, showing why he is a man who walks the road of demons, the Path of Meifumado.
10	** [[BigBad Yagyu Retsudo]] is a charismatic old man with the soul of a samurai that contrasts with the hard ruthlessness of an assassin. After the Yagyu lose the post of Shogun executioner to Itto, Retsudo uses a seemingly innocuous sparring match to trick Itto into knocking his staff into a man who could pose a threat to him, leading to the man's death. Later framing Itto for treason, Retsudo is revealed to be manipulating the entire Shogunate from the shadows and even when exposed for this, manages to connive his way back to power, having his rival, the poisoner Abe no Kaii, eliminated by setting a fire on a date that will force Kaii [[DrivenToSuicide to commit seppuku]]. Retsudo then uses a legion of ninja to face Itto, having them focus on breaking Itto's infamous sword, so he has the advantage for their final battle. A ruthless genius, Retsudo continuously shows why he is Itto's greatest enemy.
11	* {{Narm}}: Some moments can come off as unintentionally humorous for how seriously they're played.
12	** The Watari-kachi mercenary Kanbei, after getting into a fight with Itto, being mortally wounded and confessing his life story unprompted, ending by shouting "Tell me, Ogami Itto! ''What is Bushido!?''" He has never met Itto before. This would not be the first, or the last, time in the series that someone considers Itto basically the walking embodiment of Bushido even after declaring himself a ronin and killing a lot of people for money.
13	** In ''Baby Cart In Peril,'' Itto's HostageSituation with Lord Owari starts out as a tense climax involving Itto pissing off and running from two pursuing armies at once. It promptly becomes a joke when Owari decides it's a wonderful idea to step out of cover during a bombardment in the hopes he can order everyone to stand down and gets ''obliterated'' so thoroughly by a volley that a ''Franchise/LooneyTunes''-style crater is all that's left. The film plays this alarmingly straight and follows this with Itto declaring this battle to be a LastStand and arranging a murder-suicide pact with his own son, placing the tone all over the place.
14	* PopCultureIsolation: The manga is much more well known among fans of western comics than among manga fans.
15	* {{Squick}}: Abe-no-Kaii and then some, bordering on ''Film/PinkFlamingos'' territory towards the end.
16	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Some villains intended to be sympathetic sometimes simply ''aren't''. Take Kanbei, one of the Watari-kachi mercenaries, who takes no part in his comrades attempting to rape a noblewoman and her daughter, interferes only when they accidentally reveal their employer to the women's enraged servant when he saves them, then kills the servant and the women both. There's very little by way of sad past that can possibly excuse him for this, let alone any code of supposed honor.
17	%%* TheWoobie: Daigoro, often. [[spoiler: The worst moment being what happens to his dog.]]

Context YMMV / LoneWolfAndCub