Basara 18
Posted: March 9, 2009 Filed under: Basara 1 Comment »Giving myself a break of a couple days is probably a good idea for this series. I want to keep reading, but I’m sort of burned out on writing about it, and I probably need to take breaths between volumes anyway in my relentless search to see Shuri and Sarasa back together.
Senju gives birth towards the beginning of the volume. I was wondering when that would happen, actually, and of course it was handled in a suitably dramatic way. She was just, you know, trying to meet up with her parents in a village that was actually under attack. So rather than giving birth near a doctor, it’s just her and Tatara. They bond, there is girl time, all that good stuff. I’m sort of tossing it off, but it’s a great scene all the same, even if you knew it was coming all this time.
Hm. Again, Shuri and Sarasa work at opposite sides of the same problem without speaking or meeting. This time, the Tosa fleet is being blackmailed to fight Tatara when King Ukon captures their relatives as hostages. Shuri sets himself on the problem of the hostages (with the clever use of cockroaches), and in doing so meets up with Shima. Shima seems to think that Shuri is her knight in shining armor, and is the one that her fortune tells is just for her. Hmmmm. Well, the series does put a great deal of stock in fate, and… well, Tatara and all that. I can’t dismiss her completely. Apparently Shuri has no problem doing so, but she is relentless.
Asagi comes back, all ready to plot the demise of Tatara. Except… then he helps her again. I’m still not sure what it is that he’s aiming for, though the next volume does help shed some light on the problem. Except I’m also not entirely convinced, even after the next volume, that he’s completely aware of what the light may mean for his plans. His personal plans, that is, because he seems to have his fingers in many pies.
The last half of the volume is mostly just the fall of the Black King and the liberation of his lands. Once again, I am very impressed at the strategies at work in this series. And sometimes, too, things will still come down to a face-off, which I’m always up for.
“It’s not you I want” indeed.
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