Vagabond Best Arcs – All Arcs Ranked From Worst To Best
Vagabond is a Japanese epic martial arts manga series following the journey of Mushashi as he sets on a path to become “Invincible Under The Heavens”. Vagabond is one of the greatest Manga series ever written by Takehiko Inoue. The art, plot, character writing, etc are some of the best the medium has provided ever.
There are 10 story arcs so far and the list ranks them from worst to best.
10. Hosokawa arc
Chapters: 323—present
The Hosokawa arc is the tenth of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events concerning Musashi Miyamoto’s arrival to the Hosokawa clan. It is currently the last story arc. Due to the hiatus, it is incomplete. Musashi, Lori, and Toyozaemon are on the way to Kokura. Musashi and Iori want to take detours to visit other places, but Toyozaemon hurries them to arrive quickly and without detours.
Some bandits attack Musashi but he makes quick work of them. Eventually, they arrive in Kyōto and meet Yūsai Hosokawa, grandfather of the current head Tadatoshi Hosokawa, Meanwhile, it is revealed that both Otsū and Jōtarō are living in the Yagyū estate. Otsū does some cooking and plays with the local kids, while Jōtarō, now 15, is a promising sword apprentice.
This arc isn’t finished yet, so it is hard to rank it higher. So it will take the last spot for the moment.
9. Takezo arc
Chapters: 1—21
The Takezō arc is the first of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events corresponding to Takezō Shinmen. Takezō Shinmen and Matahachi Hon’iden’s perilous escape from the battlefield of Sekihagara, their hazardous housing with Okō and Akemi, and the events corresponding to Takezō’s unwanted return to the Miyamoto village.
During the fight with the bandits, Takezo was abandoned by his friend Matahachi who preferred a woman over his friend and escaped. After the fight, Takezo returns to the village to tell Matahachi’s mother that his son survived the war and is alive and living his life in another village, but her mother refuses to agree and tips Takezo’s location to local lord Aoki to capture him. Takezo fights them all and manages to escape the village but in the end, he was caught by a monk named Takuan.
8. First Yoshioka arc
Chapters: 22—35
The First Yoshioka arc is the second of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events
corresponding to Musashi Miyamoto’s arrival to Kyōto when he is 21 years old. The story timeskips to when Musashi Miyamoto is 21 and arrives in the capital, Kyōto. Musashi, in his quest to become Invincible Under The Heavens, intends to challenge the famed Yoshioka swords. But on the way there, his arrogant attitude provokes a young man in the street to draw his sword and put it at his neck before he can even react.
At the Yoshioka school he asks about the master of the school as he wants to challenge him but they say had to fight low ranked warriors first he kills 5 of them, Then the two Yoshioka brothers appear – Denshichirō, the rank 2; and Seijūrō, the Yoshioka head, who Musashi recognizes as the young man he met in the street earlier that day. Seijūrō leaves a scar on Musashi’s forehead to scare him off, then leaves. But Musashi stays nonetheless, and Denshichirō decides to fight him. Though Musashi has much less skill than Denshichirō, they fight to a standstill. Denshichirō has his left shoulder dislocated, while Musashi loses a lot of blood from the wounds in his forehead and torso. In the meanwhile, Matahachi accidentally sets the whole school on fire so the fight was stopped.
7. Yagyu arc
Chapters: 79 — 106
The Yagyu arc is the fourth of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events corresponding to Musashi Miyamoto’s challenge against the Yagyu. Musashi enters the Yagyu swords, Musashi finally crafts a scheme: he sends Jotaro with a cut stem and a letter, in which he requests to see who made a cut so splendid.
The 4 Yagyu senior disciples realize that the cuts in the stem, one by Musashi and another by Sekishusai, are identical, and grant Musashi a meeting with them. He then had a fight against the 4 seniors and finds his way to Sekishusai’s cottage, he then tried to kill sleeping Yagyu but he was unable to kill the old man as he was immobilized by Sekishusai’s enormous ki, which reflects Musashi’s own fears.
This wasn’t the bad arc by any means but the other arcs are just exceptionally great.
6. Baiken arc
Chapters: 106—127
The Baiken arc is the fifth of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events surrounding Musashi Miyamoto’s fight against Baiken Shishido. Musashi heads to Ise. On the way there, he continues training and challenging fighters. He gets wounded in his left foot when he steps on a nail. Nevertheless, he climbs a mountain while wounded, and recovers. In this arc, Musashi is looking for Baiken Shishido, to challenge him but when they meet they realised that they know each other as Baiken was the same bandit who saved his life 4 years ago. Baiken accepts Musashi’s challenge and was defeated by him.
5. Post-Yoshioka arc
Chapters: 243—301
The Post-Yoshioka arc is the eighth of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events concerning the aftermath of the large conflicts between Musashi and the Yoshioka clan. In the arc’s prologue, a flashback is shown expanding on the backstories of Kojirō Sasaki and Kōhei Tsujikaze. Musashi regains consciousness in the Konpuku temple. He is surrounded by Otsū, Jōtarō, and Takuan. Musashi’s cut in his right leg is found to be so serious that he won’t be able to battle, and maybe even walk, ever again. A squad of officers come to Konpuku and arrest Musashi for killing 70 men in his battle.
Musashi is imprisoned in the Nijō Castle. In jail Takuan talks to Musashi to make him reconsider his path in life, stating that now he has finally become Invincible Under The Heavens, and so he could abandon the fights. Basically, this arc was to set the pathway for future arcs and focused on the character development of Musashi than fights.
4. Hōzōin arc
Chapters: 36—78
The Hōzōin arc is the third of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events corresponding to Musashi Miyamoto’s challenges against the Hōzōin. In this Arc Musashi travel with his student toward the Hozoin temple as he wants to challenge the first master.
He found an old man there who was actually the first master of Hozoin Musashi is defeated quite easily by the second master, and in the end, heavily wounded Musashi ran away to save his life, after that, he start training under the first master and later on defeat Inshun Hōzōin. At the end of the arc, we get to know the back story of Hozoin.
3. The Farming Arc
Chapters: 302-322
The Farming arc is the ninth of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events concerning Musashi Miyamoto’s farming in a poor village. It is, to this day, the last story arc completely collected in volume format. Musashi found a young boy Lori, who was about to chop down the corpse of his dead father. He stops him and delivers a proper burial.
They began to live together Musashi. In this arc Musashi tries to improve Lori’s living standard and offer his help, he faces multiple problems such as flood, Locust swarm and uncovers the reason why the village’s land is not producing crops. Ultimately they were able to make a floodable rice paddy field.
The secondary characters, Musashi’s character growth, the agony of famine, Sakusho’s transformation from selfish to selfless, and the friendship between Iori and Musashi – all these things make the Farming arc one of the best in the series.
2. Kojiro arc
Chapters: 128–179
The Kojiro arc is the sixth of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events corresponding to Kojiro Sasaki’s early years. After a reversal to 17 years before the story’s start, Kojiro Sasaki’s difficult upbringing with Jisai Kanemaki adopting him, various displays of character backstories.
This arc has multiple time skips such as a Time skip to when Kojiro is 9 and the village’s crisis with their protector Yugetsusai Fudo, Jisai defeats Fudo, a timeskip to when Kojiro is 17, and Ittosai returns dragging Kojiro to a night fight, its aftermath, the travels of Kojiro, Ittosai, and Gonnosuke with a brief encounter with Takezo at the battlefield of Sekihagara, this arc also has some great fights, the fights against the peasant groups, Kojiro’s fight against Sadakore’s squad are prominent one.
I really liked the whole upbringing of Kojiro shown in the arc. Jisai – Kojiro’s story is one of the best in the series.
1. Second Yoshioka arc
Chapters: 180—242
The Second Yoshioka arc is the seventh of the story arcs in Vagabond, and it shows the events corresponding to Musashi Miyamoto’s large conflicts against the Yoshioka School when he is 22 years old and returns to Kyōto.
Denshichirō Yoshioka formally challenges Musashi for a rematch, and Musashi accepts. Seijūrō Yoshioka knows his brother Denshichirō doesn’t stand a chance against Musashi, so he sets to secretly assassinate Musashi before the duel. He attacks him at night but Musashi manages to defeat him later on in the arc. Musashi defeats Denshichiro and 70 other members of Yoshioka school.
Second Yoshioka arc is truly one of the greatest Manga arcs of all time. The peaks it touched are only rivaled by very few other Manga arcs.
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