Production Takehiko Inoue started Vagabond having wondered what the character was like when he read Musashi. Having come off of drawing a sports manga, he wanted to create a series about more basic concepts, such as "life and death, the human condition, etc.". Rather than portray Musashi's later life in his "enlightened state", which has been written about often, the author chose to depict the lesser known "young man reaching that point of enlightenment when he comes from a place of being so like an animal". In 2009, he stated that he made his weekly deadline thanks to only having to draw the people, with his five assistants drawing the backgrounds. In April 2009, Inoue told Nishinippon Shimbun that he suspected Vagabond would be ending "within one or two years". Claiming that he did not know how it would end, but that it had entered its final stages. In January 2010, he confirmed it would be ending within the year. However, in September during a hiatus due to health concerns, Inoue announced that the ending had been delayed until 2011. Inoue posted an update on his website in December 2010, stating that Vagabond would not return until he regained "enthusiasm" for the series. After eighteen-months, Vagabond returned to Morning as a monthly series in March 2012. The manga went on what was supposed to be a four-month hiatus in February 2014, with the reason stated being for Inoue to work on research. However, it was not until January 2015 that the series resumed. The series is currently on an extended hiatus since May 21, 2015, being its 327th chapter, "The Man named Tadaoki", the latest chapter. Release Written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue, Vagabond is based on Eiji Yoshikawa's 1935 novel Musashi. It started serialization in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Morning on September 17, 1998. Inoue started the series Real in Weekly Young Jump in 1999, and serialized it alongside Vagabond. As of July 2014, the Vagabond chapters have been collected into 37 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. Viz Media began releasing Vagabond in English in North America in 2002. Their release retains the color pages from the series' magazine run, and the company has published 37 volumes as of April 21, 2015. Viz's release is distributed in Australasia by Madman Entertainment. In 2008, Viz began re-releasing the series in a format that collects three of the volumes into one. There