Basara 19
Posted: March 9, 2009 Filed under: Basara 13 Comments »This and volume 20 are insanely hard to come by for some reason. I acquired both of them after searching for about a month or so, but rituals were performed. Lives were lost. Amazon was checked daily for a sanely-priced copy.
The black holes that form in the middle of Viz series are a bit mysterious. Why are there shortages of volumes 19 and 20? Why not the first volumes? Did the print run suddenly decrease at this point? And if so, why are 18 and 21 still easy to come by? It is a mystery.
Until you read this volume and realize that people are probably hoarding it for the Asagi scene alone.
I’ve never read a series like this that so successfully balances an epic war spanning an entire country with a really nice romance. I’ve said before that I enjoy stories that take advantage of their setting, specifically in relation to novels that are about trips across America, and Basara is great for that, too. I know nothing about the geography of Japan, so the details are lost on me, but I can certainly see how much work was put into having Sarasa travel to every region and look at what makes each area unique. Of course, some of those details might only exist in Basara, and I couldn’t tell you which ones (except for the whole desert thing), but I can appreciate the fact they’re there, and it makes the story that much more ambitious.
Lots and lots and lots of stuff happens in this volume. I think it might be my favorite so far, even after all that stuff that happened in 14 and 15. Tatara and her accumulated Navy take on King Ukon’s navy, and an epic sea battle is had on board the Phoenix, one that includes dolphins that have bombs strapped to them and are somehow trained to run into the boats. After this happens, a group of assassins drop onto the ship and engage all the major characters in battle. In any other volume, the assassins engaging every single one of the major allies would have been the highlight, but the fact that it’s overshadowed by everything else here should tell you just how AWESOME volume 19 really is.
After this battle, there is… well, like, the ultimate scene between Asagi and Sarasa. I can never tell if Asagi is coming or going, and its apparent he’s a little confused himself when it comes to Sarasa. He offers to kill her as a mercy, says he’s going to kill her anyway, wants to ally with her, wants to run away with her, wants her to stay by his side. It was just awesome. He’s also insanely jealous about everything a person could be jealous of, I think.
Later, Tatara and a small entourage go to meet with the former Black King’s army, led by Shuri. The army is engaged in a battle, and as they approach, without anyone saying anything out loud, Asagi says something to the effect of “Idiots are usually at the front of the battle.” Aww. But a reunion is not to be.
There is an indirect kiss. I died a little inside. It’s so corny in any other series, but the fact that three characters are in on it, along with Sarasa’s facial expressions while she’s riding off, make Basara the only series that uses this technique that I cannot make fun of.
And volume 20 was even harder to get. What does that have in it? A reunion? Please?
[...] Draper Carlson on vol. 4 of Aria (Comics Worth Reading) Connie on vols. 18 and 19 of Basara (Slightly Biased Manga) Julie on vol. 1 of Clear Skies (MangaCast) Ken Haley on vols. 3 [...]
I am curious … where did you get Volumes 19 & 20? When I found Volume 19 in a used bookstore, I radiated so much happiness that the guy at the cash register commented on it.
Volume 18, I expect, will become much harder to find in the near future. None of the major online retailers (Amazon, RightStuf, etc) will sell you a new copy, and the used copies will probably hold out for only so long.
Anyway … you didn’t mention the whole dream/memory sequence. I don’t know how it works (is that ball some magic device which plants Ginko’s memories into Sarasa?) but it’s so beautiful that it doesn’t matter. And “love and hate are two sides of the same coin” is a strong theme in Basara. My hate for Asagi eventually blossomed into love, and I don’t think I would love Asagi so much now if I hadn’t hated him so hard at first.
I think the reason that the indirect kiss is not corny is that it has meaning beyond romance. It communicates that the situation is not as dire as it seemed in Volumes 14-15. Of course, the main romance itself is a metaphor. Just about everything in Basara is a metaphor.
I squatted on Amazon and waited for a cheap copy to appear. I checked every day. Generally, there are two or three sellers that drive up the price like that (woody’s books is the biggest offender I’ve seen), and any companies will usually price match them because they’re using an automatic repricer. These books aren’t actually worth that much since they’d never sell at those prices. Small stores or individuals selling their books will usually price their stuff lower because they’d like someone to actually buy them. I work at a company that sells remainders on Amazon, so I sort of knew if I waited long enough, I’d find someone that would price them lower. Granted, the sellers still made a lot of money off me. I paid around twenty-five bucks each for those volumes, which did make me feel a little bad, but I only paid five for each of the other volumes in the series so it balanced out.
I did like Asagi a lot more after this volume. I didn’t think that was possible, but it was hard for me not to like him after he was so soft here. Well, soft in his own way, since he was still kind of choking Sarasa.
I liked the dream sequence, but it was sort of lost in all the other stuff happening in the volume. I guess I hadn’t really thought of the weirdness of Ginko’s memories being communicated to Sarasa like that. I’m not sure how that detail escaped me, and yet I can’t accept that she would just run into her mother because that’s what needed to happen. I do like that Ginko and Hiiragi add another layer of love and hate to the story. It’s hard for me to like Ginko, even given the tragic past she’s had, just because she seems to treat Hiiragi so poorly and seems to have little regard for other people. But I can appreciate her relationship with Hiiragi. I also kind of liked that Sarasa and Senju are finally reconciled… not that they necessarily love each other, but it is a good way of showing that there’s more to a hated individual than whatever it is that you hate about them, which is depth that very few stories give their characters. Plus, the detail of Tatara not actually being the one that killed Senju’s husband was always one that bothered me. Even Shuri got it wrong.
And it’s true what you say about Basara loving its metaphors. I hadn’t thought about the main romance being a metaphor itself, but I do now.
There is more to Ginko’s and Hiiragi’s story that you have yet to see. Wait a minute … where else in Basara have we seen a romance between a woman and the man who killed her husband?
I don’t know. In that instance, she wound up cutting his head off. I imagine that sort of goes towards explaining her leanings towards forgiveness when she meets back up with Sarasa, though.
How do you know that Ginko won’t do/hasn’t done something just as unpleasant to Hiiragi? Though, in the other example, seppuku was happening anyway. The Viz editor even talked about that. Speaking of which, your reviews haven’t mentioned the awesome editor’s notes sections in the first 17 volumes of Basara. I missed them when that editor was taken off of Basara.
The seppuku was happening, but still. The two did have chemistry, but I think I had a lingering doubt about the mother’s feelings, and how she was dealing with her feelings, until she had that talk with Sarasa. I’m going to have to re-read that scene now, but I’m sure you’re right and that she was more sad than malicious when she took his head.
I did fail to mention the editor’s notes, which was bad of me. I really loved them. I made sure to mention them tonight.
Interesting to read of the changing problems in acquiring volumes. I bought the whole series once it had finished being published in English and had huge problems getting Volume 2. My favourite manga purveyor was able to get me all the other volumes though at the regular price.
I was really lucky and picked up the first seven volumes from a used book store in one group. I think I got a bunch of the later out-of-print volumes together in another big batch from a comic store, and got most of the rest of the series from the place I usually get my manga. 19 and 20 were the only ones that were nearly impossible to come by. The price on volume 2 does seem to be going up in the used marketplaces, though.
I’m printing this volume from scans on my laser printer… yes, I’m that kind of a maniac… ^_^
I don’t blame you. It’s really, really, REALLY good, completely out of print, and worth all the ink and paper. Nothing to be done about it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
It was well worth it after all. Really a great volume. I don’t like Asagi (I wish they drove him out from the army) but at the same time I can’t deny that without him Shuri would be probably dead and he is somewhat mysterious… I kinda can’t wait what he will do next… ^_^ No on to volume 20 and then I can return to a regular reading (with the exception of volume 22)…
Yeah, I couldn’t figure out why they kept Asagi around, either. He does serve his purpose, though. I liked him by this point in the story, but he gets to do more a little later on, too. Glad you got to read it. ^_^