Sand Chronicles 1
Posted: January 28, 2008 Filed under: Sand Chronicles 9 Comments »I had heard elsewhere that this was a fantastic series, and that I was totally missing out by not reading it in Shojo Beat. I couldn’t help but pick it up when I saw it in Chicago Comics, and I’m really glad I did.
It tells a really sincere, down-to-earth story in the same way Nana does. There’s nothing really spectacular or unusual about what’s going on, but the characters are so believable that you really get a feel for what’s going on and get drawn into the somewhat mundane, everyday events that are going on. Maybe Nana is a bad comparison, because the two Nanas lead sort of exciting lives… but I imagine Yotsuba&! being sort of a good comparison too, even though I haven’t read that one.
The main character and her mother move into a small town from Tokyo, and after a rough start, the girl gets settled into her new life pretty well. She befriends a boy who is the son of her mother’s childhood friend as well as a pair of siblings from a well-to-do family. Unfortunately though… her mother doesn’t settle in well, and things go poorly. It’s pretty sad.
The series is set up with a framing device, where the girl is an adult looking back, and the stories are set in different seasons and at different times in her life. The first story is about her first winter in the small town, where the second story takes place in a summer camp a year and a half later. The first story has several significant events in the life of the girl interspersed with lighter moments, and the summer camp story is mostly about coming to realize her first love and has much lighter, happier events.
I know it will take forever to get a new volume since it’s running in Shojo Beat, but I’m really excited to see what happens as far as who and where the girl winds up in the end. There is a little theme that seems like it will carry through the series, and that is the treasure the girl has in the one minute hourglass she gets right before moving to the town and seems to keep with her until she is an adult. It’s just a wonderful story, not nearly as girly and overpowering as Skip Beat or anything, but good all the same.
I really really want to read this series, but I am trying to restrain myself until I can marathon it all.
Although, it certainly sounds like something worthy of a reread, and I could always marathon it /then/…. :)
I feel the same about Honey and Clover.
I’m about ready to hop on the Honey and Clover bandwagon when volume 1 comes out in stores, as much as I’ve heard about that one I don’t think I’ll be able to resist.
Sand Chronicles does seem like the type of thing that would read best in a marathon, but I would probably say that of anything that had a great story and wasn’t really episodic. It seems particularly true in this case, though.
I’ve decided to cave in and read it, just ‘cos waiting would take, oh, three years. :)
hey! do you know what happens to diago???!!!!!
hello! i don’t think i can resist NOT buying sand chronicles either!
I’m sorry, I’ve got no idea. I’ve only read the first volume so far ^_^;
:O I just stumbled on this volume recently and I have to say that I like it. It’s not too over the top suspenseful but its definitely a good read.
I know they have all 10 volumes completed but it seems like it hasn’t been serialized in English but up to volume 4. Which kind of sucks to me. I want to know what happened to Daigo…
Spoiler(For those who only read volume 1): Somehow I think that she ends up with Fuji because they kissed and stuff…and he’s rich and in the begining of volume one, the little girl (shii-chan) I think said that she was jealous that Ann had a rich business man who she was about to marry.
I finally tried this. I’m a volume and a half into it. It reminded me a little of the first volume of Tower of the Future – they even both have characters called Daigo. I prefer Tower of the Future, though I suspect it’s more because of my tastes than the intrinsic quality. I’m still going to read more of Sand Chronicles, and at the very least I’ll know what ‘sandess’ is.
Hmm, I still haven’t read Tower of the Future, but I feel like I should read PSME before I attempt that one. I liked the beginning of Sand Chronicles a lot since what happened was genuinely tragic. I liked the way it was dealt with, and I liked the way her friends supported her. She did seem genuinely happy in the small town with her friends. Lately it’s a real downer, and I wish it would break out of it’s cycle of depression where Ann can’t allow herself to be happy no matter what.