Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 1

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By Mizuho Kusanagi. Released in Japan as “Akatsuki no Yona” by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by JN Productions, Adapted by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane.

The cover to this first volume features our heroine, Yona, surrounded by swords, and on the back cover we see her confidently wielding one. But on the front she’s looking at them with a look of melancholy, and I feel that this fits the tone of the volume. For although this is the story of a princess who will take up the sword and become a warrior, we’re not there yet. Instead, what we get here is a sweet, sheltered young girl with a crush on her cousin and childhood friend and an antagonistic relationship with her bodyguard and other childhood friend. In other words, were it not for the fantasy castle setting, this could easily be any other shoujo high school romantic comedy. Then… things happen.

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The layout of this volume actually ends up being very odd. We start off with the love triangle setup, and then things rapidly turn serious and deadly with the murder of Yona’s father, the king. We’re told that, as a king, he wsa rather conciliatory, so it’s no great surprise that someone wishes to replace him, but it’s still a chapter of Yona avoiding also being put to death and running for her life. The second half of the book is a series of flashbacks, told as Yona and Hak (the aforementioned bodyguard) hide in the woods and deal with things like leeches and snakes, things that Yona is clearly totally unfamiliar with. The flashbacks show us more of the relationship between Yona, Hak and Su-won (said cousin she’s in love with, and again it’s really sweet and shoujo-ey, as she turns to Hak for advice on how to deal with suitors she doesn’t want, and how they all get colds as kids after a snowball fight and the King tries to make broth for them, which is ridiculously awful but makes her happy.

In other words, we are shown a tragedy, then we get to see why it was so tragic after the fact. Yona’s father does indeed seem to be a rather ineffectual king most of the time, though there’s a hint or two that this is all just a facade. There’s also some backstory that I’m sure will be developed more later, with Su-Won’s father having been killed before the book began, and various tribes (there are five, and one is the “wind tribe”, so I won’t be surprised if we see a water and fire tribe at some point down the road) all jostle for political influence. And then there’s Hak, who is apparently an incredibly strong warrior, but is also devoted to Yona, both because he was “tricked” into doing it by her father, and also because he clearly loves her, though he keeps that hidden for now.

Yona of the Dawn’s first volume is good setup, with an interesting story structure, and I look forward to seeing how its naive and sheltered heroine becomes the confident swordslinger on the back cover. Oh, and we also have a serious dark-haired good guy and a nice but secretly evil blond bad guy as rivals for Yona’s affection, for those of you who play shoujo manga bingo.

Kuroko’s Basketball, Vols. 1-2

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By Tadatoshi Fujimaki. Released in Japan as “Kuroko no Basket” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by Caleb Cook.

I’ll be honest with all of you. Of the ‘big four’ North American sports, I’ve always found basketball the least interesting. Sure, I’ll get excited by March Madness, but the pros do nothing for me, and watching the games on TV just makes me want to do something else. That said, I can’t deny that the sport has an allure that attracts a lot of people, particularly high school kids and promising young manga artists. And now that it appears Viz has vanquished the curse of sports manga in the States once and for all (with the possible exception of baseball – sorry, Adachi), we can see why this series was absolutely huge. The only reason it wasn’t licensed sooner, I expect, is that Viz was still releasing Slam Dunk, the ur-basketball manga, and didn’t want the two to compete.

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Kuroko is the blue-eyed stoic on the cover, and the title is pretty telling, as Kuroko’s style of basketball is very much not like the rest of the team, as it’s designed around his own lack of a personality. While this is, for the most part, a typical fiery sports manga, it has its fair share of humor, and a great deal of it revolves around Kuroko’s stoicness and ability to not be noticed even when he’s literally standing in front of someone. Most other basketball manga would star the redhead behind him – indeed, Slam Dunk did, as Kagami is very clearly modeled after that character. But it’s Kuroko that makes this interesting, as he uses his quasi-invisibility to the team’s advantage. He can’t make shots, of course, but it makes him a near-perfect passer. And with Kagami on the team, who is driven by the desire to compete against the strongest teams and win, they become well-nigh unstoppable.

Basketball does not appear to be all that big in Kuroko’s school itself. The manager, also pictured on the cover, is the coach as well, and they sometimes have trouble with school discipline. Riko, by the way, seems to be the sole female in the manga so far, and there’s no hint of romance. Because the other big reason that this manga is getting licensed is that, like many other recent Jump series, it has an absolutely huge BL fandom. There’s none of that in the actual manga itself, of course, but you do get an awful lot of handsome guys sweating and being athletic, and combined with the usual Jump goals of friendship, training and victory the combination can be irresistible. Heck, Kise, Kuroko’s old teammate from middle school introduced as the first semi-antagonist, seems to behave very much like the ex-boyfriend who wants to get back together really badly.

I haven’t talked much about the basketball itself, mostly because, as I said, it’s not my thing. But it’s the majority of the book, and it’s exciting, well-told and well-drawn – I was never confused or bored. Still, you read this for the characters, and I greatly look forward to more of Kuroko and his quiet, eccentric linefaced self.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Ambition

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By Yoshiki Tanaka. Released in Japan as “Ginga Eiyū Densetsu” by Tokuma Shoten. Released in North America by Haikasoru. Translated by Daniel Huddleston.

In the first volume, we saw the Galactic Empire and the Free republic spend most of the book at war with each other. This time around, they spend most of the book at war with themselves. Reinhard is not the best at making friends and influencing people, and so the aristocracy decide to take him out in a coup. Meanwhile, knowing that he needs the republic to be distracted while this is going on, Reinhard plants a traitor in order to start a coup on the republic side, which will keep Yang Wen-Li busy doing what he hates the most – fighting military battles. By the end of the book, both Yang and Reinhard have suffered grievous losses, though you could argue that Yang’s is merely sad, while Reinhard’s amounts to a grand tragedy of epic proportions.

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This series has a huge cast, to be frank, bordering on the ridiculous. I will not blame the reader from getting completely lost among the Empire’s admirals, not knowing their Wittenfelds from their Mecklingers. That said, I never felt lost, mostly because, with the exceptions of the obvious main characters, the book is more about the plot than the characters. And it still has its obvious agenda – war is a tragic, horrible thing that devastates everyone. As with the first book, neither side comes off very well. The Empire is filled with arrogant scheming aristocrats who regard ‘the people’ as their toys, and indeed most of the latter half of the book hinges on such a jaw-droppingly heinous incident that I am reluctant to spoil further. As for the Republic, we see the dangers of the military assuming that they know what’s best for the people – sure, there’s martial law and no freedom of speech now, but freedom will return. really. Any day now.

If LOGH has a huge cast, it also has a reputation for killing that cast off. The aforementioned heinous incident leads directly to the most astonishing one, but (again trying not to spoil) its main purpose is also to show us that Reinhard is still stunningly immature at times, and can react just the way the aristocrats that he’s trying to put down do. I think the nest volume will be very important in seeing whether he manages to mature as a leader, or if he’s going to be the villain of the series. (The author is being very even-handed about both sides being tremendously flawed, though I suspect most Western readers will automatically side with Yang Wen-Li.) Speaking of Yang, he’s forced to admit at the end of the book that the republic’s own leader is a dangerous tyrant – and Yang feels a great desire to do something about it, something that goes against his very nature.

Having introduced most of the backstory in book 1, the second book does not feel quite as much like a history lesson. The translation can still get pompous and didactic, but again, I’m fairly sure the original was exactly like that as well. And the space battles are described well enough that even those uninterested in such things will be drawn in. I suspect the third volume will be a giant signpost as to where the rest of the series is heading – I highly look forward to it.