Le Chevalier d’Eon 5
October 1, 2008
For some reason, this has been sitting in my to-read pile FOREVER. I actually like this series a lot, so it’s a shame I didn’t pick this up until recently. I think this is the last volume for awhile though, so I guess… I was just making it last longer?
The beginning of this volume is sort of a good example of why this can never be a really great series. We get a lot of really heavy-handed and overly ornate symbology that’s a bit difficult to wade through, and just some insane things that don’t make much sense. I have to admit I don’t mind the latter too much, but this series is a bit too serious to be able to pull it off 100%.
Anyway, the first thing that happens is there’s a long, drawn out and meaningful tarot reading done by a demon. The demon is actually the cat that is normally around… you know, the one that turns into the sword. d’Eon and d’Alembert are attacked during the reading by a poet. This poet is actually relatively straightforward and just melts people with acid, where normally they all have some sort of philosophy about their craft that is actually kind of hard to figure out and may have something to do with the French->Japanese->English nature of the series, though the translation and the way the series is written is very much French->English… but the poet’s philosophies are still nearly incomprehensible, even with the generous and copious translation notes at the end. This series has the best end notes, both for historical context and for trying to explain what it is that the poets are doing. I really appreciate them, but even those don’t help the poets much.
Despite the fact I’m usually not clear on the exact nature of the battles, I still think they’re cool as hell, and I also still really like the art. Perhaps I’m just not putting as much thought as I should into figuring out exactly what each poet is about. I appreciate the level of detail and the unusual wordplay that is involved with each of the battles, it’s unlike any other series I’m going to ever read, but it just doesn’t make much sense. That’s fine by me, but I’m not sure where that leaves the series as far as… accessibility goes.
October 3, 2008 at 9:48 am
weeee, actually i find Le Chavelier quite an entertainment; although this is definitely quite a loosely based manga of someone historical…(Chavelier D’Eon in historical context was a cross-dresser)
October 5, 2008 at 3:31 am
Yeah, I’m always very impressed by the notes in the back that go to great lengths to explain the historical context for all the characters. d’Alembert was the most interesting since he’s the type of person I would have never known was based in reality. I think I had just finished reading a… sort of biography of Madame de Pompadour right when I started this series too, so seeing how she’s been portrayed so far has been very neat.