(no subject)
Jul. 21st, 2009 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo while I was reading Monster Blood Tattoo I was thinking that I was a little bit sick of teenaged protagonists and their fantasy coming-of-age tales . . . and then I read the first of Fuyumi Ono's Twelve Kingdoms books, Sea of Shadows, and I was like "I TAKE IT ALL BACK, COMING OF AGE IS AWESOME!" OR MAYBE it is just that this book is awesome.
Okay, so if I summarize Twelve Kingdoms it is going to sound a lot like a collection of tropes we all know very well: Yoko is an Ordinary High Schooler, quiet and shy, who doesn't quite feel like she fits in and is set apart by her super special red hair! AND THEN some crazy dude shows up, swears fealty to her as a destined chosen one, takes her to a magical land, hands her a magic sword, and tells her to fight monsters with it! Awesome wish-fulfillment, yes?
Well, no, actually, not at all. After Yoko is given the sword (and reacts with "No, no, WTF, you're insane, I want to go home, and more no!") she is almost immediately separated by a monster attack from the person who brought her, leaving her completely alone.
In a poverty-stricken country that has severe laws and prejudices against kaikyaku, people from the other world.
With monsters attacking her wherever she goes.
Basically, Fuyumi Ono apparently takes great glee in rounding up her super-magic-wish-fulfillment-fantasy tropes and then kicking them in the face. Let's make it clear from the start, Yoko is not noble or instantly likable or an independent thinker, or in any obvious way a heroine in the making. On the contrary, Yoko is passive and frightened of conflict and has spent her whole life trying very hard to please everybody and do nothing controversial, with the result that she's never successfully made a connection with anybody - the rest of her classmates rightly judge her as two-faced, because she'll say whatever she thinks the person she's talking to wants to hear. And while the situation she finds herself in does change her, this is not your standard Growth Through Adversity - on the contrary, although she gets pretty good at killing monsters in a badass fashion, the constant grind of hardship and betrayal nearly breaks her, turning her into a bitter and feral outcast who's in danger of losing her humanity altogether.
It's not easy to become a fantasy heroine. In fact, it's really hard. And that's a lot of the reason why I loved it so much - because the fact that it is so hard makes it all the more satisfying as Yoko does start to rebuild herself. I love her for a lot of the same reasons that I love Dave in the Fionavar books - she starts out with a full back catalog of issues, and they don't go away, but by the end, she's determined not just to survive, but to make her own choices and become the kind of person she wants to be. She even manages to grow a sense of humor! And - guys, you might want to take my review with a grain of salt here, because I am not capable of objectivity, I love Yoko like crazy. I did even from the beginning of the book - I've seen reviews saying it was hard for people get through the beginning before Yoko starts to go through some of her more significant character development because they were so frustrated with her, but I was identifying with her like a maniac. (Confessions time: I am always terrified that I am far more like Early Yoko than I want to be. That girl, that girl who doesn't want to actively pick on the social pariah so she can feel good about herself, but is too scared to be seen being nice to her either, so ends up hovering in a miserable middle ground? Oh, have I ever been that girl. I'm not proud of it, but I so have.)
Um, besides how much I love Yoko, there's other good stuff about the book too! The world is really unusual and interesting - based largely on Chinese mythology, I believe - and there's setup for cool political stuff and some really cool secondary characters who enter about two-thirds of the way into the book and I like the whole thing a lot, but basically for me it is all about Yoko. (Except not really, because I understand the next two Twelve Kingdom books that are published in English are not at all about Yoko, and I am still going to hunt them down and devour them ASAP. But I am most excited for the one that has Yoko again, which is coming out next year.)
I also desperately want to see the anime based on it, but I kind of want to wait until I've read the rest of the books. But they are only being published once a year and there are four to go, so that is like four years to wait! D: D: DILEMMA!
Okay, so if I summarize Twelve Kingdoms it is going to sound a lot like a collection of tropes we all know very well: Yoko is an Ordinary High Schooler, quiet and shy, who doesn't quite feel like she fits in and is set apart by her super special red hair! AND THEN some crazy dude shows up, swears fealty to her as a destined chosen one, takes her to a magical land, hands her a magic sword, and tells her to fight monsters with it! Awesome wish-fulfillment, yes?
Well, no, actually, not at all. After Yoko is given the sword (and reacts with "No, no, WTF, you're insane, I want to go home, and more no!") she is almost immediately separated by a monster attack from the person who brought her, leaving her completely alone.
In a poverty-stricken country that has severe laws and prejudices against kaikyaku, people from the other world.
With monsters attacking her wherever she goes.
Basically, Fuyumi Ono apparently takes great glee in rounding up her super-magic-wish-fulfillment-fantasy tropes and then kicking them in the face. Let's make it clear from the start, Yoko is not noble or instantly likable or an independent thinker, or in any obvious way a heroine in the making. On the contrary, Yoko is passive and frightened of conflict and has spent her whole life trying very hard to please everybody and do nothing controversial, with the result that she's never successfully made a connection with anybody - the rest of her classmates rightly judge her as two-faced, because she'll say whatever she thinks the person she's talking to wants to hear. And while the situation she finds herself in does change her, this is not your standard Growth Through Adversity - on the contrary, although she gets pretty good at killing monsters in a badass fashion, the constant grind of hardship and betrayal nearly breaks her, turning her into a bitter and feral outcast who's in danger of losing her humanity altogether.
It's not easy to become a fantasy heroine. In fact, it's really hard. And that's a lot of the reason why I loved it so much - because the fact that it is so hard makes it all the more satisfying as Yoko does start to rebuild herself. I love her for a lot of the same reasons that I love Dave in the Fionavar books - she starts out with a full back catalog of issues, and they don't go away, but by the end, she's determined not just to survive, but to make her own choices and become the kind of person she wants to be. She even manages to grow a sense of humor! And - guys, you might want to take my review with a grain of salt here, because I am not capable of objectivity, I love Yoko like crazy. I did even from the beginning of the book - I've seen reviews saying it was hard for people get through the beginning before Yoko starts to go through some of her more significant character development because they were so frustrated with her, but I was identifying with her like a maniac. (Confessions time: I am always terrified that I am far more like Early Yoko than I want to be. That girl, that girl who doesn't want to actively pick on the social pariah so she can feel good about herself, but is too scared to be seen being nice to her either, so ends up hovering in a miserable middle ground? Oh, have I ever been that girl. I'm not proud of it, but I so have.)
Um, besides how much I love Yoko, there's other good stuff about the book too! The world is really unusual and interesting - based largely on Chinese mythology, I believe - and there's setup for cool political stuff and some really cool secondary characters who enter about two-thirds of the way into the book and I like the whole thing a lot, but basically for me it is all about Yoko. (Except not really, because I understand the next two Twelve Kingdom books that are published in English are not at all about Yoko, and I am still going to hunt them down and devour them ASAP. But I am most excited for the one that has Yoko again, which is coming out next year.)
I also desperately want to see the anime based on it, but I kind of want to wait until I've read the rest of the books. But they are only being published once a year and there are four to go, so that is like four years to wait! D: D: DILEMMA!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 04:32 pm (UTC)Which is not to say that it's necessarily worth sticking through multiple episodes of an anime that irritates you until development happens - but I would recommend trying the book. :D
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 06:07 pm (UTC)I watched this anime, and it was awesome.
It's true, the first few episodes are like "wtf this bitch is annoying" and you want to stop watching because Yoko is so damn WHINY and such a crybaby but the REST of the stuff that's going on is totally badass and you're like ":O WHUTS GONNA HAPPEN" and then Yoko starts her gradual process towards awesome. (Yeaaaaah nothing against you, I just couldn't identify and found her hard to watch, because I don't deal with her character very well)
And everything else? Is completely awesome up the wazoo.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 06:14 pm (UTC)(Heh - trust me, no offense taken! Believe me, I understand very well that Yoko probably comes across as incredibly annoying at first to most people - although I suspect that she's also easier to identify with from within her head than when you're watching her from the outside, if that makes sense. And then CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. *_*)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 09:33 pm (UTC)Also nifty is the way it kind of plays on your assumptions of how the world works, only to have them turn out to be wrong at weird moments - especially because all that was explained about halfway through the book, so both you and Yoko are pretty much on the same page about things ("people do not come from trees") and then suddenly things get flipped over ("never mind, they do").
I thought Yoko was pretty awesome character, too, but I really tend to like characters like her. I am not totally sure what I mean by "characters like her," but I like them.
I think that after the fourth book, the rest of them will not be covered by the anime. . .so really you only need to wait until the fourth book comes out this year (I think it's this year), and then you won't be spoiled on anything for the books, at least. I liked the books so much it. . .sort of killed my desire to see the anime, weirdly. ^^;
My only complaint was that the ending was really sudden - I actually thought I had skipped a few pages at first. ^^; Well, that and that I missed my chance to get book three while I could, and now it is severely out of print until the paperback comes out.
. . . .and now I want to re-read it.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 09:47 pm (UTC)(Hah yeah! I loved that, and I love how every time Yoko thinks she has the world figured out she finds out something new.)
I do too! Well, I'll have a stab at defining at least part of it - I have a total weakness for stories about girls who learn there's a kind of strength in getting angry and asserting yourself, and that it's okay not to make everyone happy all the time. And I love so many things about her - how even at the beginning when she's all passive she refuses to kill people and closes her eyes so Joyu can't, and that she wants to go home and do it right even after she gets all those awful visions of nobody missing her, and. I just love her so much! I feel like I could babble about her for a long time.
It's next March that the fourth book comes out, I think? I am way excited! Possibly too excited considering I haven't even read the second and third yet. BUT. More Yoko! \o/
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 09:48 pm (UTC)I find this entry very interesting, as I do all of your YA literature posts (and all your posts period, actually-- you have a very comforting LJ presence!), BUT.
What are your thoughts on
yaoithe "problem novel (http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/winter04-05/problemnovel.htm)"? I read this and thought of you right away because of your writings on the subject.I have some opinions on this piece, but they're not all that organized and I'm sort of afraid they're a bit hypocritical. Thoughts, thoughts!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 10:01 pm (UTC)My thoughts are all confused too, which is wy I haven't commented on it! I mean, I personally was never a big fan of the 'problem novel' growing up, in the way where I kind of fled into the fantasy section and did not come out for many years . . . but on the other hand I feel like it is doing a disservice to kids to say they can't handle Srs Bsns Issues, you know? I mean, if you want to talk about rape and incest and abandonment issues, I read Mists of Avalon in fifth grade. Hah.
I don't know. I guess when it comes down to it I think balance is the key. I mean, obviously no one can say, "Writers, don't write Problem Novels!" because they really are meaningful to a lot of the people who read them, a lot of them are legitimately very good books that I would be very sorry to have vanish into the ether. (And the ones that aren't people eat up like candy anyways! Everyone I knew read Face on the Milk Carton.) I think where the frustration comes from is the fact that schools only seem to assign Deep Dark and Depressing books, and I do get that frustration; the dead dog jokes kind of make themselves. I definitely think it would be a good thing to mix up the reading lists a little - keep a couple of the Problem Novels, but also throw in some Daniel Pinkwater and Judy Blume and Tamora Pierce and Diana Wynne Jones (who totally has her fair share of Dark Problem Issues in her books as well, even if they're covered over with a candy coating of wizardry and wackiness, and I don't think reading them scarred me . . . anyway, tangent) so that kids can really get a sense of the richness of Literary Options that are out there. But, I mean, as far as Finding Literary Merit In Things goes, I am way out on the radical lefty scale that firmly believes there is literary merit in any and everything. I'd happily give the kids Babysitter's Club books and discuss that - why not? There's interesting cultural stuff going on there. So, uh, the world at large may not abide by my opinion.
. . . and now I just word-vomited all over you and you are probably sorry you asked. :D But your thoughts, I want to know yours!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 02:52 am (UTC)... Except.
I do believe that there are genuinely bad, evil, and harmful books. I have, for instance, no desire to read Mein Kampf, and I respect the philosophy behind the books/words-have-power idea. I do really think that some books are just bad, and bad for you.
The author seems to be drawing those kinds of lines, the kinds I would. But she draws them in places I definitely wouldn't! Despite her (apparently) best intentions, she comes across to me as having a very roseate view of the past and an overly cautious approach to how to decide what's good for children. But I can't come up with any particularly compelling or concrete reasons to explain why my lines should be accepted over hers.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 03:22 am (UTC)Half of me wants to agree with you, and say, there are books that provide bad and ugly ideas, that no one should read and that have no redeeming value whatsoever. On the other hand . . . I have a very hard time with wanting to erase any book out of existence. Maybe I've had 'censorship is bad!' hammered into my head too often, but I kind of believe that even from Mein Kampf there might be something to be learned or understood as long as you're not reading it blind. Even if you're reading it for the purposes of more thoroughly tearing it and everything it stands for to shreds - that's still something useful in it, you know?
Which is not to say I'd give Mein Kampf to kids, ever, because oh HELL no. I guess the thing is, while I believe there's value in all books, there are some I would never offer to anyone who hadn't reached a certain level of . . . general literary skepticism, maybe? The skill of thinking critically about what you read (and what you see and hear, too) instead of intaking blindly - I sort of think that's one of the most important things that English classes teach, or should be teaching. It's the blind-intake thing that's worrying, I guess, and the younger a kid is, the less likely they are to have developed the skills that will allow them not to internalize harmful books.
And personally, I think harmful attitudes - like racism, like sexism, and so on - are a lot more dangerous long-term when internalized than almost anything else I can think of. So . . . I think I can see the origins of your lines. If any of this makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 03:32 am (UTC)All of which is basically shorthand for agreeing with everything you just said.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 01:12 am (UTC)I do want the books so I know what happens next. I really, really do. *bounce*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 03:03 am (UTC)Okay, so I am really curious - what function do the other kids from Yoko's world serve in the anime storyline? Because as far as I know they do not exist in the book; Yoko comes through alone and stays essentially alone until she meets Rakushun.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 04:31 pm (UTC)And since I am running late now, I rip wholesale from Wiki re: Asano: "[He] is another one of Youko’s classmates and has known Youko since childhood. He is transported to the kingdom of Kou with Youko and Sugimoto, but goes missing after a battle between Yuka and Youko and is not seen by either of them for some time. Asano eventually becomes part of a group of Shusei and works for them as they traveled through the kingdoms. However, being in a completely alien country and lacking the ability to speak or understand the language, the strain has taken a toll on his sanity. Eventually, Asano questions the reason he was ever brought to Kou and seemingly can't find a reason for his life to go on. He dies at some point later in the anime. In the novels, Asano does not exist and Youko attends an all girls school."
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 04:52 pm (UTC)And, hm. I am not sure how I feel about the descriptions of those storylines (although my kneejerk response to 'Yoko's rival who is jealous of her!' is 'DO NOT WANT.')
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 06:30 pm (UTC)This is true... but my kneejerk response to 'girl who reads fantasy novels and is hopping mad that somebody reluctant got chosen to be another world's chosen one when she was TOTALLY READY AND PREPARED FOR THAT PLOTLINE, GUYS' is 'AWESOME!'
Um, not that I have read the book or seen the anime, so here have a handful of saltshakers. But still! It would be a crime to make that character and her plotline an irritating one. :(
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:37 pm (UTC)One of the reasons I found the anime very disappointingly sexist compared to the book.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:40 pm (UTC)Mmph.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:58 pm (UTC)...Except the rare cases where an adaptation adds interesting themes. But at the moment I can only think of one of those.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 06:02 pm (UTC)I can think of a couple adaptations I've liked very very well; I suspect a couple of those have added interesting themes, though the ones I'm immediately thinking of, I'm not sure which came first. But it's true that the good ones are far outnumbered by the lousy ones. More's the pity.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 12:19 am (UTC)And I will just not type what I started to type as it could be a spoiler and I think I will just say that I know I love Rakushun. He is such a LOVE!
*ahem*
... so I'm totally picking up the books myself OMG soon so I can continue reading where the Anime left off. Yes.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 12:23 am (UTC)And RAKUSHUN YES. <3333 From what I've seen of him so far I kind of adore him.
Read the books! Sadly I don't think the ones that go beyond the anime will be out for another two years, but there is still lots of awesome in the meantime!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 05:14 am (UTC)I own the second book too, actually, and really need to read it because I know it'll be awesome. I'd like to reread Sea of Shadows first, though.
I watched the first...twelve or so episodes of the anime after reading the book, and the anime really pissed me off. It was so sexist compared to the book, and seemed to be significantly cutting down time for certain cool characters in favor the the stupid anime-only ones. The anime-only characters who were largely responsible for making it remarkably sexist in comparison. I say just stick to the books. (...Though I seem to recall liking the soundtrack, at least.)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 05:27 am (UTC)I am trying to restrain myself from running out and buying the second book away, with limited success.
I do want to see the anime just out of curiosity - and from comments above, it gets better after a bad start? Though 12 episodes might go a little beyond slow - and also because I am shallow and kind of want to see an animated Yoko in case there is the potential for making icons. But I also really do think I want to wait to read the book version first, because it seems clear that the book version is going to be totally awesome and worth waiting for. (Apparently in the fourth one Yoko teams up with new female characters for awesome politicking! SO EXCITED.)
I would have replied on time if our wireless didn't hate us >.<
Date: 2009-07-23 05:31 pm (UTC)I will have you know that it is your fault I am now rereading it, with the intent of reading the second one and buying the third.
My impression is that it's one of those adaptations where if you see it first it's pretty awesome, but it's really difficult if you've read the book already. My recall is admittedly quite hazy, but Yoko is much more of a wet noodle in the anime and doesn't improve as quickly- they give her somewhat more angry and determined side to the "bitch outsider" character. Also they have to add in her mooning over the stupid male classmate they brought in. I like my epic fantasy without high school romantic drama, kthx. Though I completely understand the desire for icons. Hmm, maybe I could scan in some of the illustrations and make icons from those... (DO WANT!)
Re: I would have replied on time if our wireless didn't hate us >.<
Date: 2009-07-23 05:44 pm (UTC)I will accept full responsibility for this. *serene*
Yeah, I can see that. And bah, mooning! Yoko has more important things to worry about than mooning. Like survival. >:O . . . if you did, that would be kind of relevant to my interests. I'm just saying.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:52 pm (UTC)It is a good thing you have done.
Survival, identity crisis, and more survival! So much more interesting! ...I believe I shall have to do that now.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 07:00 pm (UTC)I'm feeling a little bit smug, I'm not gonna lie.
And I know! I mean, I don't object to a little bit of romance, but . . . mooning is so often boring romance. D: Eeeeeeexcellent. *beams* I will look forward to it!