Basara 22
Posted: March 15, 2009 Filed under: Basara 6 Comments »Okay. Taro’s story really does truly end at the beginning of this volume, but Ageha picks up his slack and tries to get word out about what it is that he’s found. It’s… sort of big, and sort of involves Tatara and the Red King falling directly into a massive trap. Tatara starts to guess that something’s not right, but it does take a warning from an entire owl family to clear out the battlefield and foil Hagiwara’s plot. And even then, Kikune has to do something extremely brave in order to save as many people as possible. But… apparently Shuri was aware of all this? Huh? And he knows all about Ageha and the Ape of Kyoto? Shuri’s some sort of mind-reader, I think.
There’s another really excellent Asagi scene, but it doesn’t quite compare with the one a few volumes ago. Asagi seems to be getting more and more depressed, and it’s always nice to see Tatara is able to pull him out of it in the end. My suspicions have mostly evaporated, since he seems about 100% on Tatara’s side. He and Tatara taking a stand against a bunch of soldiers while each had the other’s back was really great. And he seems to be appreciating everything he has in life. He’s showing all the signs of a good guy at this point. Ginko, on the other hand… well. She’s a great architect. Or something.
The entire last quarter of this volume is awesome, because it reveals Shuri’s intentions, and they are clever and everything that I could have hoped for from him. He explains his plans for the monarchy and the royal family, and then he faces off against Hiiragi. During this fight, we see flashbacks to almost every single instance of character development he’s had throughout the series… and then he reaches his goal. But not without horrible things happening. Tatara watches. It looks like the two of them are still going to face off, and it should go down next volume. But everything you could possibly want in Shuri, everything that’s been built up over the course of the entire series, is played out at the end of this volume. He is truly the king of kings.
Notably, Asagi takes what happens harder than Sarasa does. That only makes me like him more.
[...] Disciple on vols. 1-3 of Andromeda Stories (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews) Connie on vols. 21 and 22 of Basara (Slightly Biased Manga) Julie on vol. 35 of Boys Over Flowers (Manga Maniac Cafe) Shaun [...]
The last part of this volume is one of my favorite scenes. “The blood stained his cloak red — THE RED KING”. Such a beautiful line.
I think Ginko acts the way she does partially because she has to use her intelligence and skills somehow. She’s convinced that nobody will let her use her talents constructively, so she uses them destructively to spite everyone.
During this fight, we see flashbacks to almost every single instance of character development he’s had throughout the series… and then he reaches his goal. But not without horrible things happening.
I just got goosebumps reading that. Here’s a quote from my own review of this volume:
*Stunned silence.*
Wow. I have not been so surprised by anything I’ve read in a long time. I think my heart literally went “thud” in the last chapter of this volume.
That last line was fantastic. That and the King’s adviser saying that Shuri was a King of Kings even after betraying the royal family were two of my favorite lines in the series, I think.
And to be fair to Ginko, she’s probably right. Everyone except Asagi seems to forget about her, or have no interest in what she thinks.
Yeah, I’ve still got some story to go over, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been this satisfied with the climax of a series. Especially a long series like this. Everything about Shuri was just handled so perfectly, from the big reveal about his intentions to the face-off against Hiiragi. It was just fantastic.
OMG, what an ending. This really happened in a shojo manga? Bravo, Tamura sensei! ^_^ Awesome volume. And about Hiiragi, my first thought was that he cried because he wanted to do it himself, eventually. I’m still not 100% sure about his intentions. Well, we’ll see. Good thing I have all remaining volumes so I can read through them very quickly.