Yaiba Volume 1

Chronology
N/A	List of Chapters	Yaiba Volume 2 ›

Volume 1
Information
Release date:	April 18, 1989 July 15, 2004 (reissue)
ISBN:	ISBN 4-09-122271-4
Publisher:	Shogakukan

Yaiba Volume 1 was released on April 18, 1989 in Japan.

Chapters

Yaiba Appears

Characters introduced

Yaiba Kurogane
	Samurai

Kenjuro Kurogane
	Yaiba's father Samurai

Kagetora
	Tiger

Shonosuke
	Yaiba's pet vulture

Sayaka Mine
	Junior high school student Mine household daughter

Raizo Mine
	Mine household head

Chapter 1

Yaiba Kurogane is a young boy living in an unnamed jungle, together with his father Kenjuro, who instructs him about things like survival training and martial arts - especially Kendo. One day they kill and eat a Gorilla, with a tiger trying to steal a bit of the grilled goods, but the Gorilla's next of kin try to retaliate - so Yaiba, his father and the tiger have to flee. They hide in a wooden box, which unfortunately gets closed that very moment and loaded onto a plane to be sent to Narita Airport near Tokyo.

After their arrival, Kenjuro meets an old rival of his, Raizo Mine, and his daughter, Sayaka - who completely fascinates Yaiba, never having seen a girl before. But they are still on the run: Kenjuro grabs Raizo, Sayaka, his son and the tiger to flee again - this time from the airport police - and dumps this group in a taxi, asking the driver to bring them to the Mine residence...

You'll Be Taking Care of Me

Characters introduced

Sayaka's Grandmother
	Raizo's mother

Mutou
	Student at the Mine dojo

Chapter 2

After succesfully escaping the airport police by pineapple means, Kenjuro Kurogane unsolicitedly moves his son into the Mine residence, against the wishes of its owners, Raizo and his daughter, Sayaka Mine. Yaiba takes a stroll through the house and encounters Grandma Mine, who he thinks is an underfed baboon. Fed up with him, she takes him into the Dojo of the house and, after learning about him being Kenjuro's son, offers a challenge: If Yaiba can beat Mutou, the strongest fighter in the Mine Dojo, Yaiba can stay in their house. And at first, her expectation of him losing this battle seems to come true...

What's "School"?

Characters introduced

Shizuka Mine
	Raizo's wife Sayaka's mother

Keiko Momoi
	Junior high school student

Sudou
	Junior high school teacher 5th Dan in Kendo

Chapter 3

A brand new day at the Mine residence and Kenjuro Kurogane is already leaving again, making Raizo and Sayaka Mine celebrate that the two troublemakers are gone. But just like he announced the day before, he left his son with the Mine family. Yaiba Kurogane follows Sayaka to school, wanting to know what it is. While her classmates are fascinated by the spikey-haired young boy, flooding him with questions, he quickly finds himself in his second battle since his arrival in Japan - against the choleric teacher Mr. Sudou, a 7th Dan in Kendo...

Lots of Samurai

Characters introduced

Principal
	Junior high school principal

Kumazawa
	Kendo club captain

Takeshi Onimaru
	Junior high school student Kendo club member Yaiba's rival

Chapter 4

After losing against Yaiba Kurogane, Mr. Sudou wants him off the school as soon as possible. Following his traces into the School Dojo together with the Principal and Grandma Mine, Sudou offers a second challenge - that Yaiba has to beat Kumazawa, captain of the Kendo club, who's extremely skilled and was a finalist at the previous Fall Tournament...

No Need For Mercy

Chapter 5

Yaiba Kurogane is on the verge of losing his battle against Kumazawa, as Mr. Sudou hoped for. Kenjuro Kurogane appears during the fight and gives Yaiba the advice to use the "Dance of the Wild Animal", which he does, allowing him to win the challenge - and with the side effect that it drives Kumazawa crazy, trying to kill Yaiba. The latter gets saved just in time - by Takeshi Onimaru, of all people.

Stupid Onimaru

Chapter 6

Yaiba Kurogane wants to battle Takeshi Onimaru at all costs, but he denies, thinking of Yaiba as a weakling who would just taint his technique. Following this, Yaiba sets up several, partly lethal, traps around the school to convince Onimaru to fight against him, which he continues to vehemently deny, which causes him to get buried alive. Yaiba celebrates his "victory" that evening, howling at the moon, while Onimaru digs himself out of the pit, swearing revenge...

I'll Be Your Opponent

Characters introduced

Ayame Onimaru
	Takeshi's older sister

Takeshi's Grandfather
	Onimaru household head

Chapter 7

Takeshi Onimaru is still angry about what Yaiba Kurogane did to him at school and wants revenge. He goes to the Mine residence, while Yaiba is on his way to the Onimaru residence himself, so both miss each other. While Onimaru causes commotion at the Mine's mansion and has to leave empty-handed again, Yaiba eats through everything the Onimaru grandfather offers him, meets his pet vulture Shonosuke again who followed him back from his home jungle and returns to the Mine residence just as Takeshi arrives at his house, again missing each other. When Takeshi notices what Yaiba's vulture did to his doves and Yaiba sees what Takeshi did to his tiger, both angrily turn back again, this time meeting each other on a pedestrian bridge...

Great Clash

Chapter 8

Yaiba Kurogane finally gets the desired fight with an enraged Takeshi Onimaru, which seemingly leads them through half of Tokyo, creating lots of unnecessary property damage in the process. There's no real winner in the end...

Training!

Characters Introduced

Raijin
	God of Thunder

Fuujin
	God of Wind

Chapter 9

Takeshi Onimaru is still driven to take revenge on Yaiba Kurogane, both starting to train relentlessy to beat each other. In a burst of rage during his practice in the private Dojo, Takeshi destroys an old family armor and discovers a trap door right under it, leading to a hidden cellar even he himself didn't know about before. Down there he finds two large statues of the Japanese Kami Raijin (God of Thunder) and Fujin (God of Wind), with the latter one holding a shimmering sword in his hands Takeshi's grandfather presents to him as the family heirloom Fujin-ken, the Sword of the Wind God...

Trivia

• The background on the cover (and every following one) were drawn with actual children's crayons by Gosho Aoyama.
• The book spine shows a smiling Yaiba Kurogane.
• Ginzo Nakamori has this volume on his desk at Minato Police Station in Magic Kaito, Chapter 14 ("Star War", Magic Kaito Volume 3, Chapter 1).
• Conan Edogawa reads this volume (besides every other one he borrowed from Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya) in OVA 1: Conan vs. Kid vs. Yaiba - The Grand Battle for the Treasure Sword!!. It can be seen by his bedside at the end.
• This series was started directly after the three chapters of Detective George's Mini-Mini Big Strategy, which were in turn directly made after Chapter 12 of Magic Kaito (Volume 2, Chapter 6). Gosho Aoyama described this experience as pretty daunting and that he really had to rush the latter chapter to get it all done on time.

Locations

Settings introduced in this volume:

Bali

Mentioned on a banner of "Bali Tours" at Narita International Airport.

Japan

• Chiba Prefecture
  • Narita Airport
• Tokyo
  • Shinjuku Ward (Background and traffic sign)
    • Skyscrapers of Nishi-Shinjuku (Background)
  • Toshima Ward
    • Ikebukuro (Traffic sign)
  • Unknown ward
    • Yaoya Town and surrounding area
      • Middle School (Yaiba)
      • Mine residence
      • Onimaru residence

Unknown continent/country

• Yaiba's Jungle

Models

Narita Airport

The airport Yaiba, his father Kenjuro Kurogane and their pet tiger Kategora arrive at is the real Narita International Airport on the border between the towns of Narita and Shibayama in the Chiba Prefecture, which is part of the Greater Tokyo Area. It was the biggest and most important airport serving Tokyo back then, before it was replaced in this function by Haneda Airport. They would also have to arrive in what is Terminal 1 nowadays, since Terminal 2 and 3 opened in 1992 and 2015 respectively, long after the release of this chapter.

• 

  Narita Airport in real life.

• 

  Narita Airport in chapter 1.

Yaiba's jungle

The unnamed jungle Yaiba Kurogane and his father live in seems to be (intentionally) highly ambigious about what jungle or even on which continent it could remotely be. Besides the rather generous surroundings, animals like Gorillas (from Sub-Saharan Africa), Tigers (having their habitat in continental Asia) and Jaguars (who usually live in Central and South America) seem to have their habitat there.

Crossover

Magic Kaito

A younger Keiko Momoi in Yaiba

• Sayaka Mine's friend, the blonde girl with the twintails and the glasses is later on revealed to be Keiko Momoi during her second middle school year all along. In the final chapter, after a timeskip of three years, she, her friend and Sayaka go to Ekoda High School together and talk about the relationship of Kaito Kuroba and Aoko Nakamori.

Editions Gallery

• 

  Original

• 

  Re-release

• 

  Paperback release (contains chapters 1-23)

• 

  Wide release (contains chapters from Volumes 1-2)

Cover in other countries

Germany

Vietnam

See also

• Yaiba Manga Volume 1-10
• Yaiba