Slightly Biased Manga

I don’t know.  I can’t convince myself to read Keiko Takemiya stories for some reason.  It’s like I know the basic premise will put me to sleep, but when I actually read the volumes, I wind up liking them a lot, both with To Terra and this series.

Just as I don’t like emotional space operas, emotional straight-up fantasy just isn’t my thing (with the exception of things like Basara where straight-up fantasy is done exceptionally well).   I bought this volume solely to support older shoujo stuff with the sincere hope that things like The Song of Wind and Trees will get translated someday.  I really got into the story once it got going though.  Everything from the characters to the setting is extremely elegant, and I liked the way the story started off in peaceful times, then slowly the kingdom became more and more under the control of the warlike invaders.

I spotted an early bit of Basara in this story when the heir to the kingdom turned out to be twins, and the child that was taken away from the palace had a tattoo and was apparently was a “child of destiny” to at least one character.  We never hear much more about that child, but the other child’s name matches the prophecy and everything, so perhaps it won’t turn out to be the forgotten child’s job to save the kingdom.

The volume leaves off in an interesting place, too.  The invaders (apparently from space) are extremely technologically advanced where the planet the story takes place on seems to have little to no technology to speak of.  Or they have it, and have just stopped using it in order to stay peaceful, something like that.  In either case, it’s nothing for the invading forces to trample all over the peaceful kingdom, who not only can’t spot the extremely covert invasion, but have no way to fight against it, either.  There’s a warrior from another galaxy which may help later, but we’ll see how things go.  It’s three volumes long, but it seems like it could easily wrap up in two volumes as it is now, so I’d like to see what else happens in the plot.