skygiants: Fakir and Duck, from Princess Tutu, with a big question mark over Duck's head (communication difficulty)
[personal profile] skygiants
A few months ago, I read Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword. Well! I said. That was a fascinating experience! I don't think I'm going to continue it! But it sure was fascinating!

However, then [personal profile] osprey_archer came along with a devil's bargain, and so, here we are, back again, with Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions.

Returning readers may recall that in book one, Peasprout Chen attended ICE SKATING MARTIAL ARTS SCHOOL in FANTASY TAIWAN with her BABY BROTHER, a PAIR OF HOT MYSTERIOUS TWINS, and A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO HATED HER. In book two, all these people are still at martial arts school, but we have added a New Girl into the mix: Yinmei, the GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER of the DOWAGER EMPRESS of FANTASY CHINA.

Yinmei has a voice as sweet and bright as a brook! She has a face like a mirror burning with light! She keeps giving Peasprout one-sided smiles and telling her things like 'you are the lock and I am the key!' Peasprout obviously takes all of this as a sign that Yinmei is interested in stealing the heart of the Hot Mysterious Boy Twin.

Yinmei also can't take more than five steps in one day or her heart will explode, because of a punitive dose of magical puberty blockers. This apparently was NOT just a throwaway line in the last book. Cricket might also be dying from magical puberty blocker side effects; unclear.

Anyway! ICE SKATING MARTIAL ARTS SCHOOL is being MENACED by FAKE CHINA, so the entire curriculum has become All Child Soldier Training All The Time and instead of last year's elaborate solo challenges everyone has to form up into BATTLEBANDS and compete in BIG BAND BATTLES. Fake China has also announced that they will STOP menacing Ice Skating Martial Arts School if Ice Skating Martial Arts School RELINQUISHES PEASPROUT CHEN, but Peasprout has bargained herself ongoing sanctuary if her battleband comes in first in EVERY big band battle competition. Peasprout's battleband, of course, includes her BABY BROTHER, the HOT MYSTERIOUS TWINS, and, intermittently, Yinmei -- intermittently because Peasprout changes her mind about once a chapter about whether Yinmei is a VALUABLE AND VALIANT ALLY or a SINISTER SPY.

[Other battlebands include the Battle-Kite Sparkle-Pilots, who all bleach their bangs and look like kpop idols; Radiant Thousand-Story Very Tall Goddess, who climb into a sort of giant mecha pyramid of ice skating martial artists; and the Pink Army, who cut their hair into bowlcuts and declare themselves an arm of the police in a bewildering plot beat that turns out to be completely irrelevant. I was charmed by Radiant Thousand-Story Very Tall Goddess though.]

So all that is one big problem. Another problem is the school is apparently being menaced by water dragons and any students who accidentally see them will immediately be turned into pillars of salt.


In a twist that is shocking only to Peasprout, it turns out that Yinmei is NOT straight and interested in the Hot Boy Twin! Instead, she and the Hot GIRL Twin start dating!!

(The Hot Girl Twin, you may remember, spent the entirety of the last book pretending to be the Hot Boy Twin and fell passionately in love with Peasprout, but Peasprout spurned her and is now pinning all her hopes on the REAL Hot Boy Twin, whom she did not in fact actually meet until the last page of Book 1/first page of Book 2.)

HOWEVER! when Yinmei takes more than five steps in a single day and collapses, the Hot Girl Twin tries to save her with combo Chi entanglement but they AREN'T close enough ... but PEASPROUT can entangle her Chi with Yinmei's successfully to heal her!

In a second dramatic reveal, it turns out that Yinmei ... IS in fact a traitorous spy who wants to return to Fantasy China with all of Fantasy Taiwan's secrets! Peasprout figures it out just in time to stop her, but only by dooming her to death! The Hot Girl Twin begs her not to do it, because she loves Yinmei! and then Peasprout and the Hot Girl Twin have a TRAGIC ICE SKATING BATTLE about it!! Lesbian drama INTENSIFIES!!

(Where is the Hot Boy Twin on whom Peasprout is ostensibly crushing in all of this? somewhere else. irrelevant.)

in the end, Peasprout accedes and does NOT kill Yinmei, but they ARE able to capture her, but NOT before she reveals a terrible secret. Then Yinmei reveals her own dark secret: she is the Empress Dowager! one of a long line of Empress Dowagers all pretending to be the original Empress Dowager in hopes of reforming Fantasy China's INCREDIBLE SEXISM and FREEING WOMEN FROM FOOT BINDING, which they can only do by bringing the government the secrets of Fantasy Taiwan!

Oh, and the water dragons are not real dragons but are instead an elaborate conspiracy by the teachers to keep the students away from their SECRET TORNADO FACTORY out in the depths of the MAGNETIZED SEAWATER, which the students can control with SOME KIND OF SPECIAL DRUM. Lien does explain all of this in some level of detail but do not ask me to replicate it because I absolutely can't and anyway it does not matter, what matters is that Yinmei offers to make PEASPROUT the next Empress Dowager if she will give up on her loyalty to Fantasy Taiwan and Ice Skating Martial Arts School in order to save the women of Fantasy China.

While I appreciate the non black-and-white nature of the choice here I have to confess that I think making Peasprout Chen the Empress of anything is the worst idea that I have ever heard.

It is likely we will never know how Peasprout responds to this offer, as the book ends on this very cliffhanger and book 3 appears to be in eternal limbo. We also may never know how all the lesbian drama resolves. Many questions with Peasprout Chen, but I'll say this for these books: as much as they make my eyebrows leap up into my hairline, they are NEVER boring.
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skygiants: Princess Tutu, facing darkness with a green light in the distance (Default)
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