Category: Books

The Water Dragon’s Bride
by Rei Toma
published in English by Viz / Shojo Beat (complete – 44 chapters)
2017 – 2019

Unable to resist the gorgeous drawings of Toma’s most recent manga, The King’s Beast, I eagerly sought out her earlier work, The Water Dragon’s Bride. Here we can see Toma’s gorgeous men, with beautifully shapely eyes and long, flowing hair, represented with special elegance by the Water Dragon God.

Asahi is a little, contemporary, beloved girl, who is grabbed by the water in her parents’ garden pond (!!) and spirited away to another era. A boy of similar age named Subaru finds her in the forest near the lake (her pond’s ancient form) and takes her home to his village, where Asahi realizes something is… different. No, everything is different. No wires? No phones? No train station?

Subaru’s enthusiastic mother wants to take her to a special ritual, which, Asahi realizes too late, involves tying her to a rock and returning her to the lake.

Unlike the other girl-child sacrifices, Asahi is lucky: the Water Dragon God is… just bored enough to keep her alive (with tips from friends).

But she is still just a lost little girl, and her survival from this event would be suspicious to the superstitious villagers. Can she survive? Can she make it home to her own time and loving parents? Can Subaru hide her from his family? Importantly, can she hold the inhuman and generally indifferent Water Dragon God’s attention long enough to get his help?

This is a story of survival, friendship, politics, rivalries, ancient forest spirits, greed, war, community, superstition, spiritual darkness, hope, water-doors between worlds, years away from home (!), personal development, and Love with a capital L. I have a soft spot for stories about little girls falling into other worlds, which was my favorite genre as I was learning to write (though I included a frivolous number of talking animals in my stories, but still). Our favorite characters evolve, though the villages of humans… continue to disappoint in a way I find realistic. I got misty-eyed at the very end, which I didn’t expect.

Toma’s especially beautiful Water Dragon God and his special effects are lovingly drawn. I love this story (with serious stakes) and charming art, including the little round illustrations near the beginning of each chapter. I recommend it!

MAO
by Rumiko Takahashi
published in English by Viz (ongoing)
2021 – present

Rumiko Takahashi is a famous and prolific manga author, who I have been a fan of since our various California anime fans brought the animated comedy Ranma 1/2 to club meetings (back in the 80s/90s). I especially love her Mermaid Saga, which is dark and ambiguous. I’ve written previously about the anime based on Takahashi’s Inuyasha series, and have mentioned RIN-NE in passing; she structured these manga ingeniously to be easily serialized as anime.

Nanoka is a contemporary girl in Japan, being raised by her kindly grandfather and strange housekeeper after surviving a gruesome freak accident which killed her parents during her childhood. One day, near the scene of the accident, she takes a turn, travels back in time, and is almost immediately attacked… by monsters.

In this past, she meets the exorcist, monster-killer, and part time doctor to nice spirits, Mao. Distinctive-looking Mao, who bears a facial scar and fears he may be immortal, has been through some traumas he doesn’t recall clearly. A day of tragedy hundreds of years ago led to his friends trying to kill him, the destruction of a temple/school, and the death of the girl he loved – and he worries that he may have killed her himself.

Nanoka isn’t sure why she is in this past with Mao, but when trouble strikes and she picks up Mao’s cursed sword, she isn’t struck dead. What gives her this power to resist the curse, and what is her connection to Mao?

I’m 200 chapters in (!!!), and while Takahashi’s serialized-for-television structure persists, there is a sense of tangible progress on solving the mysteries that worry Mao. Yes, there are side quests, and a very large number of characters, but most connect to the mysteries Mao is attempting to solve. As a Takahashi fan, I’d say that MAO has more focused story-telling than Inuyasha (which had more side quests than goal resolution), and is more serious than RIN-NE (which is a school comedy about death and regrets – no, really). The tragedies that strike, and the cruelties that the characters experienced are serious, and they are marked by them – in many cases literally scarred, but also emotionally harmed. Answers to the mysteries that haunt them bring some relief.

This is an interesting story, and Takahashi keeps it progressing with more intensity than some of her other popular works. I am enjoying it.

Dawn of the Arcana
by Rei Toma
published in English by Viz / Shojo Beat (complete – 53 chapters)
2011-2014

I’m reading the still-being-released manga, The King’s Beast, which is so gorgeously drawn… and then realized that the author has older works that are complete for me to enjoy! This is one of them, and appears to be set in the same world as TKB.

Nakaba has had a rough life: she was orphaned young, kept isolated in a tower, has been avoided or abused by relatives, has an unacceptable haircolor, and ultimately is married off to a prince in an enemy kingdom for political reasons. Ignorant stereotypes about her kingdom are used to insult her. Aside from her loyal Ajin servant (a completely devoted man from an oppressed ethnic group identified by their animal-like ears), she has no one in the world who cares what happens to her.

And then, to top it all off, she starts to see the future.

Perhaps… she has more options than just running away after all. Perhaps she can turn her situation around… and change the world. If she doesn’t kill herself trying to look at the future!

The art style is much less elaborate than TKB, but familiar in a pleasant way. The heroine is optimistic and good-hearted, which gets her far. There are many characters, multiple countries, plots, family dramas, bitter rivalries, lost loves, and appropriately unexpected plot twists. I enjoyed it all.

Claymore
by Norihiro Yagi
published in English at Viz.com
2015 (originally published in Japanese 2001-2014)

I am excited that I finished reading all 155 chapters this month!

Terrifying monsters with superhuman strength roam the land, often stealing the appearance of specific people to hide in a community and (secretly) feast on their family and neighbors. The only defense: hiring a Claymore, a silver-haired, silver-eyed woman warrior who can detect and defeat such creatures. The Claymores themselves are spooky, can survive terrible physical harm, and don’t appear to need human companionship. They are held to a strict (but not visibly moral) code, and if they violate it, their peers track them down and brutally execute them.

This is the dark story of several of these warriors, who work at the behest of their governing body, The Organization. The Organization ranks them to engender competition, and won’t let them intervene in human affairs even when it would be ethical to do so. The Organization also appears to send small groups of them on suicide missions for unknown reasons. What is really going on? Why are there so many monsters? And why is the Organization so obsessive in controlling the Claymores?

This tense and very violent story (not for kids!) unfolds at different speeds, with increasing battles and characters, but also increasing mysteries about the motivations of the Organization and the increasingly coordinated (!!) monsters. The origin of the Claymores themselves and the apparent leaders of the monsters are slowly revealed, with some secrets kept until the very last chapters.

The monsters range from simple to extremely complex and fanciful designs. The Claymore warriors themselves look somewhat Eastern European to me, and the artist distinguishes the matching-armor-wearing women with distinct hairstyles. The reason they are all women is explained over the course of the story, and the limited female nudity is intended to make some of the creatures more terrifying – I think it works well.

Great story, old-school drawings, great monsters, great comrade-in-arms bonding, solid (grim) story. I enjoyed this story very much.