One Piece 30
Posted: December 31, 2009 Filed under: One Piece 1 Comment »Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 56+ volumes
I’m not really sure what it is, but man do I love the Skypiea arc. This volume was kind of slow, “killing off” the remaining characters right away to set the stage for the fight between Luffy and Eneru, which hit a snag towards the middle in order to give Eneru a chance to be just a little more evil before Luffy can swing back in and lay him low. I could see all the mechanics laid bare, the attempts to bring in certain characters to please fans one last time before the final battle, the 360 that justified certain characters following Eneru… there’s no secrets here. And yet it’s just far more entertaining here than it is in other story arcs. It’s probably still the novelty of Sky Island combined with how much I like the jolly/evil Eneru.
Even while he’s wiping out all humanity in the sky, I still can’t bring myself to hate Eneru. He’s got delusions of grandeur larger than any other villain in the series, and his confidence in himself combined with his complete ignorance of a lot of the stuff the Straw Hats know just make him loveable. He also laughs and doesn’t take too much seriously, which is probably the main reason he projects the likable image.
The mechanic that I’ve been waiting for ever since I learned Eneru was an electricity devil fruit user has come into play, and it was glorious. There really didn’t need to be anything else at all in this volume, the chapter or two where he and Luffy first meet is simply amazing. As I said, he’s quite full of himself, so he reacts rather comically when confronted with Luffy’s… natural dominance in their fight. The single best page in the series is probably the unexpected, extremely detailed full-page illustration in the middle of a chapter containing nothing but Eneru’s face making an exaggerated, Looney Tunes-ish expression of shock. Beautiful stuff. I really wish the fight had really been as easy as it first seemed, since it would have been really funny if all that buildup had come to nothing, but now I get to see a little bit more of Eneru and Luffy fighting. Luffy still has to overcome Eneru’s mantra, which was also pretty obviously there simply to stop Luffy from beating him too bad. Luffy’s already come up with a few good ways to combat it, though, so let’s see how that works out.
Exciting stuff. I really can’t ever get enough of this series, and it’s because of storylines like this. Can’t wait for the next volume.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Papillon 3
Posted: December 31, 2009 Filed under: Papillon Leave a comment »Miwa Ueda – Del Rey – 2009 – 7+ volumes
I want to like Papillon. I love Miwa Ueda. But Papillon makes itself very hard to like. Ueda mentions the difficulty in writing it is that she’s trying to convey the problems and misconceptions of high school life along with healthy ways to solve them (hence the counselor character), and I do like that. The problem is that the counselor consents to dating Ageha, which isn’t realistic, and the misconceptions aren’t terribly realistic, either. Ageha freaks out over every little thing, and seeing her bounce around emotional highs and lows and mistrust absolutely everything that Kyu tells her is draining. I liked the positive messages in the first volume, but I liked it far less when I saw Ageha going for the obvious bait of Kyu, and I like it even less now that they are dating.
The evil that is her twin sister Hana is difficult to identify with, too. It’s obvious that Hana, for whatever reason, is obsessed with bringing her sister low, and will do everything in her power to ruin her life (or love life, at least). Convenient that they are identical twins, then, huh? I hated the confrontation between the two where Hana admits she hates Ageha, then spouts off a silly shoujo manga reason and runs off. Bah.
Ueda does try to offer good advice, and again, I respect the series a little for that. But it’s hard to take such advice seriously when everything about the plot and characters is so over-the-top. I’m going to keep reading though, because there’s still something very addictive about it. It’s not nearly as good as Peach Girl, or even most mildly addictive shoujo series, but I still kind of like reading it. A guilty pleasure, I suppose.
Princess Knight 1
Posted: December 31, 2009 Filed under: Princess Knight Leave a comment »Osamu Tezuka – Kodansha – 1999 – 6 volumes
This is a bilingual version published in Japan
I kind of don’t want to write about this here. I only cover work that has been released in the US on this site, since as a young fan I was always frustrated with sites that covered material I didn’t have access to. I hate it when this is included in lists of Tezuka’s work in English, because it wasn’t distributed outside Japan and was never meant for an English-speaking audience, but as an aid for those learning English. It’s extremely hard to come by. My copies are used and weren’t expensive, but I had trouble locating them even in obvious secondhand marketplaces, like the Yahoo Japan auctions. Unfortunately, I thought this was the 2-volume version of Princess Knight from the late ’50s since I could only find listings for the first two volumes. It’s not, it’s the 6-volume remake from the late ’60s (supposedly the superior version). After learning that, I found the listings for the rest, but the later volumes are quite expensive, even used in Japan. Sigh. And the volumes are only a little over 100 pages long! There only needs to be three! Geez.
Anyway, how’s the story? My first tip-off that it wasn’t what I thought was when it started completely different from the segment that I read in Shojo Beat. The first scene takes place in heaven, with a mischevious angel that gives a baby a boy’s heart just before God assigns her a female gender and sends her down to Earth. As punishment, God sends the angel down to fetch her boy’s heart back, but the damage is already done, and the angel simply sits back and watches the girl (named Sapphire) live her life.
It’s exactly like a children’s fairy tale. The characters all have really appropriate and slightly absurd old fairy tale-ish names (Sapphire, Tink the angel, the prince from the neighboring kingdom Franz Charming, King Plastic, Sir Nylon). The plot follows the familiar arc, with an evil uncle that threatens to ursurp Sapphire and make his son king in her stead plotting her downfall while she begins dealing with forbidden feelings for Franz Charming, a boy she can’t marry while she’s pretending to be a prince.
The art goes well with the fairy tale story, too. While it’s not nearly as flowery and ornate as Tezuka’s early shoujo work, it’s still got an adorable, cartoony charm to it, and it does look a lot more controlled than the early work. Some of the costumes look like they were ripped straight from Disney movies (quite literally, I’m pretty sure the palace women’s costumes are taken from Cinderella), and I love Sapphire’s character design. Fun fact: one of the first bits of artwork I saw from a Tezuka comic was the first version of Princess Knight, and I was blown away by how it looked like a cross between Disney and Max Fleischer. After hearing how important he was to the manga industry, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the obvious… homage.
The one interesting difference between Princess Knight and a standard western fairy tale is its themes of gender identity. It’s interesting how such a complex theme is woven into what seems like a simple story. It’s also out-of-place here since it is otherwise such a western story, and such a topic is extremely uncomfortable among a large portion of the western audience (at least Americans, anyway). In the story, the reason given for Sapphire to act like a prince and keep her gender secret is that her cousin Prince Plastic will become king and put the evil Duke Duralmin in a position of power. She makes for a wonderful prince, and not even the Duke’s best efforts unmask her as a princess. Her character design is extremely feminine, however, and it’s no real secret to the reader that Sapphire is a female at any point in the story, which is an interesting choice. By the end of the volume, Sapphire finds herself in a difficult postion in her kingdom, so I’m very curious how the rest of the series will play out.
I enjoy the translation, which is the most literal I have ever read. Again, this wasn’t meant for an English-speaking audience, really, so the literal translation is likely far better for understanding the meaning of what’s being said. The Japanese dialogue is printed around the outside of the panels. The literal translation makes it somewhat difficult to get too absorbed in the story, and is also hilarious in spots. My favorite part is Franz Charming exclaiming “shit!” when he finds himself in prison.
I’ll talk a little more about the pacing in the next volume, but as I said, I’m having a hard time figuring out where this is going, since pretty much everything that I was expecting to happen was undone at the end of this volume. Maybe that means exciting things are in store.
Slam Dunk 2
Posted: December 27, 2009 Filed under: Slam Dunk Leave a comment »Takehiko Inoue – Viz – 2009 – 31 volumes
Oh, Sakuragi. I like Eyeshield 21 much better than this series, but they succeed for the same reason: they both have incredibly entertaining characters. The ones in Eyeshield 21 are more characters in the “euphamism for weirdos” sense than the supporting cast in Slam Dunk, but Hanamichi is better than almost everyone but Haruma, and he’s the main character, which makes up for it. I don’t have that much to say about that, so the rest of this is just me whimsically narrating the volume. Or at least I thought it was whimsical. I try not to do this, usually, since I hate reviews that are just summaries, but all I have to say is that it’s funny. I’ve written six other reviews, so you can read more serious comments, many of which were not made at two in the morning.
This volume resolves his fake running away from the team plotline (which didn’t fool anyone considering there are 30 volumes of basketball left), and we get to see Sakuragi bounce off the walls at a scrimmage between first years and upperclassman. He hates Rukawa, of course, but then does he have to root for Gori? He lives a hard life, and Rukawa makes his lady love Haruko’s eyes turn into hearts, so the hate stands. He gets to play for a few minutes, and he delivers a glorius slam dunk to the top of Gori’s head.
There’s a subplot in the second half of the volume that involves the Judo team (headed by a childhood friend/rival of Gori’s) attempting to recruit Sakuragi. The best part of this is that Sakuragi delivers a firm “no” every time, and then gets to beat up the Judo team. He bonds with the captain and they trade stories about how lame Gori is. Gori watches, and tries to remember these bizarre slights from childhood. It’s pretty funny stuff, and it nearly made me laugh out loud. It’s hard not to root for Sakuragi, with his childlike logic and complete disregard for how uncool everything that comes out of his mouth is. Calling himself a Basketballman is a good example. I can’t tell if this was cool at one time, or if it was supposed to be something else in Japanese, but it’s so uncool, and he says it so seriously, that it fits him perfectly.
And a final note: possibly the best line of the series so far, from the captain of the Judo team about how he will snatch Sakuragi away from the basketball team: “He won’t be satisfied diddling with balls!”
Ahhhh.
Totally Captivated 6
Posted: December 27, 2009 Filed under: Totally Captivated | Tags: BL 3 Comments »Hajin Yoo – Netcomics – 2009 – 6 volumes
I’ll be honest and say the end of this series wasn’t what I had in mind, but was plenty awesome anyway. I think I had imagined a Let Dai-ish ending, with the two fading off into obscurity, but of course Mookyul and Ewon do nothing quietly. The end twists and turns more than any other part of the series, and Mookyul hits several ups and downs and scares Ewon completely out of his mind before all is said and done. And if I was surprised by the eventual outcome, it was pretty consistent with how the characters (or at least Ewon) felt, too.
Mookyul, who would do anything in the world to get back together with Ewon, can’t simply stop at rejecting the chairman, but feels obligated to completely give back the good life he’s given, so he goes back to Ewon with a completely clean slate. Ewon is freaked out, but the two share one of the more intimate scenes in the series. Then more stuff happens (which is more-or-less the theme with this last volume). The conflict that has been simmering with Mookyul’s rival in the organization boils over, and there’s messes on both sides of the fight. It seems like things wrap up nicely… then there’s a whole chapter about Ewon’s parents and how he feels completely alienated from Mookyul. He tries to end things again, which was incredibly frustrating and felt like it was just lengthening the story, but who am I to turn my nose up at good drama? Bah. I liked it. And it provided just a little bit more closure in Mookyul and Ewon’s relationship. Honestly, I would have kept reading if it had kept going, because man, those two are a riot as well as being totally passionate, which is an odd but winning combination.
It’s rare that I am as taken by a series as I was by this one (well, it probably happens a few times a year, but given the volume of stuff I read, it is, relatively speaking, rare). I think Let Dai is still my favorite Korean BL series, but this is certainly a good second place, and still one of the most romantic series I’ve ever read. I like romance, but let me not sell the humor short, or the characters. Ewon’s a funny guy, and once you get to know him, so is Mookyul. The two have the perfect balance and trade just the right number of affectionate barbs that their banter and antics through all six volumes is a joy.
Just… read it, if you’re into romance. It’s only six volumes, and you won’t regret it. And if you’re afraid of the BL, it’s not explicit at all, either. Great stuff.
Baby & Me 3
Posted: December 27, 2009 Filed under: Baby & Me 1 Comment »Marimo Ragawa – Viz – 2006 – 18 volumes
This continues to be the most adorable slice-of-life series money can buy. I’m still not sure if the characters are aging or not, but summer has come and Takuya makes a comment that gives the impression around ten months have passed since volume one, so maybe they will age as the volumes keep going.
This is the spring/summer volume, which includes a summer sports festival and a trip to the beach, along with a two-chapter story about Takuya dealing with a difficult female classmate and one about the beliefs of childhood that has been my favorite story yet.
Minoru is enthralled by a group of sentai/Power Rangers that advertise a washing machine, and he fully believes that they are real. Most of the commentary for the chapter is about how much children idolize and believe in their childhood heroes, in this case sentai, Ultraman, and Doraemon (complete with adorable flashback complete with Takuya being disappointed that Doraemon was waylaid by a favor he promised Nobita). There’s a crushing scene where Minoru accidentally stumbles upon actors playing the parts of the sentai, but Takuya helps him believe again. Heartwarming stuff.
The chapter about a lying female classmate is one of those After School Special stories where the girl gets bullied by classmates for lying, and even Takuya gets angry with her for being confrontational, but nobody has stopped to listen to her side of the story, or considered how much truth she was actually telling. The girl doesn’t help her case very much since she seems to act like a jerk, but everyone gets used to her by the end of the chapter. I liked it, but it was a little baffling, and I was surprised more wasn’t made of her parent’s situation and what a blessing she may have been (or not, I suppose, but I can’t imagine the story bring that up, either).
Absolutely adorable stuff all around, and the strong characters are what makes the series stand so well. I’m definiely getting more volumes, but I think this is the type of series that’s better with a lot of space between volumes. I’m definitely not tired of it after reading the first three together, but I think it is best enjoyed as a casual treat due to the episodic nature.
Happy Boys 1
Posted: December 27, 2009 Filed under: Happy Boys Leave a comment »Makoto Tateno – DokiDoki – 2009 – 1+ volumes
I reviewed this for Manga Recon, so you can check it out over there.
While Happy Boys is certainly a stupid title for a series, and I fear bad BL books like the plague (most of the truly negative reviews I’ve written have gone to BL books that have deserved it), this one wasn’t bad. I liked it, even though it was sort of light and insubstantial. It’s a slice-of-life volume with nice stories, though I didn’t get into the characters as much as I would have liked.
Also, it’s not even close to being BL, though the entire thing reads like it really should be. Seriously. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and for one guy to get into someone else’s pants the entire time, and it just never happened. Bravo, Happy Boys.
Ral Ω Grad 4
Posted: December 26, 2009 Filed under: Ral Ω Grad Leave a comment »Tsuneo Takano / Takeshi Obata – Viz – 2008 – 4 volumes
I’ll be honest: I kind of liked this series. It was easy to follow, and I liked all the gimmicks of what was going on. I also liked that it was complete in four volumes, even though it was pretty obvious that the ending was being rushed. The five special shadows were discussed, but the Black Rhino shows up without even a user, the Phoenix part was condensed, and the Clear Human appeared with almost no preamble whatsoever. Plus, a powerful opponent from last volume was killed off-screen with barely a mention.
I liked Ral quite a bit in the end, too. He was a pretty typical Shounen Jump hero, but I liked his upbeat-ness, and I liked that he was able to think for himself in the end. I also liked that the final battle really was just the two powerful shadows, and the lesser fighters had nothing to do with anything that went on in that castle.
The ultimate outcome of the fight was unexpected, and pretty great, as well. Grad seemed to have less will and personality than the Tiger or Phoenix, but he did have a stronger bond with his human, and I got a big kick out of that last page, where their friendship was more important than romance.
Amazingly, the series makes breast jokes, but only in passing. There is no gag to go with them, it is just a fact that Ral likes to fondle breasts, apparently. This is never shown, or mentioned in any sort of joking context. It is only mentioned. And I loved it a little more for its deadpan breast humor.
It’s still probably only a C from me, but I did like it quite a bit. Still only had unremarkable characters and plot, but I liked what it was doing enough that I’ll probably pick up the first two volumes sometime in the future.
Also, I got a big kick out of the explanation that the symbol in the title was just a cool thing to separate the two names. It wasn’t meant to be pronounced, and the writer had no idea what it was when he first used it. He called it the omega symbol at first (which is what I’m using here), but said he later found out it was a dragonhead symbol, used in astrology/astronomy. I got a big kick out of this, and it took me longer than I thought to verify, but yes. The curved ends of the upside down “u” make it a caput draconis, the symbol for the ascending north lunar node. Bah. Not worth the time I put into looking it up, but still amusing.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 20
Posted: December 26, 2009 Filed under: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 7 Comments »CLAMP – Del Rey – 2008 – 28 volumes
While I am still enjoying this, I realized the problem with the last few volumes has been that it has ceased to tell the story and is merely explaining to the reader what is happening. Ame pointed this out in the comments, but one of the reasons I gave up on this the first time I was reading was that every volume really is an information dump. The characters will do something cryptic, and then Yuko will show up to explain what just happened. I’m following along pretty well, and I realize the story isn’t very well-suited to this, but it would be much better if… I don’t know, maybe the characters were shown actually doing things, rather than just having Yuko tell us about things that they’ve done in the past, or tell us about what’s going on behind the scenes that, for whatever reason, the reader isn’t privy to when the scene played out just a few chapters before.
For instance, instead of the seal in “Syaoran’s” eye shattering and pulling the real Syaoran through for no reason, then having “Syaoran” go on a rampage, perhaps it would have been better for the travelers to stumble upon Syaoran in a world, discuss the implication of this, maybe be given some explanation or warning about the seal breaking before it actually happens, and then going through the big battle and the rest of it. That’s still pretty cryptic stuff, and I realize that the best thing going for the series right now is the fast pace and action, but it would be a lot clearer.
This volume starts with an explanation of the cryptic Sakura business. While I understand what is going on, I’m not even going to pretend that it’s clear or makes for an easy read. I’m very troubled by all this exposition and this sudden downturn in mood, which makes all the characters do things that are extremely out-of-character. Sigh.
A big chunk of the next part is an explanation of Fai’s past. This follows all sorts of cryptic business about his magic and curses and lies and whatnot. I still like Fai best, but he definitely crosses the teaser line and ventures into confusingly vague territory for stuff we are and are not told about him. Again, the story about his childhood makes things clearer, but I nearly ripped my hair out trying to figure out what was going on because DAMMIT HE HAS A TWIN AND APPARENTLY TOOK ON HIS NAME? WHAT. That does not help tell a coherent story. Also annoying is the fact that a big part of the… theme of their story is the fact that the two don’t know much about what’s going on in the country (being completely innocent and guilty of simply being born), and consequently, neither does the reader. Great.
Now that the group is in Seresu and following up a plot element that’s been laid out since the beginning, I’m hoping the story will start moving forward and we won’t need any more of these Yuko Fireside Chats. Whatever. I thought that last volume too, but then Sakura had to go and do all this complicated business because she’s a dreemseer now… I weep, but understand.
Let me talk myself through this a little, just so that I have notes and can keep everything clear. In other words, here are some VERY CLEARLY MARKED SPOILERS.
Spoiler…
Spoiler…
Spoiler…
Spoiler…
This explanation is not short, but it is written out in the most logical way I can manage.
Okay, so the feather Sakura got back in the X apocalypse kingdom contained some of her magical powers, specifically the ability to see the future in dreams. With this power, she saw that, at the end of the Chess/Layer Battle tournament, she would gain a feather containing more of her magical power, and this would trigger a curse that had been put on Fai. The curse states that if Fai ever comes across a magician more powerful than himself, he will kill them (there’s a total BS explanation as to why the curse didn’t trigger when he met Yuko). In the dream, Fai killed Sakura, then slayed Syaoran and Kurogane, then killed himself. To prevent this from happening, Sakura asked Yuko for a wish. She wished for the power to travel dimensions by herself, partly to escape that gruesome future, and partly to be in a place that “Syaoran” would eventually be. Her fee for this wish was her good luck (given to her for being a daughter blessed by the Gods and the one thing protecting her from a lot of harm the whole series, ie those races a few volumes back) and the use of the leg she injured last volume.
When they finally win the tournament, Sakura is awarded the prize, which is the persocom Freya. Freya can take Sakura to one world, not of her choosing, and is also made out of one of her feathers. When Sakura is given Freya, Freya resonates with Chi/Elda, the persocom that Fai made in Seresu before he left, and Elda appears in front of Sakura. Elda is made out of another of Sakura’s feathers. Coincidentally, both feathers contain the rest of Sakura’s magical powers. In one of the most cryptic scenes of the series, Elda, Freya, and Sakura float in midair, linking three dimensions together (the current world, Seresu, and the one that Sakura wants to travel to). Sakura absorbs the two feathers and gains all her magic back, thus triggering Fai’s curse, so Fai stabs her. This causes her soul to separate from her body, and her body is pulled to Seresu with Elda and her soul to the world of Dreams, where Sakura wanted to go in order to wait for “Syaoran.”
Deep breath. Kurogane stops Fai from hurting himself and others, and Yuko shows up to explain all this to the reader. Fai wants to go and get Sakura’s body from Seresu, and offers to pay the price for his wish with the vision in his one remaining eye. The others stop him, and they all four decide to go together, the price being their winnings from the Chess Layer tournament (notably, Sakura had lied to the others about wanting to win the tournament to get this money in order to restore the world “Syaoran” had laid to waste, when what she really wanted was Freya. The money came in handy anyway, because there is no coincidence, only hitsuzen).
Deep breath. Fai had lied about a great many things, including the extent of his magical power (he has enough magic to travel the worlds by himself, without Yuko’s help), not knowing anything about the feathers (he had brought one with him to the meeting with Yuko, and lied about pulling it off Syaoran), and even his name. Nobody holds this against him. In Seresu, the entire land has been laid to waste. There is not a soul alive anywhere. The four make their way to the castle we saw in volume one, where Ashura-ou is waiting for them (he looks like Yasha-ou, but Fai calls him Ashura-ou. Perhaps he is Ashura’s father?). Ashura-ou is in possession of Fai’s long-dead twin brother… er, Fai.
Cut to a flashback. Two twins are born, Fai and Yui. The birth of the twins trigger a lot of bad luck for the kingdom, death, famine, all sorts of nasty stuff. So the two are banished to a valley of purgatory where time stops, the two remain ageless and bodies don’t rot. Eventually Yui goes insane and Fai wishes for death in order to save his kingdom. Eventually, they become the only living people in the world, cursed to remain forever in the purgatory.
Enter Fei Wang Reed. He tells Yui that there are other worlds, but that only one of the twins can live if the other is to escape. Yui asks that it be him (I think, he’s referring to himself in the third person here, which is kind of weird), and Fai is hurled from the top of the tower and killed, with the promise that someone will show up and take him away, and that by going with him, he’ll be able to bring Fai back to life. Enter Ashura-ou. He comes to take Yui away in order to grant his own (unspoken) wish. Yui lies and tells him his name is Fai, and goes with him.
For the price of valuing his life above his twin, currentFai is cursed with the spell that made him stab Sakura, and another, unspoken curse. For whatever reason, Ashura-ou has the still-living body of pastFai and is torturing him with it. So now we know that Fai has been traveling with the group, perhaps to stay away from Ashura-ou, but also because Fei Wang Reed promised him it would lead to the resurrection of his twin. Notably, Fai stabbing Sakura at that moment in the story was the first serious deviation from Fei Wang Reed’s master plan, as he had planned to have Fai stab Syaoran when he got his magical powers back later, or perhaps Yuko, on the off chance she was unaware of the curse and did not guard against it at the beginning of the journey. For what it’s worth.
Whew. On to the next volume.
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 19
Posted: December 26, 2009 Filed under: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 3 Comments »CLAMP – Del Rey – 2008 – 28 volumes
The Hikaru doll blew my mind. Wasn’t expecting it, but probably should have given the fact they were fighting in the layer and all. Plus, you know, Eagle Vision and Hikaru Shido are totally OTP. The only thing that could have made that better was if somehow, it was Icchan that transported them between dimensions. That would have worked on a lot of weird levels, especially if he had shown up in addition to what actually happened. And then claimed he was Fei Wang Reed. That would’ve been so tight.
Anyway. This volume throws a few random curveballs our way. I’m pretty sure I understood pretty much everything that was going on, but even still, these curveballs felt a little over-dramatic and unnecessary. The first one, dealing with Sakura, seemed completely unnecessary and against the spirit of what has been going on post-clone Syaoran, even given her justification for doing it. The second curveball was just brutal, and we’ve hurt Fai enough already. I know we’ve got more punishment to dish out to him later, and we’ve only really touched the tip of the Fai iceburg, but that double-page spread is still one of the biggest shockers in the series. I mean, there’s just absolutely no reason for it. Poor Fai.
There’s lots of little touches to develop Fai’s character in this volume. Both Sakura and Kurogane give indications that they don’t like it when he hides everything and pretends things are peachy, and we also begin to see his world creeping in since… well, the thng he asks for is starting to happen.
I still like Sakura’s luck. That’s a pretty nifty plot element, even if it’s something we may never see or hear about again. Apparently… she got what she wanted? I had a hard time wrapping my brain around the three dimensions being mentioned. There was… Freya and Elda at work, one was in a different dimension, and one was in the dimension that the story is currently taking place in. Since Sakura was using Freya, there was a partial third dimension being drawn in while Freya and Elda were resonating? Hopefully that didn’t spoil anything, but it always helps to talk these things out for me. Hopefully it’ll make sense to others later, as well.
