The Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall (review)

Reviewed by: The Worst Ronin by Maggie Tokuda-Hall Meg Cornell Tokuda-hall, Maggie The Worst Ronin; illus. by Faith Schaffer. HarperAlley, 2024 336p Trade ed. ISBN 9780358464945 26. 99 Paper ed. ISBN 9780358464938 18. 99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780358467175 12. 99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 7-11 When fifteen-year-old Chihiro Ito's retired father is summoned by the daimyo to defeat a yamaba—a monster that is kidnapping young boys in a nearby village—she clamors to go in his stead, knowing this is her chance to prove her own samurai skills and convince the all-boys Keisi Academy to admit her. She must hire a chaperone, however, and she manages to badger legendary Lady Tetsuo Nakano—the only woman to have ever been admitted to Keisi Academy—to take the job. Meeting her idol in real life is complicated: Tetsuo is an acerbic, broke, drunken loner, carrying scars both literal and emotional from her time on the battlefield. Chihiro soon discovers a samurai's life is an onerous, bloody, and uncompensated one, in contrast to her dreams where the daimyo awards her medals and decrees that "the administrators of the Keisi Academy are total ding-dongs … and I'm firing them all! … Sexism is fixed forever!" While the duo triumphs over the yamauba, the political and patriarchal machinations within the "honorable" samurai system are made painfully clear when a military coup back home kills Chihiro's parents. Chihiro and Tetsuo's bond, as they share each other's griefs and glories, emerges stronger than katana steel, shining just as brightly for readers invested in this story of queer and gender-non-conforming intergenerational solidarity inside larger systems of oppression. Incorporating modern technology and an offbeat contemporary tone, the authors offer an innovative blend of a modern and feudal Japan that balances weightier matters of loss and honor. Schaffer creates a commendably comedic and diverse medievalism in her myriad of goofy expressions, skin tones, and action-oriented art that well-suits the feminist, punk-rock tone of Tokuda-Hall's writing. Fans of Fumi Yoshinaga's Ōoku: The Inner Chambers and N. D. Stevenson's Nimona (BCCB 7/15) will soon find themselves swearing fealty to this exciting new title. Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois