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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Yumi Tamura

Manga Giveaway: Yumi Tamura Giveaway Winner

September 2, 2015 by Ash Brown

Chicago, Volume 1: The Book of SelfChicago, Volume 2: The Book of JusticeAnd the winner of the Yumi Tamura Giveaway is… Olivia!

As the winner, Olivia will be receiving a complete set of Yumi Tamura’s shoujo action thriller Chicago as published by Viz Media back in the day. I came across Chicago because Tamura was also the creator of Basara, a series that I love. And so for this giveaway, I asked that participants tell me about the mangaka whose work they always make a point to read. Check out the giveaway comments for the detailed responses, and check out below for the list of mangaka mentioned in addition to a selection of their works that are available in English!

Aki
The Angel of Elhamburg
Olympos
Utahime: The Songstress

Moyoco Anno
In Clothes Called Fat
Sakuran: Blossoms Wild
Sugar Sugar Rune

CLAMP
Cardcaptor Sakura
X
xxxHolic

Usamaru Furuya
Genkaku Picasso
Lychee Light Club
No Longer Human

Kyoko Hikawa
From Far Away

Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima
Lone Wolf & Cub
Path of the Assassin
Samurai Executioner

Mitsukazu Mihara
Doll
The Embalmer
IC in a Sunflower

Setona Mizushiro
After School Nightmare
Black Rose Alice
X-Day

Jun Mochizuki
Pandora Hearts

Kaoru Mori
Anything and Something
Bride’s Story
Emma

Takeshi Obata
All You Need Is Kill
Death Note
Hikaru no Go

Yayoi Ogawa
Tramps Like Us

Atsushi Ohkubo
B. Ichi
Soul Eater
Soul Eater Not!

Eiji Otsuka
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service
Madara
MPD-Psycho

Yumi Tamura
Basara
Chicago
Wild Com.

Arina Tanemura
Idol Dreams
Phantom Thief Jeanne
Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura

Jiro Taniguchi
A Distant Neighborhood
The Summit of the Gods
The Walking Man

Osamu Tezuka
Astroboy
Dororo
Message to Adolf

Yana Toboso
Black Butler
Rust Blaster

Naoki Urasawa
Master Keaton
Monster
Pluto

Yu Yagami
Go West!
Hikkatsu!: Strike a Blow to Vivify
Those Who Hunt Elves

Fumi Yoshinaga
Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy!
Ôoku: The Inner Chambers
What Did You Eat Yesterday?

For the sake of space, I’ve limited the lists of works to up to three releases each in English, but many of the creators have other manga available in translation, too. And hopefully we’ll continue to see more of all of these mangaka! Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in the giveaway and share some great mangaka with me. Hope to see you all again for the next giveaway!

Filed Under: Giveaways, UNSHELVED Tagged With: Chicago, manga, Yumi Tamura

Manga Giveaway: Yumi Tamura Giveaway

August 26, 2015 by Ash Brown

It’s almost the end of the month which means it’s yet again time for another giveaway at Experiments in Manga. This month I’m offering up an entire series: Yumi Tamura’s two-volume shoujo action thriller Chicago! The series was released in English by Viz Media a decade or so ago, but is now out of print. This month’s giveaway will give you a chance to snag a complete set of the manga. And, as always, the giveaway is open worldwide!

Chicago, Volume 1: The Book of SelfChicago, Volume 2: The Book of Justice

Chicago probably wouldn’t have come across my radar if it wasn’t for the fact that it was created by Yumi Tamura. Tamura is also the mangaka of Basara, a series that I absolutely love. Back when I was trying to track down some of the harder-to-find print volumes of Basara (the print edition is going out of print, but a digital version is now available), I discovered that Tamura’s Chicago and Wild Com. had also been translated. And so, simply because I enjoyed Tamura’s work so much on Basara, I picked them up. There are other mangaka whose work I will read no matter what it is, too, including but certainly not limited to Moyoco Anno, Usamaru Furuya, Fumi Yoshinaga, and Takeshi Obata. It can be interesting to see both the similarities and differences among the manga created by the same person; some mangaka have an incredible range.

So, you may be wondering, how can you win Yumi Tamura’s Chicago?

1) Are there any mangaka whose work you enjoy so much that you make a point to read anything they create? If so, tell me a little about them and what you like about their manga in the comments below. (If not, you can simply mention that.)
2) If you’re on Twitter, you can earn a bonus entry by tweeting, or retweeting, about the contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me).

There you go! It’s as easy as that. You all have one week to submit comments and each person can earn up to two entries for this giveaway. If you have trouble with the comment form, or if you would prefer, entries can also be sent directly to me at phoenixterran(at)gmail(dot)com. I will then post the comments here in your name. The giveaway winner will be randomly selected and announced on September 2, 2015. Good luck to you all!

VERY IMPORTANT: Include some way that I can contact you. This can be an e-mail address in the comment form, a link to your website, Twitter username, or whatever. If I can’t figure out how to get a hold of you and you win, I’ll just draw another name.

Contest winner announced–Manga Giveaway: Yumi Tamura Giveaway Winner

Filed Under: FEATURES, Giveaways Tagged With: Chicago, manga, Yumi Tamura

My Week in Manga: January 6-January 12, 2014

January 13, 2014 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Two reviews were posted at Experiments in Manga last week! The honor of the first in-depth manga review of the month (and of the year, for that matter) goes to Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki’s Oishinbo, A la Carte: Fish, Sushi & Sashimi. I love food, I love manga, and so I love Oishinbo, too. I happen to really like fish and sushi as well, so I particularly enjoyed this volume. I also posted a review for Edogawa Rampo’s mystery adventure The Fiend with Twenty Faces which is the first novel in his series The Boy Detectives. I’ve read some of his stories and essays written for adults, but this was his first work for younger audiences that I read. It’s a lot of fun.

As for news and other interesting things found online: The English translation of Toh EnJoe’s Self-Reference Engine (one of my most notable release of 2013) has been nominated for a Philip K. Dick Award. The University of Michigan will be hosting an international conference on Natsume Sōseki from April 18 through April 20. (If you happen to be in Michigan around then, it’s be free and open to the public!) After months of no news, it looks like those who supported the Kickstarter for Osamu Tezuka’s The Crater may actually receive their rewards. And finally, Joe McCulloch takes a look at some of Suehiro Maruo’s most recent work over at The Comics Journal. Now if only more of his manga would be licensed in English!

Quick Takes

Basara, Volume 6Basara, Volumes 6-10 by Yumi Tamura. I love this series so much! It really is a shame that Basara is going out-of-print in English, but at least Viz has begun to release it digitally as well. The story is epic and engaging and the characters are complex and multi-layered. These particular volumes of Basara include the Okinawa story arc, which I especially enjoyed. It’s very interesting to see how Tamura is using events and politics from throughout Japan’s history to inform her post-apocalyptic world and culture. There are definite echos from the Warring States period, World War Two, and so on. Just as it was historically, in Basara Okinawa is a separate country from Japan that maintains its own traditions, relies heavily on trade, is largely at the mercy of foreign military influence, and is beset by natural disasters. Also, it’s the homeland of karate, which plays a part in some of the battles. (As a karateka myself, I couldn’t help but appreciate this.) I’m really looking forward to reading more of the series.

Entangled CircumstancesEntangled Circumstances by Kikuko Kikuya. I ended up enjoying Entangled Circumstances much more than I thought I would. I found the first chapter or so to actually be a little boring, but by the end of the volume Entangled Circumstances had managed to turn itself into a rather funny, and even a little sweet, boys’ love story. Actually, bonus chapters after the main story were the funniest and probably the favorite part of the manga for me because of that. Shibui and Himeko were once college classmates, but now they work at the same advertising agency. Himeko’s been in love with Shibui for a while now, but after a past awkward love confession, things have been strained between the two men. Often they seem to act like high schoolers rather than full-grown adults, so it’s difficult to take Entangled Circumstances completely seriously. It’s a lighthearted and fluffy sort of manga. The manga is nothing extraordinary, and I don’t know that I will necessarily need to read it again, but it was quite enjoyable.

ZooZoo by Andy MacDonald. I haven’t read the original novel Zoo, a science fiction thriller written by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, but MacDonald’s graphic novel adaptation somehow came into my possession, so I figured I’d give it a try. Since I haven’t read the original, I can’t definitively say how the graphic novel works as an adaptation, but I get the impression that MacDonald has been very faithful to the source material. The Zoo graphic novel can be somewhat text-heavy and some of the plot lines are a little compressed (though not exactly rushed) but I was never confused as to what was going on. Even so, I may have rolled my eyes a bit at the plot’s development and some of the rather predictable “twists.” Unfortunately, Zoo just doesn’t have that original or great of a story to begin with and I had a difficult time suspending my incredulity. The ending in particular was rather disappointing. Zoo starts out as a fairly action-packed, and bloody, doomsday scenario, but its heavy-handed moral can be a bit much.

MeganebuMeganebu! directed by Soubi Yamamoto. I already knew that I enjoyed Yamamoto’s visual style from her previous work and so I wasn’t disappointed by Meganebu!‘s brightly colored and slightly eccentric animation. Even so, it took a few episodes for the series to really grow on me. There’s not really much of a plot to Meganebu!. There are the members of the Glasses Club and their continuing efforts to create a pair of glasses with X-Ray vision (with some very unexpected and explosive results) but mostly the series just follows their daily lives and the trouble they all get into. Once I got over the fact that Meganebu! is fairly pointless, I could sit back and enjoy its peculiar sense of fun. As a glasses wearer myself, I could particularly appreciate all of the humor surrounding eyeglasses. To the members of the Glasses Club, glasses are more than just a fashion accessory. Neither are they simply used to correct vision. Glasses have the power to change the world. Meganebu! is an absurd anime, but I’ll admit to enjoying it.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: Andy MacDonald, anime, basara, comics, Kikuko Kikuya, manga, Meganebu, Yumi Tamura

Manga Bookshelf & Yumi Tamura

May 27, 2013 by Melinda Beasi Leave a Comment

Here at Manga Bookshelf, we love the Manga Moveable Feast. Sometimes, though, we really love it, and this month has been one of those times.

scan0003Though only a handful of works by Yumi Tamura have been published in English, our collective love for Tamura-sensei’s work was enough to inspire a host of articles here this week, including a rather lengthy roundtable discussion. Since these articles are likely to scroll off the front page long before we’re finished visiting and revisiting them in our minds, here’s a handy index of our contributions to this month’s Feast.

Yumi Tamura at Manga Bookshelf

  • Fanservice Friday: Draco Malfoy & the Blue King (Melinda Beasi)
  • License This! 7 Seeds by Tamura Yumi (Travis Anderson)
  • Yumi Tamura: Two Artbooks (Karen Peck)
  • Off the Shelf: Basara, MMF Edition (Melinda Beasi, Michelle Smith, Anna N., & Karen Peck)
  • Basara, Vols 13-16 (Anna N.)
  • Personalizing Feminism in Basara (Melinda Beasi)

Since we really have no desire to stop talking about Yumi Tamura, we hope you’ll join us in comments!


Full roundups of this month’s MMF entries can be found at Tokyo Jupiter.

Filed Under: UNSHELVED Tagged With: Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, Yumi Tamura

Personalizing Feminism in Basara

May 26, 2013 by Melinda Beasi 29 Comments

(Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Yumi Tamura’s Basara.)


basara13When you’re discussing a 27-volume series like Yumi Tamura’s Basara, there’s inevitably a lot to be said that can’t be said in a single roundtable discussion—even when that discussion is nearly 10,000 words long! I was able to get some of the more fannish overflow out of my system by way of last week’s Fanservice Friday, but one topic I’m still obsessing over, even after our roundtable discussion, is feminism in Basara, and how it relates to both the story’s politics as a whole and to me personally as a reader.

Despite the fact that I openly identify as a feminist, it’s something that I don’t talk about often, at least not in specifics. And the primary reason for this is that I’m not a student of feminist theory—or really any theory at all (unless you count music theory, and I think you’ll find that most people don’t). I’ve never read any books about feminism, or taken a class, or attended a talk on the subject. I can’t speak as an expert or scholar, or even as a well-informed layperson. I don’t even have the academic background or vocabulary with which to fake it. I rarely talk about feminism, because I don’t want to talk ignorantly about feminism, and that’s pretty much where things stand.

My identity as “feminist” comes largely out of ideas that have been part of who I am ever since the moment I realized, as a child, that there were people in the world who inexplicably made assumptions about me based solely on my gender. It simply didn’t make sense. Though, as I became old enough to comprehend it, I realized that there were ways in which the household I grew up in conformed to traditional ideas about gender (both certified teachers, my mother balanced part-time work with most of the childcare, housekeeping, and cooking, while my father worked full-time), neither of my parents seemed remotely concerned that I followed more naturally in my dad’s footsteps and showed no interest at all in domestic pursuits.

I liked pretty dresses, ballerinas, heated political debates, science fiction, kickball, and digging up worms in the back yard, and nobody ever suggested that there might be anything contradictory about my tastes. I was allowed and encouraged to just be “me,” to pursue my natural interests wherever that led me, and the idea that there might be limits on that, for any reason, seemed patently absurd. I knew instinctively that I was a capable, complete person, and that my individual potential was just that—individual. Nothing else made sense. My parents taught us about things like “women’s lib” and “male chauvinist pigs” (somewhere in the late 70s my sister and I acquired t-shirts with the slogan, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”) but the whole thing seemed kind of ludicrously obvious. Nobody really thought otherwise, did they? It was all right there. The whole world was right in front of me, in all its glorious mystery, and I was a free agent. What did my gender have to do with anything?

As I got older, and my world became more obviously gendered, things made even less sense. Though certain girl-tagged items were, to me, obvious draws (YA fiction and prettyboy teen idols dominated much of my free time in my pre-teens) popular concepts of what it meant to “be a girl” in midwestern ’80s teen society—the hairspray, the conversation, those quizzes in Cosmopolitan—just felt wholly alien, as did most other girls I knew. I struggled to look and act like them, but I simply didn’t fit the mold, no matter how painfully I squeezed and prodded. Having finally hit upon something apparently beyond my capabilities, I wondered if I even was a real girl, given the growing evidence against it. It was my 8th grade English teacher, though, who finally, inadvertently showed me the way. When, as we studied Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, she admitted that she thought that Hester deserved to wear that big, red “A,” I knew suddenly that whatever that teacher was, I decidedly was not. And that’s when I began to really think about and identify with the word “feminist.”

basara-dreams-smOut of all that, whatever it is that my personal “feminism” is and grew out of, that’s the feminism of Basara. It’s the feminism of a girl who just is what she is, whether she’s falling in love or leading a rebellion against an oppressive regime. Whether she’s using her own name, her brother’s, or no name at all, she’s all herself, all the time, and she couldn’t possibly be anything else. And though she’s not consciously fighting a feminist cause, she’s forwarding one with her politics in general, as well as by simply existing as herself and exercising her own undeniable agency.

Basara‘s feminism, however, is not just about its formidable lead. Shoujo manga as a whole is heavily populated with spunky heroines, many of whom lead overtly heroic lives, especially in fantasy series like Basara. Often, however, these heroines exist largely alone in a world of men. They are exceptional girls and women, of this there’s no doubt, but that’s just the thing—they’re exceptions. Even in current shoujo fantasy series, like Dawn of the Arcana or Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden, heroic women are supernaturally-endowed or pre-destined beings to be protected and fought over, anomalies in their worlds, often despised and opposed by other female characters (who may or may not be evil love rivals).

Basara begins with some fantasy tropes firmly in place. Sarasa is the “child of destiny,” and she initially disguises her gender in order to lead her revolution. But as her journey brings her in touch with numerous other women whose individual dreams and circumstances have caused them to cross her path (and, in most cases, join her cause), the matter of hiding her gender becomes more of a lie she doesn’t know how to get out of rather than anything of genuine importance. And when she’s finally forced into revealing the truth, it’s a relief to everyone.

Which isn’t to say that being a powerful woman in Sarasa’s post-apocalyptic Japan is easy. Chacha, the pirate captain who joins Sarasa’s (Tatara’s) army after their initial confrontation, spent her young life constantly having to prove herself in order to take on her natural role as a leader. Renko, the outspoken publisher of a newspaper in Suo, is persecuted and (literally) crucified for criticizing Momonoi’s regime. And Kiku—the one female among the White King’s “four nobles” acknowledges more than once her frustration and sense of powerlessness in her role. But, like Chacha and Sarasa, Kiku eventually learns to love who she is and to take control of her own destiny.

basara-morekiku

I think it’s notable that the White King, who is eventually revealed as the series’ primary antagonist (I don’t say “villain,” because ultimately this story doesn’t so much have villains as is does just people who have been badly damaged by their circumstances), is a woman whose sense of self was utterly destroyed by the role she was forced into as a young woman in the royal family. She’s a tragic figure—one that Tamura refuses to soften with any kind of last-minute redemption, or anything approaching a happy ending. The damage done by the patriarchy is real and irreversible, says Basara, and there’s no way out but to dismantle it completely.

And dismantle it Tamura does. I talked a bit in our roundtable about what I see as social anarchist principles at work in Basara, and these are inextricable from the series’ feminism. Women lead the story’s rebellion because it is women, forced to view the corrupt power structure from the outside, who are able to see clearly the damage that’s been done and what’s required to forge a completely new path. Men are valuable allies in Tatara’s revolution, but it’s the women who are teaching them (and each other) how to live better lives. When Sarasa finds herself shattered by the realization that the man she’s fallen in love with and the man she’s vowed to destroy are one and the same, though it’s Ageha who shelters her through her subsequent mental breakdown, it’s her mother‘s words that finally help Sarasa to shed the hate that she’s been subsisting on all through her career as “Tatara.”

One particularly moving scene in volume thirteen takes place in Suo city, at the site of Renko’s crucifixion. Though in the next volume, Sarasa and her army will arrive to remove Renko from her cross, Renko’s artist lover, Hozumi, (who is also Momonoi’s son) arrives to show her that she’s made a difference. Having lost use of his arms as punishment for aiding Renko, Hozumi kneels before her to paint as a demonstration of his support and understanding.

basara-art

“I was born into a rich family,” he thinks as he works,” I had nice clothes to wear. I ate good food. Until I came to Suo and met Renko, I knew nothing about the world. If I try to make a speech now, it can only sound naive. I just don’t want anyone to shed blood.”

“I love you,” he thinks as he paints a field of green around her, but the subtext is, “Thank you,” and “You saved me.” And as he demonstrates, silently, what he’s learned from Renko, Sarasa is learning it too. In the wake of Renko’s sacrifice, Sarasa glimpses a world in which individual creativity and expression is more powerful than the sword, and where fully-realized individuals can come together peacefully to work for the common good.

I mentioned in the roundtable that I thought it was notable that though Tamura clearly views some forms of government more favorably than others, Sarasa never attempts to establish any government at all, and a later side story reveals that the government that does spring up after the rebellion has already fallen into corruption less than a full generation later. Ultimately, Basara rejects not only the violent, decadent patriarchy that Sarasa and her comrades fight to bring down, but any system at all that threatens the compassionate autonomy Sarasa and her allies represent.

basara27Perhaps the greatest demonstration of Tamura’s rejection of patriarchal norms, however, is in her publishers’ apparent need to reinforce them, at least on the surface.

When I got to the series’ final volume, I was surprised at its cover, featuring what would appear to be the wedding of Sarasa and Shuri, with a sort of weird, plastic, pod-people feel to it.

“Do they actually get married?” I asked myself, flipping quickly through the volume for some sign of matrimonial activity.

“Hmmm… Shuri proves to Sarasa that he’s no longer the “Red King,” Tamon gets the Genbu sword, Asagi adopts an orphaned child (what?), no… not here… cute owls… no.”

And the answer is… no. Though Sarasa and Shuri do apparently stay together and definitely produce offspring, there’s no indication whatsoever that they bothered to walk down the aisle—nor does that even seem likely given the way they’ve decided to live. In fact, it’s explicitly stated at one point that they’re not married. They are lovers, for sure, and partners, absolutely. But husband and wife? If it happens, it’s offscreen.

There is one couple who gets married during the course of the volume—with very little page time, and the ceremony is not shown—but even that short story is focused on the couple’s determination not to change as individuals despite their arranged marriage. “Just because we’re gettin’ married doesn’t mean it changes anything. You don’t have to change. And I won’t either.” At best, it reads as the reluctant acceptance of a generally objectionable institution.

So what’s up with that cover? Was it so important that the series appear to wrap up with a traditionally “happy” shoujo ending that they had to retcon one in? I can’t know the answer for sure, of course, but wow does it create some real cognitive dissonance.

Fortunately the contents of the book itself are consistent with the raw, heartfelt feminism that drives the series overall, and the volume ends with the image of the child, Sarasa, facing that glorious, mysterious world with the same sense of power and free agency I felt as I gazed at the fields and woods beyond my childhood backyard.

basara-world3


All images © Yumi Tamura/Shogakukan, Inc. New and adapted artwork and text © Viz Media. This article was written for the Yumi Tamura Manga Moveable Feast. Check out Tokyo Jupiter for more!

Filed Under: FEATURES & REVIEWS Tagged With: basara, Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, Yumi Tamura

Off the Shelf: Basara, MMF Edition

May 25, 2013 by Anna N, Melinda Beasi, Michelle Smith and Karen Peck 17 Comments


MELINDA: It’s time once again for the Manga Moveable Feast, this month featuring the works of Yumi Tamura and hosted at Tokyo Jupiter. Though three of her manga have been published in English by Viz Media, Tamura-sensei is best known to English-speaking fans for her 27-volume fantasy series Basara, published by Viz in its entirety between 2003 and 2008. The story—about a fifteen-year-old girl in post-apocalyptic Japan who assumes the identity of her murdered twin brother in order to free her people from the tyrannical grip of a corrupt monarchy— offers up a familiar mix of sword-fighting, military strategy, political intrigue, drama, humor, and romance along with themes less common in high fantasy, like feminism and (I’d argue) social anarchism.

Since Michelle has been a vocal fan of Basara for a long, long time, it seemed only natural that we’d dedicate this week’s Off the Shelf to a discussion of the series. We’ve also invited Anna to join in on the festivities, along with Karen Peck, Michelle’s collaborator on The CMX Project. Welcome, Anna and Karen!

Though Basara was one of the very first series recommended to me when I first began reading manga in 2007, I missed the opportunity to buy most of Viz’s editions when they were actually in print, and it took me years to acquire some of the rarer middle volumes. As a result, though I eventually did find them all, I’d only read through the first ten volumes before planning this roundtable. I suspect I’m the only one coming to the discussion as a (mostly) new reader of the series. Can you each tell me a bit about how you were first introduced to Basara?

ANNA: I think I actually stumbled across Basara fairly close to when it was first coming out. I think I picked up the first half-dozen volumes and then started buying each volume as it was released. One thing I remember was that the manga looked a bit different from the other Viz releases at the time, which definitely piqued my interest.

MICHELLE: Honestly, I’m not sure how I first encountered Basara. In my early days of manga enthusiasm, one of my goals was Buy All the Shoujo, so it’s possible I just snagged it because of its imprint. I also, however, have a distinct memory of reading about the Basara anime, thinking it sounded awesome, and acquiring some fansubs of that. I just can’t remember which came first. What I do have documented is that I read the first volume of the Basara manga in September 2004 and the last in 2008. Although merciless upon my wallet, the Buy All the Shoujo approach did save me some anguish, as I bought each volume as it came out and didn’t have to track anything down.

KAREN: I am a latecomer to Basara, having just finished reading it this weekend. I don’t know why I skipped out on it when it first came out, as I was in a similar BUY ALL THE SHOUJO mode as Michelle was. Years later, I kept hearing how awesome it was—but the idea of collecting it was daunting, as some of the volumes were out of print and fetching crazy prices online.

ouch3

What really prodded me was reading 7SEEDS, Tamura’s current work, in French, which was one of the best things I’ve ever read. So I decided to go ahead and start buying up all the Basara I could, and import the French-language editions as placeholders, with the hope that prices would one day came down to something reasonable. I was lucky that a generous friend found volumes 19 through 21 for me at a used bookstore and passed them along – thanks Michelle!

MELINDA: So I’m not the only newcomer! That makes me happy, I admit—mainly because I found the series so exciting that I was worried my n00b squee would be so loud and obnoxious as to drown out all reasonable discussion. I mean, this thing pings pretty much everything I’ve ever loved in manga, beginning with its truly awesome heroine all the way to the simple fact of its length. Which is not to say that I love all long-running series, but I absolutely love a long-running series that is so obviously well-planned as this one was. There isn’t a single extraneous scene in Basara—absolutely everything that happens is essential to its plot line and the growth of its characters. That’s my take on it, at least. Is it just me?

scan0003MICHELLE: It isn’t just you. (But first let me express my gladness that you love this series. Maybe this is what you felt like when I was the newcomer to your beloved Fullmetal Alchemist!) Basara is incredibly well planned—though upon this reread I picked up on one subtle, possible mid-story change that I missed the first time, more on this later—and Tamura-sensei juggles the various elements with consummate skill. That’s not to say that there isn’t time for levity, for there surely is, but she’s able to combine some lighter moments with action in a way I really like. Too, there are scenes between supporting characters that are absolutely fascinating. I definitely have more to say about this later, too, but I don’t want to rush ahead before we’ve actually talked about our main characters!

KAREN: I just want to throw in my appreciation of a well-plotted series – she’s juggling a lot of balls, but she keeps the focus primarily on Sarasa and Shuri. There’s room for secondary and tertiary character development, but it never sidetracks the story. Wisely, she leaves longer stories of those characters to the extra chapters – and avoids any of those other characters from taking over in the main story. What is important is how they serve the story and relate to either Sarasa and/or Shuri – they still have their importance but they have their place, too.

I’m glad someone else will be a oh-so-excited newbie over this with me! There’s something about reading these epic series in a compressed amount of time, the drama of the story is more intense because there is no wait – having to go to sleep/work made me downright resentful, I wanted to be back in that world and see what happened.

MELINDA: Yes, yes, exactly, Karen! I’m a big fan of total immersion when it comes to fiction (or anything, really) and my experience with Basara was a perfect illustration of why. I read it all through in just a few days, and during that time, I really lived there. It was an awesome place to live, that’s for sure.

And that is exactly how I felt when you were the newcomer, Michelle, so I figured it would be a point of personal gratification for you! And speaking of our main characters, why don’t we jump right in? I have a lot of highfalutin thoughts regarding the series’ feminism and so on, but to get to that, we have to begin with Sarasa. Michelle, would you like to start us off?

MICHELLE: Sure!

When Sarasa and her twin brother Tatara were born, Nagi, the prophet of Byakko village, proclaimed, “This is the child of destiny.” ** The assumption was made that the prophecy would obviously pertain to the male child, and so Tatara was celebrated and fêted while Sarasa saw herself as unwanted scraps. After the Red Army attacks her village and Tatara is beheaded by General Kazan, the most loyal of the Red King’s soldiers, the people of the village are confusedly milling about. Knowing that something needs to be done to give them hope so that they might make it to safety, Sarasa transforms herself into Tatara.

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She continues to live in that guise most of the time, intent on personal vengeance at first but gradually developing a desire to transform the entire country. She’s only able to be Sarasa in stolen moments with Shuri, a handsome but arrogant fellow whom she believes is a dumpling merchant but who is actually the Red King. (Hello, textbook example of dramatic irony!) Eventually, however, she does come clean about her gender to her followers, who all do not care. “You’re the leader we believe in,” they tell her.

And why believe in her? Because she’s not just idealistic about how the world should be, she acts. It’s this that earns her Shuri’s respect, too. She doesn’t just speak up about injustice, she does something about it. And not something histrionic, but typically something downright clever (though her plans are not immune to failure). One of her followers, Hijiri, puts it this way: “I think I’m starting to understand, Tatara. People don’t come worshipping you as the savior. They don’t come together under you looking for guidance… They can’t bear just to stand back and watch as you run ahead on unsteady feet, bawling your eyes out.”

** Originally, Tamura-sensei depicted Nagi as unaware of which of the children was actually the subject of the prophecy. “Now… I see what I could not,” he says. “Tatara was the sacrifice. Sarasa. You are the one…” Later, though, there’s a very small bit in volume eight where Chigusa, Sarasa’s mother, suggests that Sarasa was specifically the subject and that her parents treated her the way they did for her protection. Which basically means Tatara’s parents were setting him up to be a decoy from the start. I never caught that change the first time around.

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KAREN: What I enjoyed about Sarasa is her growth – and she does make mistakes, as Michelle points out. She’s not some Child of Destiny savant, she has a lot to learn and the reader gets to see this happening. And she has to learn it while secretly coming of age as a young woman – no wonder she opens her heart to the one person who only knows Sarasa.

And as she grows, so does the revolution. Avenge her family. Rescue the sword. Each step leads to another, more challenges, more allies. Which all leads to… making a new Japan. And it turns out, as Michelle noted, the revolution was able to go on, even if it was lead by a woman – maybe it could only happen because it was led by a woman.

ANNA: I think the “Child of Destiny” aspect of Sarasa’s life is handled in a very realistic and nuanced manner. Too often, a protagonist with this type of fate ends up serving as a bit of a narrative crutch for the author. In Sarasa’s case while she is clearly destined for great things, she ends up struggling so much and sometimes being aided by random chance so that her destiny feels like it is earned through time, rather than something that was just handed to her.

Shuri, the other star-crossed lover in this equation, ends up being a great foil for Sarasa simply because he is so very different from her. He starts off as extremely arrogant and entitled, but he still cares for his people. His brutality in battle contrasts with his gentleness with Sarasa, as he doesn’t realize that she’s the leader of the rebellion.

MELINDA: I agree with what all of you have said, and I think what I also really appreciate about the way Sarasa is written is that regardless of whether she’s using her brother’s name or her own, she’s all Sarasa all the time. Though she clearly recognizes that as “Tatara” she has enormous responsibility on her shoulders, it’s not like the Tatara persona gives her anything she doesn’t already possess. When she eventually longs for the opportunity to just be “Sarasa,” it’s not that she isn’t able to be herself or isn’t able to be a woman when she’s calling herself Tatara. It’s that she, like any leader, occasionally longs for the chance to be selfish. She longs to be able to make decisions for her own sake only—just now and then—without having to be responsible for the lives and happiness of everyone else in Japan at the same time. She’s the girl “Sarasa” all the time, but sometimes she wishes to be only that.

Her feelings ring very true to me, and stand in stark contrast to something like Princess Knight, in which the heroine is reduced to a delicate flower anytime her “boy’s heart” is taken away from her. Sarasa couldn’t be anyone else if she tried.

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MICHELLE: Very well put! This puts me in mind of a scene from the Okinawa arc in which Sarasa is dressed like Tatara, carrying his sword, and doing something heroic—trying to keep a presidential candidate from attacking a ship carrying his own brother—but all Shuri sees when he looks her way is Sarasa.

Speaking of Sarasa and her growth, one thing I really liked was that her flaws don’t go away automatically. She has a tendency to keep things from her followers, not because she doesn’t trust them but because she doesn’t want to burden them. This happens several times until Asagi (I assume we’ll have a great deal to say about him!) exploits the situation and creates the first serious discord the group experiences. Later, though, Sarasa becomes more assured when issuing commands and is able to put her comrades to use because she finally understands that contributing is important to them.

MELINDA: I know that Sarasa’s stubborn autonomy is one of her flaws, but I admit that it’s one I find particularly endearing—not so much when it comes to her comrades, who really need her to be willing to share her burdens, but in general as just part of her personality. People’s best and worst traits are usually flip-sides of the same thing, and Sarasa’s instinct to take care of difficult things on her own is, I think, the flip-side of her ability to take care of others when it most counts.

There’s a scene in volume five, when Sarasa and Shuri have been forced into participating in a sick “race” (actually a hunt, where humans—mostly slaves—are the hunted) for the entertainment of the Blue King, in which Shuri offers Sarasa his comfort and protection. “It’s all right. I’m here,” he says, and for a moment Sarasa thinks about how nice it must be to feel protected. “But…” she thinks, “I’m Tatara. If I were alone, I’d have to do something on my own.” At which point, she takes charge of the situation and organizes the group in building what they need to make it to the next part of the race. And y’know, she says, “I’m Tatara,” but that’s the way she is all the time. She puts herself on the front line in any situation, and that includes those that (she thinks) only affect her.

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ANNA: One of the things I like about the series is how leadership is explored throughout the story. As Sarasa travels she encounters a variety of leaders in different locations as she seeks to find allies to aid her rebellion. I’m thinking of the brash style of the Pirate Queen Chacha in particular, as she provides an example of what it is like for a female to lead without disguising her gender.

MELINDA: Oh, I absolutely love Chacha—so much so that I wouldn’t mind at all skipping over Shuri right now and coming back to him later.

MICHELLE: That would be okay with me!

MELINDA: Chacha is one of those characters who grabbed me in about two seconds. I loved that fact that she was respected and revered by her crew and that there was no fuss made whatsoever about the fact that she was a woman. It was just a matter of fact.

MICHELLE: We glimpse some of her and Zaki’s shared backstory in volume seven, and even from childhood she’s challenging the notion that she won’t be able to take over leadership of the pirate crew because of her gender. She simply proceeded to get stronger than everyone, defeat them publicly, and then she was accepted. And she is definitely womanly, and passionate about her pleasures, etc.

KAREN: Chacha is indeed awesome – but there’s a number of the women of Basara I could say that about. Tamura is one of those writers who shows that women have ways to develop and display their power, in a variety of ways. Kikune, one of the Four Nobles, is the only girl in that group and feels like she has to work harder to measure up – even when she has skills beyond the others and her gender helps her with one of her assignments (such as being a lady-in-waiting to the Purple Queen). Despite her ties to the White King, she seems to be able to be helpful wherever needed – and provides Sarasa a friend her own age.

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Then there’s women such as Princess Senju, Shido’s (briefly) wife and later widow, who represents the letting go of the cycle of vengeance that could undermine everything that Tatara is fighting for. Another woman who breaks that cycle is Sarasa’s mother, who devotes herself to tending the wounded of either side of the battlefield, which seems to lead to a larger “Nightingale” movement, which is significant to the healing of a united Japan as well.

MICHELLE: Definitely an impressive list! I’m also fond of Yuna, Dr. Basho’s apprentice, who becomes Shuri’s friend yet doesn’t take any of his crap and talks plainly to him, which is what he needs.

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MELINDA: Since we’re talking about female characters, I can’t help but bring up Tara, a character who appears in one of the many side stories that populate the series’ last couple of volumes. She’s someone we eventually find out is sort of an ancestor to Sarasa, philosophically speaking—and in more ways than one! She’s living a nomadic warrior lifestyle with three men, one of whom she’s very close to (and probably in love with, but that’s a whole other thing). At one point, she’s confronted by the girlfriend of that guy who tries to appeal to her as a woman, “Please… give him back. You’re a woman, too. You must understand. A woman is happiest with the one she loves, having his children, having a family. I hope you can find that life, too.” Tara answers, absolutely befuddled, “I don’t understand. Even an animal can do that. I want to do something only I can do.”

Tamura spends a lot of time rejecting traditional ideas about what it means to be a woman, but I think even more than that, what it means to be a person. She treasures the individuality and autonomy of her characters more than anything else, but not in a self-obsessed Ayn Rand kind of way. Rather, she seems to place the greatest value on an individual’s capacity for unbridled compassion—an ability to do great things in the service of others.

ANNA: I agree, Sarasa starts out as a decent human being and manages to grow in both her capabilities and her compassion as she’s exposed to more people during her travels through post-apocalyptic Japan.

MELINDA: To bring this back to your discussion of leadership, Anna, one way in which Sarasa grows especially is in her ability as a leader, and it’s this that really caused me to identify Basara as a social anarchist narrative. Sarasa becomes more skilled as a warrior and as a military strategist as the story goes on, and she certainly learns the importance of trusting her comrades. But the place that trust eventually comes from—and what Tamura characterizes as her greatest strength as a leader—is in her ability to take her own ego entirely out of the equation. It’s stated several times throughout the story that the rebellion wouldn’t end if Tatara were to die, because each of Tatara’s followers is personally driven and capable of continuing the fight on his or her own. Sarasa’s a natural leader, and she’s used those skills along with the legend of “the child of destiny” to empower people to rise up against their oppressors, but the secret to her success is in knowing when not to lead—or perhaps in the fact that she leads by example rather than by rule. “Tatara’s army is a marvel,” someone observes late in the series. “Each man moves at his own discretion, but they don’t fragment into chaos.”

And while there is certainly a sense throughout the series that Tamura believes this kind of vision could only have been realized because “Tatara” is a woman, I think the message goes beyond feminism. It’s significant to me that though Tamura portrays certain forms of government in a more positive light than others, Sarasa never tries to establish any government at all. And when, in a later side story, we hear more about the government that did spring up after the rebellion, it’s already begun to sink into corruption.

MICHELLE: I actually have some geekbumps now, thinking of the first time “Tatara” specifically addresses the masses about the type of world she wants to create. It comes during volume thirteen when Renko (another strong woman!) is being persecuted for operating a newspaper critical of Momonoi, the governor of Suo City who’s been appointed by King Ukon in the Red King’s absence. In a very stirring scene, Tatara cinematically stands upon a rooftop and, for the first time, specifically orates about her vision for the future. Killing Momonoi is not the way, she insists, because a new leader will only be appointed in his place and nothing will change.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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MELINDA: And perhaps this is the time to finally come back to Shuri, the Red King, because though Sarasa grows immensely throughout the series, it’s Shuri whose entire worldview must be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

Our first glimpse of the Red King is as the worst kind of tyrant. When a young Sarasa accidentally runs out in front of his marching army, he—just a child himself—orders her to be killed. Thanks to intervention from Ageha (oh, so much to say about him here at some point), Sarasa’s life is spared, but the king returns just a few years later to remove the potential threat of “the child of destiny,” killing Tatara and pretty much wiping out Sarasa’s entire village.

Sarasa’s next encounter with him is at a remote hot spring, where she’s gone to soothe herself after suffering a wound in her escape as “Tatara.” There, Shuri’s just a guy, a bit too sure of himself, but still just a guy. Sarasa is put off by his arrogance, but after a second encounter, the two start to open up to each other—Sarasa about her plans to avenge her loved ones and Shuri about his plans to take control of his screwed-up family. On one hand, it’s set up as a classic tale of star-crossed lovers, but what Tamura really uses this for is to allow Sarasa to reach Shuri and introduce him to a new way of thinking without her blind hatred for the Red King getting in the way. And while this ultimately forces Sarasa to confront her own hatred, it’s Shuri whose ideas must be completely transformed, not only to be worthy of Sarasa, but also to become worthy of the people of Japan.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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I’ll be the first to admit that I really disliked Shuri in those early scenes in the hot springs, and I worried initially that he was going to be just another controlling shoujo love interest I’d be expected to adore. Fortunately, that wasn’t Tamura’s agenda in the slightest.

ANNA: Shuri really changes and evolves. It is a tricky thing to pull off, showing someone so unsympathetic at the beginning only to be completely transformed through their experiences, but Tamura pulls it off. And just as Sarasa manages to surround herself with loyal followers Shuri gradually puts together his own supporters as well.

MICHELLE: Like Sarasa’s, Shuri’s evolution is so well done because it’s hard-earned and gradual. His first chance to spend some significant time with Sarasa occurs when they travel to Seiran (home of the Blue King) together, each secretly thinking to use the other as cover. They end up participating in the sick race Melinda mentioned earlier, and during it, they have their first clash about how to treat people. Though Shuri dismissed her views at the time, Sarasa’s words come back to him later, even though he is still unable to admit he’s made any mistakes.

And even after he’s seen Okinawa and been inspired, Shuri really only sees the flaws in Japan and how it could be different, but still nothing wrong about himself or anything he’s done. There’s a telling scene in volume nine where he’s talking about being reborn and one starts to expect some kind of big turning point… except on the next page he reveals that instead of being a king, he’s decided to become an absolute dictator.

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It’s clear that while some new thoughts are beginning to percolate in his brain, he still doesn’t truly get it. And really, his overall goals—a united Japan that is peaceful, prosperous, and green—aren’t so very different from Tatara’s. It’s just that his own ego is FULLY in the equation. Dominating the equation, in fact.

ANNA: Shuri’s arrogance is a defining characteristic. I’ve often thought that if he were transplanted into the current times, he’d be an effective CEO of a company. While he has more than enough ego to spare, he also has an uncanny ability to find people who will be loyal to him, and he uses their abilities to further his goals. In addition, Shuri’s confidence may contribute to him being a bit reckless, but his recklessness often leads to success as he often exhibits a certain kind of calculated ruthlessness when making his decisions. It is easy to see how other people would be drawn to him, because his potential for greatness is obvious.

scan0002KAREN: Shuri’s growth was exciting to watch because despite its harshness, it really, really took a long time for him to really and truly change. Where Sarasa was The Child of Destiny who was meant to change the world, Shuri really had to overcome his birthright and his destiny to become a better person, and worthy of Sarasa. But wow, how he was broken – his best friend dead, his capital burnt, deposed, forced into death race, sold into slavery – he’s hard to break and even harder to change. The reader roots for him to be a better person because there are glimpses and glimmers of a better person underneath, and what all of that intelligence and charisma could do, if used for good. The relationship between simply Shuri and simply Sarasa was important not just for the sake of romance, but to show a different side to the rebel leader and the Red King.

Sarasa and Shuri really have to learn to trust others – Sarasa’s worry is that she’s burdening others, a trait probably having to do with feeling like the left-behind sister of the Child of Destiny – while Shuri’s is a matter of pride. He is the son of the king, he is the Red King – as Michelle, said, ego – he clings to that to a point where it could have destroyed him. When he’s deposed and the common folk try to offer their help, he angrily brushes it aside. For this reason I enjoyed seeing his friendships with Nakijin and Yuna develop, although the Shuri/Nakijin bromance wasn’t the most intense one in the series (I would give the Cipher award for Best Bromance to Nachi and Hijiri, although I’m open to other nominations).

Now that we’re into Shuri, how about the other two major players from the royal family – the mercurial Asagi/Blue King and the scheming, deeply damaged Ginko/White King?

MELINDA: Oh, Asagi… Asagi. I e-mailed Michelle partway through the series to express my surprise that Tamura had made me half-fall for a character like Asagi. Then later, I fell the rest of the way. Kinda pathetic, really, but wow did I find him relatable later on. You could boil his entire character down to the one simple desire: to have someone—anyone—just one person love him best. And seriously, who can’t relate to that?

scan0004MICHELLE: I love the notion of Asagi as parasite—that’s the name of the chapter in which he first comes aboard Tatara’s ship, even—because he’s so cold and calculating yet really depends on others more than anyone. At first, his presence among Tatara’s followers really stressed me out because I just hated watching everyone being controlled by him so easily, but once Sarasa gains confidence as a leader she’s able to shut down some of his schemes and manages him more effectively. Of course, by this time he’s begun to be changed by proximity to her, as was the White King’s concern.

ANNA: Asagi is a fully realized character, but he’s also a bit of a plot contrivance, just because he actively prevents Sarasa and Shuri from finding out the truth about each other.

MELINDA: It’s interesting that you say that, Anna, because that idea hadn’t really crossed my mind at all. I mean, yes, he deliberately withholds the truth from both of them after he’s figured it out, but his motivations make so much sense, it hadn’t occurred to me to think of him as a contrivance. He’s so jealous of Shuri, and has been for so long (for very relatable reasons, if not good ones) that it seems perfectly natural to me that he’d cling to any power he had (or could imagine he had) over Shuri’s life. And in the end, he really has none at all. Meanwhile, the meaningful friendship he develops with Sarasa (despite his protestations) is one of my favorite relationships in the series.

KAREN: There were certain points with Asagi where I wish he’d grow a mustache so he’d have something to twirl as he plots away. Okay, he wasn’t ever that cartoonish, but he seemed very impressed with his own scheming – he did learn from a master, after all. But he never could quite have the White King’s detachment – and this proves to be his undoing to furthering her plots. Despite all his plans, he liked Sarasa and her group – those friendships humanized him more than he ever intended. He may be selfish, but he’s very salvageable – he thankfully never got as twisted as his mentor/mother/sister. Parasites can sometimes be beneficial, after all.

One character I did love right away was Ageha. I think he has other fans here as well?

MELINDA: It’s difficult for me to imagine any reader not loving Ageha. He makes an immediate impression by standing up to the Red King on Sarasa’s behalf, and things only go uphill from there. He’s a rare kind of heroic shoujo figure who can spend a major portion of his time crossdressing for a living, and still strike fear into the heart of… well, really anyone. There’s a scene at one point late in the series, when Ageha has become a source of terror for those in King Ukon’s circles, and he passes Shuri on the street, dressed as a woman, strumming lightly on a small stringed instrument. And it’s one of the most menacing things in the world. Only Ageha could pull that off—both the grace of it and the foreboding.

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He’s also one of the series’ most sympathetic characters, and the most tragic from my point of view. I couldn’t help half-shipping him with Sarasa, just because he was so entirely worthy of her, unlike any other man in the series, really. And I honestly cried when he sat to have a smoke with the severed head of his dear friend, Taro, who had been executed for being a journalist.

ANNA: Ageha is so larger than life and fascinating! He’s one of my favorite supporting characters in manga of all time. In addition to Basara, I would have happily read a 20+ volume series just about him. I think with Ageha as an example, Sarasa starts to get a sense of how important Tatara is as a symbol, and her use of theatricality in addition to military tactics helps her win confrontations. Ageha is in many ways the perfect mentor, showing up just when Sarasa needs him, and disappearing when it seems like she might rely on him too much.

MICHELLE: I love Ageha very, very much. One thing I was particularly struck by this reread is how he initially keeps some distance in his relationship with Tatara and still acts friendly with some of the people she opposes. It’s not emblazoned brightly, but Tamura does show this how this came to be in a conversation Ageha has with Senju in volume nine. Senju asks, “So now whose side are you on?” Ageha replies, “Now? I can’t say.” His thoughts continue with, “I haven’t heard from Tatara yet. What kind of country do you want to build? How will you change things? I still haven’t heard…”

When Sarasa returns from Okinawa, inspired, she addresses her followers with specific goals for the country’s future for the first time. Ageha looks on, impressed, and from then on suddenly becomes a much more committed ally. Has he chosen his side at last? He’s there for her in a huge way all throughout the Abashiri Prison arc—we must talk about this, which boasts several very painful scenes—and one eventually comes to realize that he’s been hoping this whole time. Hoping she was the one who’d change things, and helping her in any way he could, but maintaining some distance just in case she ended up a disappointment.

MELINDA: He also manages to be respected by pretty much everyone, including those who oppose Tatara the most. Besides his complicated history with Shuri’s most trusted ally, Shido, one scene that also springs to mind is in the Blue King’s castle, where he’s able to speak plainly, insulting the Blue King (the fake one, not Asagi—that’s a whole thing) who is begging Ageha to become his personal entertainer and somehow getting away with it—in part thanks to Asagi’s intervention, but also just because that’s who Ageha is. He’s not someone who can be dismissed, even in anger.

basara-taroMICHELLE: I did wonder how he got to be so influential. Perhaps it’s due to his career as Kicho, which allowed him access to people in positions of power, who he was then able to charm with his beguiling dance.

MELINDA: I think that’s got to be a major factor—much is made of the fact that he is beguiling to everyone—and I also think it’s his presence. As a former slave, Ageha went through a lot to recover himself as a person (with the help of the troupe that took him in), and as a result, I think he’s more certain of who he is and who other people really are than anyone else in the story. That alone is a real source of power.

MICHELLE: I can see that. Hence the lack of kowtowing to authority figures.

KAREN: Michelle, I wondered that too! He must be a great dancer.

I loved him most when he took a despondent Sarasa, who was heartbroken over finding out that Shuri was the Red King, away from her supportive cocoon (which also has some less-than-supportive elements) to try to make her deal with everything. I think only Ageha could have done that; she knows that he’s been through much, much worse and I think he’s the one who loves her enough to essentially abandon her when she needs it.

And then he cuts his hair. That devastated me, because his support seemed to be the most important – he seemed to be the only one that got Sarasa and the rebel leader Tarata.

I wondered at that point if he had really given up on her being “the one”. His destiny – that he would one day meet a woman worth dying for – is even heavier than Sarasa’s. Did he know when he sacrificed his eye for her when she was a child? Then he’s in Kyoto, and is it Taro’s death that drives him to his endgame? Or is he realizing, like Sarasa, that he can’t outrun his destiny?

MELINDA: I love that you brought all this up, Karen, and especially the cutting of his hair, because it seemed so… final. I’m grateful that it wasn’t, and that he came back to Sarasa in the end, but his story is the most painful for me, ultimately, because I have the same questions as you do, and I wonder if he was really sure, even in the end, that she was that “woman worth dying for.”

ANNA: Ageha’s status as a person apart also serves as a contrast to the familial bonds that develop between Sarasa and her companions. It is easy to see that Ageha has plenty of friends, but something about him always remains solitary.

MELINDA: You know, Anna, I think maybe that’s why the scene where he brings a smoke for Taro’s severed head affected me so strongly. It’s such an intimate moment, really, even though Taro’s gone. We don’t see Ageha showing that kind of personal vulnerability that often.

ANNA: He isn’t often shown that vulnerable, although he does seem to have an immense capacity to endure suffering in addition to his almost super-human personal magnetism. I think it all contributes to his mystique and the way everyone around Ageha responds to him as a larger than life character.

MICHELLE: This reminds me of something he thinks while incarcerated at Abashiri Prison. In order to protect Sarasa, he gives his body to the leader of the cell in which they’re placed. Sarasa is absolutely anguished about this. Ageha tells her to close her eyes and cover her ears, and then narrates, “From birth.. my tarot has been the “hanged man.” It is the card of sacrifice, ordeals, and unrequited love. Yeah, it’s dull. But you know what? You are worth it.”

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MELINDA: Even with all that tremendous mystique, I’ll admit that Ageha’s strong presence in Sarasa’s life actually came as a bit of a surprise to me. It’s Nagi who is the most influential early on, and it’s not that he’s exactly replaced by Ageha, but somehow Ageha comes to understand Sarasa the most thoroughly. In fact, the only person who I think comes close to the same level of understanding is Sarasa’s mother, who isn’t even with her for the bulk of the series.

I have a favorite scene between Sarasa’s mother and Shuri, in which she’s clearly figured out who Shuri is and tells him about her daughter. And it’s amazing how well she knows Sarasa, even though they’ve been separated for so long and though it seemed that Tatara was the focus of their parents’ attention before that. Her honest assessment of Sarasa in that scene reminds me of Ageha somehow, as though Ageha is in some way fulfilling her role in Sarasa’s life in her absence.

Well, her role, but with more killing. And maiming. Much more maiming.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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MICHELLE: Sarasa does liken him to a parent at one point!

ANNA: I feel like the discussion of maiming is a good jumping off point to discuss the great action scenes and set pieces in Basara. One of the reasons why I enjoy this series so much is because it invests a ton of emotion in action scenes.

MICHELLE: You’re so right, Anna. What springs to mind immediately is the incredibly intense battle in volume three between Chacha’s crew and the Red King’s forces, who appear to have them surrounded. A desperate yet determined Sarasa stealthily swims through the king’s fleet (using a shark for camouflage at one point), boards a third party’s ship, and then uses their cannon to blow the fleet to smithereens. This is all very exciting, and a huge victory for Tatara, but amidst the carnage, Sarasa spots the silhouettes of soldiers suffering and dying in flames. “Those are red demons,” she tries telling herself. “The red demons that destroyed my village.” But that doesn’t stop her tears from flowing, and from this point on, she’s always cognizant that even her enemies have loved ones that will mourn their passing.

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MELINDA: That’s one of my favorite battle scenes as well, Michelle. Another pretty spectacular sea battle is later in volume nineteen, in which Tatara’s army has reached such a desperate point that they have no choice but to blow up their own ship—one which has become home to so many of their people. It’s an incredibly tense battle, involving enemy armies and a group of assassins who have been sent to kill Tatara. I’m not always big on manga battles, because I often find them difficult to follow, but even with so much going on, Tamura leads us through so expertly. As a result, it’s both exciting and extremely moving on a number of levels. The sinking of the Suzaku flagship feels both tragic and somehow freeing—like it was one last comfort necessary to cast off in order for Tatara’s comrades to be free.

ANNA: I think Tamura always does a great job at making the battles emotionally meaningful and a demonstration of character development. Sarasa learns with each confrontation, and how people fight tells the reader something essential about their personalities.

MELINDA: At first when you brought up the action scenes in particular, Anna, I thought I would have trouble coming up with favorites, because I’m such an emotionally-driven reader. But as you say, the battles in Basara are so emotionally meaningful, they are really completely essential to my experience with the series and so many of the things about it I hold dear.

Do you have a favorite scene of your own? Or a favorite set piece?

ANNA: There are so many great action scenes that the favorites that come to mind are likely to just be centered around whatever volumes I’ve read recently. That being said, I think the scenes when Sarasa is trapped in prison in volumes 11-12 are particularly harrowing and claustrophobic. I’ve just finished rereading volumes 13-16, and the battle in volume 14 where Sarasa and Shuri confront each other as Tatara and the Red King is particularly devastating emotionally. You can see them work through the psychological blocks they inadvertantly inacted about each other’s identity, and they are both just utterly destroyed by their new knowledge finding out that the person they love is their hated enemy. Seeing Sarasa slip into a fugue state as she forces out the commands to kill the Red King made me wonder if this was a blow she’d be able to recover from.

Also, my favorite action scenes would also be anything featuring Ageha, since he is so fabulous.

KAREN: Tamura has the sort of art that works so well for action scenes – its very fluid and lively, but she still manages to make it all personal. These are the characters we’ve grown to care about, after all. The action scene in particular that stands out to me is the battle where Sarasa and Shuri realize who the other is – the battle is rising and then there’s this stunning, shattering confrontation in the middle of it. So much action, but there’s an amazing, emotional heart to it all.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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MELINDA: Anna and Karen, I’m so glad you brought that particular scene up, because I thought of it as well, and I just wasn’t sure how to talk about it. Because what’s so stunning about it is that confrontation you mention—the sudden inaction in the middle of all this action. Everything comes to a complete halt, with the on-screen action matching perfectly the emotional state of the two leads. There, in the midst of their passionate rage, they see each other and their worlds just… stop.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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This is something we encounter often in romantic fiction, where two lovers (or soon-to-be lovers) spot each other across a crowded room and their hearts stop and everything else suddenly falls away. Except that convention is nearly always used to illustrate something wonderful—that heart-stopping recognition of true love, the spontaneous creation of a slow-motion universe of two. But in this case, Tamura does something very similar to illustrate two hearts shattering to pieces over that recognition. Everything else falls away, but the universe they’re left with—that universe of two—is the worst thing they can imagine.

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MICHELLE: One thing I especially love about the way Tamura has structured her story is that we are privy to how painful this is for both of them. It’s not just the heroine realizing that the one she loves is her enemy, who has dealt her many personal blows. She has also dealt him many personal blows, killing Shido and putting the final nail in the coffin for Suo, the city he and Shido planned together and loved so much.

MELINDA: Well said, Michelle! I was thinking in particular about that scene that I really appreciated that they were *both* completely ruined by the realization of who they really were. I half expected one of them to attack anyway—to be enraged by the revelation rather than ruined. That they both broke down so completely not only felt entirely refreshing, but it also added depth to the love scene earlier in the volume. It made it clear that their love was real to both of them, and not something that even hate could overcome.

ANNA: I also loved the aftermath of the scene where Asagi is saving Shuri for further torment and he becomes more and more frustrated with Shuri’s utter indifference to him. It was a small moment of comedy after some very emotional events.

basara-pineappleMICHELLE: Tamura is positively wonderful at including small moments of levity amidst serious goings-on! I adore the little background reunions between Kagero (Ageha’s owl) and his son, Shinbashi, every time their two humans meet up, for example.

And there’s another memorable gag in volume fourteen right in the middle of Nachi’s tense espionage mission. Not only is he attempting to recover someone’s body so that he may be buried alongside the woman he loved, but he’s also been tasked with sabotaging the palace’s well. While skulking about he comes across Nakijin, Shuri’s Okinawan ally, and they both immediately are stricken by the resemblance of the other’s hair to a pineapple. This is funny enough on its own, but it happens again in a few pages and still elicits giggles.

I also love the sidebar profile for King Ukon where someone off-panel is hurling a rock at him. I think Tamura-sensei and I must be on the same wavelength, humor-wise.

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ANNA: I think the little flashes of humor is one thing that keeps the series from seeming long or tedious, even though it stretches across many volumes.

KAREN: I really like Shinbashi – and sometimes his bits are taking place in the background, as if Shinbashi is having his own epic adventure as well. Tamura also does some great side-panels and her “Tam-Tam Time” is really wacky stuff. The extra gag stories are also worth reading – she clearly loves her characters but also loves to mess with them – the high-school and singing contest re-imaginations were a lot of fun.

The other running gag I liked was Shuri’s “bird mouth” moments, which his daughter seems to have inherited.

MELINDA: I’ll admit that I often skip gag strips in series like these, because I’m usually anxious to get to the next volume and I hardly ever find them funny anyway. But like Hiromu Arakawa (again? I really didn’t expect Fullmetal Alchemist to come up at all in this roundtable, let alone twice—heh) Yumi Tamura is actually funny.

KAREN: Melinda, I got a very Hiromu Arakawa vibe in her off-story panels/pages as well. I tended not to skip because unlike other extra stories, I needed the palate-cleanser of offbeat humor some of the dramatic and heart-breaking places where each volume left off.

MICHELLE: I think this may be my cue to unleash the torrent of squee I’ve been holding in: I freaking love Shinbashi SO MUCH. Even though there’s been plenty of horrible things happening since the beginning of the series, the first scene to truly make me bawl happens in volume eleven. Sarasa, Ageha, and Asagi are on their way to Abashiri Prison and when Shinbashi objects to the treatment they receive, he gets thrown out of the cart just as it’s beginning to snow. He can’t fly yet, and we get several just awful pages of Sarasa’s anguish as she pleads for the driver to stop.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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Ageha attempts to bolster her spirits, but we don’t see Shinbashi again for a couple of volumes.

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When we do, he can fly and has a new home. Sarasa acknowledges that it would probably be better for him to stay there, but he rejoins her and her reaction of pure unadulterated joy at his return is quite literally making me tear up right now just thinking about it.

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MELINDA: Oh, Michelle, YES. I kind of lost my mind with grief when Shinbashi was lost in that volume, even though I felt that it was very likely we’d see him again. And his eventual reunion with Sarasa… GAH. I think you and I had very similar reactions to all of this. In general, I love that fact that Shinbashi is so much a part of everything—even in the love scene I mentioned earlier, he’s around, barely avoiding getting smushed in all the excitement. It means a lot to me that he’s so important.

MICHELLE: Me, too. I mean, in a way, it’s like he didn’t just return to/for Sarasa but chose to be part of the rebellion rather than seize his chance at a cushy life. Like Karen says, he’s having his own epic adventure, too! There’s a great page in volume fourteen too, where he’s just returned from his first solo messenger assignment, then flies back to Sarasa’s side wearing the most adorably determined expression.

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ANNA: I think that Shinbashi is the most fully realized animal sidekick that I’ve seen in manga, in terms of him having a distinct personality and adding an essential layer to the story.

KAREN: Anna, I agree with you about how nice it is to have a useful animal sidekick. For communication purposes alone that’s a great contribution – like all of Sarasa’s other allies he’s very useful and, as Michelle pointed out, chose to be there.

MELINDA: This may sound a bit random, but you know I’ve had Harry Potter on the brain lately, and in some way having Shinbashi around, being so wonderfully written, has helped me get over my seemingly never-ending grief over the death of Hedwig. I never knew I had such a thing for owls, but there it is.

MICHELLE: You are not alone. I thought of Hedwig, too. Of course, now you’re making me ponder which characters in Basara match to which characters in Harry Potter, but while some fit, I think most probably don’t.

MELINDA: Ha! Well, I’ve already talked at length about Asagi and Draco Malfoy, but I hadn’t really thought further about anyone else. Well, maybe the White King as Voldemort? Though she’s a lot more sympathetic than Voldemort ever is.

MICHELLE: Hayato as Ron? Ageha as Lupin? These are just off the top of my head, but maybe. I guess Nagi and Kaku could be Dumbledore and Hagrid? Hee.

MELINDA: Ageha’s such a badass, maybe he’s Remus and Sirius all rolled up into one.

KAREN: off-topic, but when mentioning other fantasy franchises, every time Masunaga popped up I totally got a Lee Pace-as-Thranduil-in-The Hobbit image going on, and now I can’t shake it – I think it’s the eyebrows combined with an odd headdress that did that to me.

MELINDA: I love that imagery, Karen! I don’t know that I had many major fantasy references spring to mind while reading (other than what I mentioned already) though I did at one point mentally compare the fake Blue King to Joffrey Baratheon.

MICHELLE: I guess we ought to try to wrest ourselves back on to Basara itself. One question I wanted to put to the group is pretty broad… do you personally have any favorite scenes that have not been mentioned so far?

MELINDA: There are a thousand moments in the series proper that I love with my whole heart—too many to even sift through, really. But for some reason, my mind keeps bringing me back to one of the side stories in the final volume called “Black Story: Cherry.” It’s a bit of backstory involving Masunaga and Tamon, two of the characters we first met in the Abashiri Prison arc. Both were among four boys chosen as potential wielders of the Genbu sword—one of the four swords passed down through generations that become central to Sarasa’s quest for allies to join her rebellion.

The four are sent into ceremonial test to see which of them is worthy to inherit the sword. Masunaga is frustrated that Tamon—by far the best sword fighter among them—lacks the aggression required for a warrior, but when the get into the test, it’s only Tamon who is able to see that “foes” they are fighting are actually each other. In the end, he is given the Genbu sword, which as it turns out, is made of bamboo.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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Partly, I like this story because I like gentle Tamon, who wants nothing more than to spend his days fishing. But I also like the Genbu sword as a symbol—as a warning against the thirst for blood that consumed the original sword and its wielder.

ANNA: For me really most of the scenes in volume 25 that concluded the story were incredibly effective. The last time we see Ageha, Sarasa’s final choice, all of it added up to a tremendously satisfying ending.

MICHELLE: I mentioned before about scenes between supporting characters being fascinating, and one relationship that I just could not get enough of was the one that developed between General Kazan and Chigusa, Sarasa’s mother. Shortly after Chigusa was captured (and subsequently abused by the Red King’s men), she comes under Kazan’s protection. He’s clearly in awe of her beauty and dignity, and she lives for a time as his guest, unbeknownst to the Red King. Asagi sees to it that this secret eventually comes out, and though Shuri gives Kazan several chances to claim that this apparent treachery was all a clever ruse, loyal Kazan refuses to take the offered way out, because doing so would sully his feelings for Chigusa. Chigusa is stunned. Despite what Kazan did to her son, he’s still clearly an honorable man. I just love that so much.

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I’m also haunted by a particularly indelible sequence of pages at the end of volume 22, but I’m not going to spoil them!

KAREN: It’s hard to pick just one! But if I must… it would be from volume 16, where Sarasa finally meets with her mother again after so long. I’m glad that Michelle mentioned Chigusa and Kazan, I think that experience gave her some of the wisdom that she was able to use to counsel her daughter. “I can’t do it… I can’t hate anyone anymore.”

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It took other people to bring Sarasa back from the shock of finding out that Shuri was the Red King – as I mentioned before, Ageha, but her mother is able to bring her some peace yet gives her permission to feel the pain she’s been carrying. Only after she lets go of the pain and guilt that she bears, Sarasa is not just functional again – she is able to articulate her vision of the Japan she’s fighting for – and she’s also able to want to see Shuri again, to see what his dreams are for Japan. It’s the first step in reconciling Shuri as the Red King, her lover and her enemy, which will all lead up to the final battle and its outcome, as we will see in volume 25. That ending couldn’t have been as satisfying and justified without the groundwork being laid – in this case, with simple acts of compassion to dying men on a frozen mountain.

MELINDA: Another scene that springs to mind comes near the end of the series. Tatara has brought her army into a final battle with the Red King, who appears to be fighting on behalf of the royal family. She’s been confused the entire time, though, because Shuri’s been fighting in an oddly extravagant manner—with showy effects, expensive equipment—even a freaking elephant. Finally, as the battle reaches its climax, Shuri reveals that he’s deliberately collected all the wealth and old relics of the royal regime to be destroyed in battle.

What’s spectacular to me about this scene, is that it simultaneously demonstrates Shuri’s new commitment to a different way of life for the people of Japan, while also showcasing his still-enormous pride. Shuri’s so proud of himself for pulling this off right under the noses of the aristocracy, he practically radiates it. I just love the fact that Tamura was careful not to change his personality regardless of his shift in political philosophy.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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Thank you so much, Anna and Karen, for joining us in this discussion! And thank you, Michelle, for inspiring me to working to collect all these volumes. I expected to love Basara, but I’m not sure I was prepared for just how much I’d love it. I finished the last volume just a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve wanted nothing more than to start from the beginning and read it all again.

I dearly hope that Viz will be able to offer this series digitally someday soon, but I simply have to say that if you’re a manga fan, a fantasy fan, a or even just a fan of extraordinary storytelling, it’s worth trying to hunt down all 27 print volumes. It’s that good.


All images © Yumi Tamura/Shogakukan, Inc. New and adapted artwork and text © Viz Media. Color images from the Basara Postcard Calendar Book. This article was written for the Yumi Tamura Manga Moveable Feast. Check out Tokyo Jupiter for more!


More full-series discussions with Melinda & Michelle:

Moon Child | Fullmetal Alchemist | Paradise Kiss
The “Color of…” Trilogy | One Thousand and One Nights | Please Save My Earth
Princess Knight | Fruits Basket | Chocolat
Wild Adapter (with guest David Welsh) | Tokyo Babylon (with guest Danielle Leigh)

Full-series multi-guest roundtables: Hikaru no Go | Banana Fish | Gerard & Jacques | Flower of Life

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: basara, Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, Yumi Tamura

Yumi Tamura: Two Artbooks

May 24, 2013 by Karen Peck

For this month’s MMF, I wanted to review something a little different—two new artbooks by Yumi Tamura. While they’re not available in English, they are fairly easy to find, and Tamura’s beautiful art doesn’t need to be read to be enjoyed.

Edge of Emotions front cover

Edge of Emotions front cover

Natsu, a high school girl who is so shy that her only friend is her cat, sits down to a meal with her family and, oddly enough, it’s every one of her favorite foods. When she wakes up, she’s on a small boat, in the middle of the sea with six other teenagers and an adult. The adult later reveals to the group that they weren’t kidnapped or the victims of some accident—they are some of the few survivors from a catastrophe that has devastated the world and Japan. The leaders of Japan, knowing this was coming, devised a project where five groups of specially chosen young people would be cryogenically frozen, only to awake when the world was stable enough again for human life. 7SEEDS is the story of Natsu and Team Summer B, but also the others that have awoken in a terrible world. There are also glimpses of humanity’s last days in a survival shelter, and the brutal, stark story of how Team Summer A came to be. While there’s only a handful of people left, the story still has an epic scope as they try to build their lives among the ruins.

7SEEDS is one of the best series being published in Japan right now, running in Shogakukan’s FLOWERS magazine, which runs other older-skewing shojo series like Kaze Hikaru. While it would fit in with current trends in YA publishing (dystopias ahoy!), the fact that it is currently in volume 24 goes against the current realities of the manga market.

Edge of Emotions dustjacket reverse - there are more people on the flaps!

Edge of Emotions dustjacket reverse – there are more people on the flaps!

This is a problem for the manga reader who doesn’t read Japanese. 7SEEDS had ten volumes published in France, which is somewhat readable if you still have a decent memory of high school French. Sadly, though, for unknown reasons the publisher no longer has the license (cancellations are rare in the French market) and the volumes are out of print, which makes them difficult and expensive to import.

One way to enjoy titles that you can’t read is to enjoy the art. Artbooks have long been available in the US market through various importers, and the books for the bigger titles can be had (for an inflated price, of course) at your favorite local anime convention. So, having a bit of an artbook addiction, when I saw two new releases from Yumi Tamura, one for 7SEEDS and the other focusing on her whole body of work, I had to have them!

Edge of Emotions - Natsu and Hana

Edge of Emotions – Natsu and Hana

7SEEDS: Edge of Emotions was released in 2012 and is more of a guide/character book than a straight-up artbook, so there is a significant amount of text. However, this is a very attractive presentation—the back of the dustjacket is a poster with many of the main characters, and the book opens with a poster in the front—one side is Natsu, the other side is a rundown of all of the “seeds” and their adult guides, included the deceased ones. Then there’s multiple pages of beautiful color artwork from the series—mostly from cover/splash pages—and also from furoku items. The paper is good quality but not glossy, like you’d see in regular artbooks.

Edge of Emotions - Aramaki <3

Edge of Emotions – Aramaki <3

Being a character guide, the focus is on providing profiles of the 35 “seeds” and the guides, along with the handful of other pre-disaster characters. For a handful of characters who didn’t make it long, there’s more about them here than was ever in the series itself. There is also an extensive interview with Tamura-sensei at the end. One of the most interesting parts is an extra manga at the end, which is a short story of how many of the characters’ paths were crossing before the disaster, but they didn’t even know it.

Edge of Emotions - Profile page for Hana

Edge of Emotions – Profile page for Hana

The other book is one of a series of special releases for Shogakukan’s 90th anniversary, titled Flowers Comics Masterpieces, featuring “five comics legends”: Taeko Watanabe (Kaze Hikaru), Chie Shinoara (Red River), Moto Hagio (Heart of Thomas, They Were 11), Akimi Yoshida (Banana Fish) and Yumi Tamura.

Heat of Life - slipcase box and book presentation

Heat of Life – slipcase box and book presentation

生命の熱量 , or roughly, Heat of Life, is firstly a beautiful presentation. The hardcover and bonus book (more on that later!) are in a very nice, heavy-duty carboard slipcase. The slipcase is embossed with gold foil and it’s really well made. The hardcover book runs over 400 pages, consisting primarily of one-shots. Perhaps some of these are the titles she kept mentioning in her Basara notes! Most stories open with a color page as well. There’s also a selection of colored work from titles that -aren’t- 7SEEDS or Basara—but there is stuff that a Western fan would recognize, like Chicago. It’s all on high-quality paper so the illustrations are reproduced beautifully.

Heat of Life - poster from the reverse side of the Basara/7SEEDS book dustjacket

Heat of Life – poster from the reverse side of the Basara/7SEEDS book dustjacket

What will be of most interest to fans would be the second book—a smaller, thin paperback. It has the same nice paper, and the dustjacket reverses and folds out into a Basara poster. Not having those artbooks I can’t immediately tell if it is new art or not. Half of the book is about Basara, and it’s basically an illustrated summary of the story. The second half is for 7SEEDS, and provides some information on post-disaster Japan, since a lot of the character information was already covered in Edge of Emotion. Both halves have fantastic artwork, and there is some overlap on the 7SEEDS artwork.

Heat of Life - Beautiful art from the Basara book

Heat of Life – Beautiful art from the Basara book

If you have to get just one, Heat of Life is a much more comprehensive take on Tamura’s 30-year career, but it is a special edition, and priced like one. Edge of Emotions is a third of the price but entirely focused on 7SEEDS. Although, if you want to know more about it while you pen letters/prepare bribes for the folks at VIZ, it’s a great resource. Either way, you’re supporting Yumi Tamura!

Heat of Life - Interior art from the main book for one of the one-shot stories

Heat of Life – Interior art from the main book for one of the one-shot stories

So now that I have you wanting these, yes? :) Here are my sources:

-Kinokuniya online, or, if you’re lucky and live near one, at one of their stores. To order online, it’s best to use ISBNs unless you can input Japanese text. Reasonable shipping costs.

-YesAsia online – again, having the ISBNs is a plus. They convert the titles into English text but the romanization leaves a lot to be desired. On YesAsia, also always be careful that you’re buying the Japanese editions—they also sell Chinese-language editions as well. They offer free shipping if you order over a certain amount but it’s rather slow.

Heat of Life - Interior art from Chicago

Heat of Life – Interior art from Chicago

-Amazon Japan – the biggest and best source, but you’ll be paying for overseas shipping. Still, investigate and compare—YesAsia and Kinokuniya’s pricing may still reflect when the dollar was stronger against the yen, so even with shipping it may not be a terrible deal since through Amazon you will get current rates. Amazon will also convert your payment themselves, so you don’t get hit with a foreign currency charge if you pay by credit card.

-eBay – There’s usually a significant markup by the majority of the “anime” sellers, so I prefer to use eBay for out-of-print titles that I can’t find elsewhere; Amazon Japan does have a marketplace comparable to the US site but few if any sellers will ship internationally. You can get lucky, sometimes, when someone is downsizing a collection and find a fair deal.

Heat of Life - Last page!  A little Tam-Tam Time and a little Shinbashi

Heat of Life – Last page! A little Tam-Tam Time and a little Shinbashi

7SEEDS: Edge of Emotions (7SEEDS 公式ファンブック) ISBN 978-4091342577, 980 JPY

Yumi Tamura: Heat of Life (田村由美-生命の熱量) ISBN 978-4091791436 2,730 JPY

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Yumi Tamura

License This! 7 Seeds by Tamura Yumi

May 24, 2013 by Travis Anderson 4 Comments

Well, since everyone’s talking about Tamura Yumi and I just recently finished reading the newest volume of 7 Seeds, I think I will talk today about how some US company really, really, REALLY needs to license this awesome manga!

7seeds 22I’m sure many of you have read Basara, so you know Tamura Yumi can write amazing long-form post-apocalyptic adventure series. The cool thing about 7 Seeds is that it is also a long-form post-apocalyptic adventure series, but at the same time is completely different from Basara. Basara is set sometime long after humanity has recovered from their apocalypse and has regressed to a sort of feudal society. The actual apocalypse and aftermath don’t play any role in the story and to be honest, it could be set in a fantasy feudal Japan and not really feel any different.

7 Seeds, on the other hand, tells the story of five groups of young people who were cryogenically frozen in a government plan to assure humanity’s survival after Earth’s collision with a giant meteor. It’s a survival story and the apocalypse and the affect it had on Japan is constantly felt. There’s also lots of intrigue as we learn more about the 7 Seeds Project and what happened to everyone else on Earth after the meteor hit.

The manga starts off with Natsu’s POV, as she wakes up in an unfamiliar world with a bunch of strangers. No one told her or the other people in her group that they were chosen to be part of this project. The only person who knows anything is their guide, Botan. Later the POV switches to Hana, a girl on a different team, who also had no knowledge of the project, but is far more prepared than anyone else, having had a lot of wilderness training from her father. Occasionally the POV switches to other characters (like when we meet Aramaki, the sole survivor of his group, who thawed out fifteen years earlier than Hana and Natsu’s groups, in the icy wilderness of Hokkaido, or when Hana finds the journal of Mark, a guy who lived in a doomed shelter directly after the meteor hit, or when we meet the team whose members trained their entire life in order to be sent to the future as humanity’s great hope but who ended up being emotionally and mentally scarred by the experience), but for the most part it’s shared between Hana and Natsu.

This series has so many angles of appeal. Do you like adventure? Do you like post-apocalyptic stories? Do you like large casts with lots of great female characters? Do you like found/chosen family? Do you like intrigue and mystery? There is romance, too, as these are (for the most part) teenagers with lots of emotions and hormones and all that jazz. But romance plays even less of a role than it does in Basara, so if that was your main interest in a story then this probably wouldn’t be the story for you (but then again, it might, since there are loads of people to ship and at least one pairing that’s set up as the “main romance”). (I do love shoujo romance, but I’m also always really happy to find good shoujo series that aren’t primarily romance, because while there’s more of them in Japan than available in English, even in Japan it’s still a minority compared to romance-focused manga.)

One thing that really hit me in reading the most recent volume is that the theme of 7 Seeds seems to be “don’t look back.” No one knows how long it’s been since the meteor hit. Even the guides, who were prepared for this, know only that they were set to thaw when the computers sensed that the world was once again able to sustain human life. The flora and fauna and even the landscape of Japan, everything is alien. But the lesson seems to be that it’s humans who are the intruders, and in order to survive, they have to adapt to this new world, rather than clinging to the past. This is really driven home every time they encounter one of the abandoned shelters where those few survivors who weren’t part of the 7 Seeds project lived after the meteor hit.

I know some people don’t like her art and feel it’s dated (personally I think it’s unique and helps it stand out from the crowd), but she’s such a great storyteller that even if it had the worst art ever, I would still recommend this series to everyone because it’s that great. I don’t want it to end, so when it seemed like the groups were getting closer to finally all coming together (which will surely be the beginning of the end) in this most recent volume, I found myself cheering when they were separated even further as that meant the series wasn’t as close to the end as I’d feared. (There’s still so much to discover! So much I want to know!)

The longer this series goes on without being licensed (the most recent volume was #24 and it’s been running for over ten years now), the more I worry it never will be, since publishers are always more hesitant about picking up a long series (especially when it’s not shounen), but I really, really hope that someone will take a chance on it. As much as I loved Basara, I love this many times more and I want more people to be able to enjoy it!

Filed Under: License This! Tagged With: Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi, shoujo, Yumi Tamura

Fanservice Friday: Draco Malfoy & the Blue King

May 24, 2013 by Melinda Beasi 18 Comments

(Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Yumi Tamura’s Basara and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.)


Confession time: Some of you may have gleaned this from our fanfiction roundtable a couple of years ago, but I’ll admit it plainly now. I was a fan of Draco Malfoy—not so much the Draco Malfoy that J.K. Rowling actually ended up writing, but the Draco Malfoy I thought she was writing, all the way up until the final book in the series.

It was all incredibly clear, you see. This spoiled, fair-haired, delicate flower whose life of privilege had turned him into a bigoted, arrogant bully was the polar opposite of hero Harry—slick on the outside and twisted within, smart and talented, but taught to lie and cheat and cry to daddy whenever anything went wrong. He was Harry’s negative image. When, early on in volume five, the highly revered (but generally reticent) Sorting Hat chose to sing a song to the Hogwarts student body, warning them that the four houses of Hogwarts must unite or crumble from within, that meant that somehow the brave Gryffindors and ambitious Slytherins must learn to work together, and who better to serve as the catalyst for that but Draco Malfoy?

Obsessed with Harry from the beginning and eternally offended by Harry’s refusal to take his hand, it seemed obvious that Draco Malfoy was the key to heeding the Hat’s warning. And when, in the sixth book, Draco came face-to-face with the real terror of the Dark Lord—reduced to crying in a haunted bathroom over his horrifying plight—finally humanized in his darkest moments—Rowling’s plan seemed to be firmly underway. (I once wrote that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was my favorite Harry/Draco fanfic of 2005, and I wasn’t really joking.) As a result, not only would Hogwarts and the entire wizarding world be saved, but both Draco and Harry would have learned to be better people—people who could tolerate and even embrace their differences and use them to their best advantage.

Except that wasn’t Rowling’s plan. At all. Because apparently what the Hat really meant was “the four houses except Slytherin,” so in the brave students’ moment of glory, the Slytherins were sent to the dungeons and Draco Malfoy slunk off in a cowardly, shameful fashion with his cowardly, shameful parents to live a cowardly, shameful life.

I was devastated, honestly. I mean, I’d managed to weather the senseless death of a favorite character, the cruel murder of an owl, and some of the worst romantic dialogue ever written, but I just couldn’t believe that Rowling had squandered a character she seemed to have put so much work into. And was the Hat just singing for its health? WTF, J.K. Rowling? My Draco, he was gone.

Then, I met Asagi.

(Read right-to-left.)

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It’s important to note that Asagi is actually talking about himself in this panel. Though known to the public (and even to the so-called Blue King himself) as the leader of the Blue King’s guard, it’s Asagi—first introduced in volume four of Yumi Tamura’s epic shoujo fantasy, Basara—who is actually the Blue King, pulling all the strings from behind the scenes. He’s proud of himself and his cunning, and extraordinarily arrogant, but when, after the false Blue King’s fall, he joins up with rebel leader Tatara (with the intention to ruin both Tatara and their mutual enemy, the Red King) the cracks in his shiny, shiny armor begin to show.

basara-cackle2Thanks to his proximity to the story’s heroine, Sarasa, and her love interest, Shuri, during the Blue King’s horrifying “race,” along with a little inside knowledge (the Red King is his younger brother, after all), Asagi is the first person in the story to become aware that Sarasa and Shuri are, in fact, Tatara and the Red King—sworn enemies in love with each other—so his initial plans revolve around trying to control the circumstances under which they will discover this (and be discovered) in order to ensure maximum damage to both sides.

In the meantime, he connives and wheedles. He plots to create conflicts within Tatara’s camp. He sexually harasses Sarasa by skulking around her bedroom and stealing a kiss from her when she’s lost her eyesight. He’s a hateful menace in every way. He even cackles with glee like a freaking supervillain.

No, seriously. Check it out. —>

There’s no romanticizing Asagi. He’s a vicious brat whose lifelong jealousy of his hotshot little brother has consumed him to the point that, not only is he intent on being hurtful to others, he’s simultaneously hurting himself by letting his own issues render him a pawn in the game of someone who doesn’t even really care about him all that much. He’s acting on the White King’s orders, but to his own peril, as she’s really only using him to achieve her own revenge.

Any of this sounding familiar?

It was just a few days ago, while working on our upcoming Basara roundtable, that I realized… Asagi is the Draco Malfoy I thought J.K. Rowling was writing. And wow am I glad to see him at long last.

I said there’s no romanticizing Asagi, and I meant it. He’s not a romantic figure at all. Unlike Ageha, whose dignity and good faith in the face of great suffering frame him as a truly heroic and romantic supporting character, Asagi is small and petty and difficult to care about. But, like most of us, it’s Asagi’s weakness that is ultimately his undoing, and fortunately it’s undoing that Asagi needs most.

I said in the Basara roundtable that Asagi’s whole character could be essentially boiled down to a single desire: “to have someone—anyone—just one person love him best.” I do think that’s true, but it’s probably oversimplified. Yes, Asagi wants someone to love him, but perhaps more specifically, he wants someone to believe that he’s worthwhile. For all his arrogance, Asagi’s greatest weakness is his own self-esteem, which is so low and so twisted up by years of outside manipulation that when Sarasa does something really wacky like trust him with something important, it throws him completely for a loop.

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Sarasa, of course, has no idea what she’s done, but the results speak for themselves.

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That’s how you write a hero—in this case, Sarasa—and how you write a Draco Malfoy (or, in this case, Asagi). Let the hero take a freaking chance on him, in genuine good faith, and give him the thing he most needs in order to begin to believe in himself.

Asagi muses above on the fact that the fake Blue King (the “Serpent King”) had trusted him and wonders why this feels different. The difference of course, is that what he had with the Serpent King wasn’t trust at all. It was dependence, for sure, and perhaps some sense of loyalty, but the Serpent King didn’t so much trust him as need him, and that’s not the same thing. Like love, trust is something given freely and in good faith, and counting on someone because they’re bound to serve and protect you isn’t actually the same thing.

As the story goes on, Sarasa proves that her trust also comes with attentive care and affection. And I kinda love the fact that, here, she pretty much acknowledges straight out that he’s a delicate flower.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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Asagi is nothing if not a master of self-deception, and he spends most of the series after he joins up with Tatara explaining carefully to anyone connected to the White King that he is definitely not starting to believe in Tatara or care about her or her cause. Meanwhile, he’s pretty definitely falling in love with her (or something that looks a hell of a lot like love) and learning what it’s like to actually have someone to protect whom he can trust to protect him in return.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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It’s starting to sound a lot like I ‘ship Asagi with Sarasa (Tatara), isn’t it? And I’d be lying if I said it had never crossed my mind. After all, I ‘shipped Draco with Harry all those years, and that’s where I’ve been going with this entire post, haven’t I? The truth is, though, seeing where Asagi and Tatara’s relationship goes in Basara actually makes me think that I’d rather have seen Harry and Draco become real friends more than anything else. Because even if I occasionally harbored thoughts of Sarasa throwing over Shuri (who, let’s face it, isn’t all that much better a catch, at least not early on, and if she’s not going to fall for Ageha… well, there’s no helping her) for Asagi, and certainly that’s what Asagi would like to have happen, I think what Asagi needs more than anything is a friend—someone who won’t fall out of love with him or become complicated in any way—just a friend who can teach him what that even means. And Sarasa is so beautifully, perfectly that, I think it’s ultimately best for both of them.

The following is one of my favorite scenes in the entire series. It’s emotionally riveting, intense, and one of the best examples of why Tamura-sensei’s realization of this character is so much better than anything J.K. Rowling’s ever done. So much so, that I’m blown away every time I read it as though I’ve never seen it before in my life.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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The emotional impact of that scene is only topped by this one, in which Tamura shows us Sarasa’s face and only the back of Asagi’s head for the entire exchange. And that back of the head says everything. It’s brilliantly drawn and precisely in tune with both their characters. Obviously there’s a lot more going on in an epic series like Basara besides a whole slew of intimacy porn between the heroine and one supporting character, but if you know me, you know that’s my fanservice.

(Click images to enlarge. Read right-to-left.)

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I could go on and on. I would go on and on, but the truth is that I so hope that Viz will eventually be able to give this series a digital release, and I don’t want to give everything away (the scene leading up to the last few pages I shared here is one of the most intense and emotionally resonant of the series—and with this series, that’s saying a lot). Suffice it to say that with a character like Asagi, written by someone as thoughtful and brilliant as Yumi Tamura, things are going to be complicated all the way through the end.

Some part of me still wishes that J.K. Rowling had followed through on her promises for Draco. Another realizes that she never could have written him as well as did Yumi Tamura.


All images © Yumi Tamura/Shogakukan, Inc. New and adapted artwork and text © Viz Media. This article was written for the Yumi Tamura Manga Moveable Feast. Check out Tokyo Jupiter for more!

Filed Under: Fanservice Friday Tagged With: basara, Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, Yumi Tamura

7SEEDS 5 (Japanese) by Yumi Tamura: B+

August 28, 2008 by Michelle Smith

Book description:
With the rest of Team Summer B settled nearby the shelter at Mt. Yufudake in Kyushu, Arashi and Natsu decide to journey to Kanto to see what has become of their homes and families. Joined by Semimaru, they soon encounter Team Autumn, who were released three years ago and who have built a secure village. The only problem is that a tyrannical couple treats the others like slave labor, and the team’s guide is too weak to put a stop to it. Is this the kind of desperation Team Summer B will eventually experience?

Review:
It becomes apparent in this volume that we’re not only bouncing around in time a little, but that the various teams were released at different times, as well. The story of Team Winter recounted in the last volume actually took place fifteen years ago, while Team Autumn has been working to survive for three years. Also, in the last volume Hana found a note in a stockpile that was actually left by Natsu in this volume, if that makes sense.

Anyway, there’s a lot of traveling going on in this volume. Although I was looking forward to the teams meeting up, it kind of amuses me that Arashi, Natsu, and Semimaru suddenly seem to run into every team but Hana’s on this outing. Like, in the whole of an empty and desolate Japan, they just happen to walk in the direction where Team Autumn has built their village. I suppose having common clues for where to look for the stockpiles helps a little, but still.

Team Autumn is pretty horrible, and the Summer B folk are scarred by the experience, so when they meet gentle and kind Taka from Team Winter, they end up suspecting him and slipping away in the night. Just a few days later, he runs into Hana from Team Spring, and she (who has met no one else yet) accepts him. It’s very sweet. It also shows just how close Arashi and Hana are to each other without knowing it.

Alas, not much more than this really happens in the volume. Walking, angsting, big dangerous animals, reckless puppies. That about sums it up.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Shogakukan, Yumi Tamura

7SEEDS 4 (Japanese) by Yumi Tamura: A-

August 28, 2008 by Michelle Smith

Book description:
It’s been confirmed that the desolate land is indeed Japan, though the teams still don’t know what happened or what year it is. Team Spring—having lost their guide, Yanagi—travels to Mt. Fuji to look for another of the stockpiles, only to find that the volcano has erupted and is no longer there. Just as their hope is flagging, Hana notices some manmade signs directing them to another mountain to the east. The members of Team Winter face their own hardships from the start—between equipment failures, man-eating tigers, and Hokkaido’s bitter cold, some of them will not survive.

Review:
The majority of the chapters in this volume featured Team Winter. I’m a little torn about the introduction of other teams into the story. On the one hand I want to see them and what they’re doing, and on the other, there are already tons of characters as it is. Right from the start, Team Winter’s story is a bit more grim than the others, however, as a few of their number do not survive the thawing process, and I got into it more than I thought I would.

More shocks and twists in the story follow, and since I’m not the kind to go around suspecting such things, I really enjoyed the various surprises. The main protagonist of this group is Taka, who believed himself to be weak until inspired by the example of boisterous Fubuki, another member of the group. It was good to see how Taka had progressed by the end of the story, though the appearance of a couple of precious puppies at a crucial point was a bit silly (but sniff-inducing nonetheless).

So, as it stands, each of the teams has now located a stockpile of goods and is camped out nearby. Arashi and Natsu have passed through where Hana’s team is and left a note, though Hana, of course, still has no idea that Arashi is alive. I’m eager for the teams to meet up, especially since I have no idea what to expect from the story after that happens. I have faith that it’ll be something really cool.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Shogakukan, Yumi Tamura

7SEEDS 3 (Japanese) by Yumi Tamura: A-

June 21, 2008 by Michelle Smith

Book description:
In the near future, a huge meteorite has collided with the earth. Governments around the world, who had forseen this worst case scenario, took countermeasures so that humanity would not go extinct. One example is Japan’s “Seven Seeds” project, in which young people were carefully selected and cryogenically frozen until such time as a computer deemed Earth safe for human habitation.

Team Summer B has left their inhospitable island in search of answers while Team Spring’s attempt to escape theirs failed due in part to the misogynist Yanagi, who wants to assume control of the group and refuses to heed the others’ suggestions. After a fall into a pit of deadly mantises, Yanagi is presumed dead. What could his sudden reappearance mean?

Review:
There were some sequences in this volume that were just downright COOL. In a deliciously freaky moment, Team Summer B discovered a Nagasaki landmark—a giant statue—almost entirely submerged in water. It was that discovery that really made the reality of their situation sink in. On their separate course, Team Spring realized that they were in Yokohama. Members of each group ventured off separately to check on the status of their home towns, leading to the exploration of creepy abandoned buildings and stuff. I love that sort of thing.

Tamura is adept at maintaining a tense atmosphere and kept the pacing of the story at a satisfying level. Some of the answers I’d been waiting for were provided, but plenty of plot potential remains. I suppose my main complaint at this point is the size of the cast. Sure, Basara had a ton of people, but they felt more gradually introduced. In 7SEEDS there’s already 15 or so. A couple of them got some development in this volume, but there really aren’t any that I particularly care about yet.

It’s the story rather than the characters that’s driving the series at this point. Luckily it’s a darned good one.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Shogakukan, Yumi Tamura

7SEEDS 2 (Japanese) by Yumi Tamura: A-

May 12, 2008 by Michelle Smith

Book description:
A strange man on the island who helped free Arashi and Natsu from some carnivorous plants gives them a clue as to why they find themselves in this predicament—it’s not a kidnapping, it’s “a government project.” The four castaways decide to climb a rocky outcrop from which they can survey their surroundings and get an idea of what is going on and where they are. But what will be waiting for them up there?

Review:
The story progresses nicely in this volume. Some answers are revealed regarding the government project, a few additional castaways are discovered, and the group decides to leave the dangerous island. The larger cast and the communal goal brought a Basara-like feel to the proceedings.

And just as the first group is launching out to sea, we meet another group of castaways in the same situation. One of them is Hana (who looks a great deal like Sarasa), the girlfriend of Arashi in the first group (who looks a great deal like Shuri). Natsu has a bit of a crush on Arashi, but Hana is far more worthy of him. It’s kind of interesting to not want the heroine to get the guy, though I guess Hana qualifies as co-heroine by this point.

I actually find this second group more interesting so far. Their circumstances are similar—more with the giant, predatory insects—but Hana’s smart and resourceful and also has to confront a lecherous guy who thinks he’s in charge, which makes for better reading than a timid girl freaking out about giant crocodiles.

One of the best things about the story is that now that the groups know about the project (though some don’t entirely believe it), they’re coming to wonder how many years have actually gone by since they were frozen and are driven to get away from the islands and find out what’s become of Japan and the world. I’m really looking forward to seeing how that plays out.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Shogakukan, Yumi Tamura

7SEEDS 1 (Japanese) by Yumi Tamura: B+

May 11, 2008 by Michelle Smith

Book description:
The last thing Natsu remembers is going to sleep in her own bed. She awakes on a sinking ship in the company of three strangers, each with no memory of how they got there. After managing to reach a deserted island, the four need to overcome their differences and work together to find out about the inhospitable, strange island where nature appears totally out of balance. What happened? How did they get there? And will they be able to survive?

Review:
Yumi Tamura’s Basara is one of my favorite manga series, so I was really interested in reading 7SEEDS, a series she began in 2002.

The premise is an interesting one, though comparisons with the TV show Lost are probably inevitable. This first volume mainly covers the four castaways exploring the island, discovering that most living things—animal, plant, or insect—really really want to eat them, and being suspicious of one another.

The heroine of the piece is Natsu, and she’s a little annoying so far, as she’s very timid and seemingly unable to think for herself. There’s two guys—the nice Arashi and the not-nice Semimaru—who are both really afraid of bugs. My favorite character so far is the ruthlessly practical Botan, who seems to have more of an idea of what’s going on than any of the others.

Tamura does well with dramatic moments—the frequency of thunderstorms on the island helps to furnish ominous lightning as needed—and it’s never dull, though it’s pretty much just setup so far. The art is essentially unchanged from Basara and though Arashi looks a great deal like Shuri and Natsu like Kikune, they’re still distinct enough in expression that I don’t think one would confuse them. I really like how Botan is drawn; her competence just radiates.

I’m sure Basara wasn’t a hot seller for Viz, but I hope they or some other company will license 7SEEDS for American release someday. We need more good sci-fi shoujo!

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Shogakukan, Yumi Tamura

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