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Jul. 21st, 2009 07:57 amSo 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. ( Cut for lengthy babble about Yoko's flaws and character development and IN SHORT I LOVE HER AND IDENTIFY WITH HER LIKE CRAZY OKAY. )
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. ( Cut for lengthy babble about Yoko's flaws and character development and IN SHORT I LOVE HER AND IDENTIFY WITH HER LIKE CRAZY OKAY. )
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!
