Yagi, the Lone Goat Assassin is a highly skilled assassin. His most recognizable trait is that he carries his son, Gorogoro with him in a baby carriage. He was once an honorable samurai, and despite his dark path, Yagi still considers himself an honorable warrior and will not accept jobs that target innocent or honest people, although he charges a high fee for his services. The character is based upon Ogami Itto, the protagonist of the manga series Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, who was portrayed in a series of 1970s films by Tomisaburo Wakayama.
History[]
Yagi was once a high-ranking samurai who served a lord named Higashi. When Lord Higashi died, clan leadership went to his son, Lord Hirone. However, Hirone was young and brash, and refused to listen to the advice of his late father's councilors. Instead, he preferred to listen to the sycophants in his court who flattered him and told him what he wanted to hear and convinced him to discard the veteran advisors. One such councilor, Wakame, framed Yagi by planting false documents to make it seem like Yagi was a traitor to the clan. Instead of committing seppuku (ritualistic suicide) to preserve his honor, Yagi slew many of the conspirators against him, then took his infant son, Gorogoro, and fled. Now he makes his living as a hired assassin, carrying his son in a carriage, feared by many as the Lone Goat and Kid. To signal one's intent to hire them, they must post a picture of a baby carriage somewhere along the road.
The first time Yagi and Gorgoro encountered Usagi was through a plot by Lord Wakame. The corrupt official and his cohorts needed to have Yagi killed so he couldn't reveal their corruption within the clan, but the Lone Goat Assassin had killed every hired sword they sent against him. Wakame had heard of a duel between one of Lord Hirone's former samurai, General Oyaneko, and a ronin named Usagi, and the ronin lived. Oyaneko was known as a great warrior, which meant Usagi had to be more than a match for the Lone Goat Assassin which gave Wakame the idea of pitting the two ronin against each other in the hopes of achieving Yagi's death.
Through a third party, Wakame hired Yagi to hunt down Usagi, telling him that the ronin tried to assassinate Oyaneko; when in truth, the former General was dying from illness, and challenged Usagi to a duel to the death so that he might die as a warrior. Yagi and Oyaneko were old friends, so he quickly accepted the job and tracked down Usagi.
The two ronin met on a road along a cliff, and Yagi made his intention to kill Usagi known. Usagi tried to tell Yagi that, while he had no choice, his duel with Oyaneko was an honorable one. However, Yagi was still intent on carrying out his mission; he had accepted the contract, and this was the fate that awaited all assassins. Despite Usagi's insistence that he was no assassin, Yagi didn't budge from his resolve.
It was an intense duel between the two ronin, and for a while they were evenly matched, but Usagi was able to gain the upper hand by using both his swords and disarmed the Lone Goat. With help from Gorogoro and the weapons hidden in the carriage, Yagi was able to injure Usagi and sent him rolling down towards the cliffside. Unknown to either of the ronin, Lord Wakame was watching from afar with his fellow conspirators and forty men. He was hoping that Usagi would finally kill the Lone Goat, but once he saw the rabbit's apparent death and seeing little choice, he sprung his ambush and sent his samurai to finish Yagi off.
While Yagi was busy fighting his samurai, Wakame killed his fellow conspirators to tie up loose ends as well as have sole influence over their lord, with intention of framing Yagi for their deaths as well. However, just like before, Wakame's plot did not go according to plan with Yagi slaying all of his attackers. He then turned his attention to the corrupt official who tarnished his honor. Upon seeing the Lone Goat kill forty seasoned warriors, Wakame was gripped with fear, and tried taking Gorogoro hostage while in his carriage and threatened to push him off the cliff. Yagi told the councilor that his threats were empty; Gorogoro was the son of a samurai, and therefore prepared for death, but if Wakame let his son go, Yagi would spare his life. Wakame didn't believe Yagi and maintained his threat to kill his son. Gorogoro then pressed a button on his carriage that released a blade straight into Wakame's heart. As he slumped over dead, Wakame's body sent Gorogoro's carriage hurdling down the cliff. Yagi desperately chased after his son, and watched as the carriage fell of the cliff, but discovered that Gorogoro was saved by Usagi.
Upon realizing that they were pawns in his old enemy's scheme, the Lone Goat and Kid apologized to Usagi. And as a professional assassin who had failed to carry out his contract, Yagi returned the gold he had been paid to kill Usagi by dumping it on Wakame's corpse. The assassin and the ronin then continued on their respective journeys.
The second time Yagi appeared was when he was hired by a group of merchants to kill a pair of money lending brothers, Hondo and Hoshi, who had been gouging them with heavy interest on their loans and bullying them with hired muscle. By the time Usagi appeared, Yagi has already dispatched one of the brothers and was fighting off his men. In the ensuing fight, father and son became separated. Usagi happened upon Gorogoro as he was being threatened by one of Hoshi's men. Despite being armed with only a stick, Gorogoro firmly held his ground and struck his attacker right on the head. Before the angered thug could do anything, Usagi showed up and easily fended him off. Usagi offered to help Gorogoro but the kid didn't trust anyone, not even the ronin who saved his life before, so he followed Usagi back to town but kept his distance and his stick at the ready. Eventually, the pair made it to an inn, and Usagi treated Gorogoro to a meal, finally getting the kid to lower his guard. The thug from earlier reported back to Hoshi and was sent after Usagi and Gorogoro with half of the gang, cornering them on a bridge. Usagi picked up Gorogoro and fought off the gangsters, when Yagi suddenly came up from behind. Hoshi's men were no match for Usagi and Yagi. Realizing they were no match for the assassin and ronin, the surviving gangster fled back to their boss, not knowing that Yagi had already killed him. Usagi then returned Gorogoro to his father; Yagi assured Usagi that his memory was long, and he would not forget that he owes Usagi for saving his son's life twice. As they went their separate way again, Gorogoro waved goodbye to Usagi, showing that he now trusted him.
The third time their paths cross, Yagi was ambushed in the woods by a gang of brigands after the reward on his head. Although many of them were they slain, an archer still managed to shoot Yagi in the back before he was killed. Unable to do anything about the arrow, Yagi resumed pushing the cart to get his son to safety until he came to an abandoned hut near a river. He went inside and finally collapsed. Gorogoro tried to help his father but didn't know what to do. He went outside to fetch some water, and found a young boy washed up on the rocks, Jotaro. Jotaro had been traveling with Usagi, and the two of them had become separated, with Jotaro being washed down river.
Gorogoro helped Jotaro up and brought him to the hut where his father was. Jotaro also tried to help Yagi, but he was unable to do much for him. He tried to insist that they get a doctor, but Gorogoro was against the idea. Later, a pair of peasants tried to force their way into the hut to sleep for the night, but they were chased off by Gorogoro swinging his father's sword. The peasants recognized Gorgoro, and decided to report their location to a local gangster named boss Sanpei for a reward.
The next day, Yagi's condition had gotten worse with a fever, and Jotaro again insisted that they must get a doctor or Yagi would die; Gorogoro finally conceded. However, before they could even leave for help, the hut was besieged by boss Sanpei, who wanted the reward on the Lone Goat and Kid. As Jotaro and Gorogoro prepared to fight for their lives, Usagi showed up from behind and attacked the thugs. Once the gangsters realized they were outmatched, they fled and Usagi reunited with Jotaro. Gorogoro urged Usagi inside to help his father, and he was able to apply battlefield medicine to remove the arrow from Yagi's back.
Meanwhile, Sanpei sent one of his men to sneak a peek about what was happening inside the hut. That's when they realized that the Lone Goat was injured, but none of them were a match for the long-eared ronin. So Sanpei sent word back to big boss Mitsuhana, and asked for his elite guards, called the Seven Blades, to help kill the two warriors. Sanpei then went back to his base to wait for the arrival of the Seven Blades and left one of his men behind to watch the hut.
Two days went by, and Yagi slowly regained his strength while Gorogoro and Jotaro trained together. The two fathers were aware that Sanpei had left a spy behind, and knew that the gangsters were up to something. So, under the cover of darkness, Usagi slipped out and captured the gangster who was spying on them and learned what Sanpei was planning. When the Seven Blades arrived the next morning thinking they were in for a fight, but all they found was an empty hut, and came to the conclusion that Boss Sanpei had set them up in an ambush in order to kill their boss. They then turned on Boss Sanpei and killed him along with his entire gang. In the meantime, Usagi, Jotaro, Yagi and Gorogoro were now long gone. The pair of fathers and sons said their farewells and then went their separate ways, with Gorogoro speaking for the first time saying "G'bye".
Fighting Style[]
As a former high-ranking samurai, Yagi is an extremely skilled and dangerous swordsman. So dangerous, in fact, that he's capable of killing forty men on his own. Like his Lone Wolf inspiration, Yagi's sword isn't his only weapon. The carriage he pushes Gorogoro around in has many hidden weapons that he uses to attack his targets or catch them off guard. These weapons include spears, weighted chains and throwing blades, and Yagi is just as skilled with any of these weapons as he is with his sword. With the number of weapons hidden in the baby cart, and because of Gorogoro's own confidence in combat, Yagi has little to no fear for his son's life while in battle.
Stories where he has appeared[]
- Way of the Samurai (mentioned)
- Lone Goat and Kid
- Return of the Lone Goat and Kid
- Fathers and Sons