Basara 17

Shuri was just spooky in this volume.  Sarasa dealt with her demons last time, but it looks like Shuri hasn’t yet.  It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking.  The two sort of meet up, but don’t talk face-to-face.  Shuri is a slave now, and is sort of dropped in the middle of these people that he may have put in this position himself.  Shuri refuses to accept help from Tatara to free the slaves, and a man who recognizes him suggests this is because he is bitter about losing.  I’m… not sure if Shuri is bitter or not.  Shuri’s inner struggle is only depicted through his actions.  While he can still take charge, and is definitely more sympathetic and tolerant of people, I don’t know how he feels about Sarasa.

The plot to free the above slaves is awesome, and is tied into a public humiliation for King Ukon.  The slaves are working on a giant Buddha statue, and are set to be buried with the statue as it is publicly unveiled.  Tatara and Kikune work on a sabotage while the Purple Lady and her escort are in town and help Tatara’s plan by delivering materials for the statue as gifts.

The trick itself is magnificent, and it’s great how Kikune and Tatara do the preliminary work and have all the slaves help out.  Shuri’s way of working among the slaves is also quite amazing, and he helps everyone escape in his own way.  He is subdued though, and you can see that he’s having trouble dealing with the change in perspective when he finds himself among opressed people who want the change Tatara is offering them, as opposed to the protection of a king.

Later, there are assassins.  I’m not sure how serious this is as of yet, but it looks like this will be a thread for future volumes.  I’m actually far interested in what Shuri will get up to from here, and how he will deal with… well, himself.

Basara 16

One of my favorite lines so far was delivered in this volume.  Asagi says something like “Yes, Shuri, I hate you.  I’ve always hated you.  You live your life by kicking people down.  And then you don’t even remember the faces of those you kicked.”  Truer words have never been spoken in a manga, I think, given the fact that this whole situation would have been avoided if Shuri had bothered to look at Tatara’s face when he was in Byakko Villiage.

Tatara deals with a lot of rage in this volume.  It sort of comes from nowhere, and I had a hard time grasping the whole metaphorical thrust of what was happening here.  A white tiger appears in such-and-such region, the white tiger is Byakko, acting through Tatara?  Except this is a bad thing, because it means that Tatara is acting in violence without thinking, which is not what she wants to be doing.  A situation brought about by a broken heart, I guess.  It just seems… weird that being possessed by Byakko, presumably the spirit of the weapon you wield and the villiage you grew up in, could be a bad thing.

But a few new characters pop in, including the rather fun Kasane/Kikune from last volume and the Purple Lady, wife of the Black King.  She doesn’t seem like a bad person, but you never can tell in this series, since people seem very likely to stab you in the back.  Tatara is trying to work out a truce with her in order to get the Black King to stop assaulting the northern region she just allied with, but she’s not really having it since Tatara’s got that whole Byakko/rage thing this time around.

I knew immediately when I saw Tamon again.  I didn’t know what his name was, but I remembered him from before.  I was confused when nobody else in the story seemed to recognize him, since it literally clicked right away.  He’s pretty cool, actually, and I like that his sword has better uses than, say, the Byakko sword.

Another character reappeared at the end of the volume, too.  I was wondering what happened to her, since it seemed weird that she literlly vanished without a trace after all that hoopla.

Basara 15

So here it is.  I’ve been reading 15 volumes for this moment.  Like I said, it came a bit earlier than I imagined.  I imagined it being a huge face-off at the end of the book.  Asagi is apparently satisfied with this reveal, though.

Before that, we also get a great abstract shoujo sex scene, something else I’ve been waiting for these 15 volumes.  I was glad when Sarasa decided this was something she wanted to do, because very rarely is this a concrete decision made by a shoujo heroine.  And I’m happy to see it at such a critical time.  Bit of a shame it powered both Tatara and the Red King eagerly into battle, though.

The scene itself is wonderfully done.  Both are in denial, confusion abounds, there is a double page spread and some more wonderful use of composition before and after the realization.  Not only is it a powerful moment, it is a powerful moment that is just incredible to look at again and again.

Shuri takes drastic measures.  Intervention comes from a surprising source who seems sore about it.

The rest of this volume is just depressing.  Not even a healthy and extra-long dose of Ageha can lift things out of the funk they’ve fallen into.  The knife is twisted even more by generous use of happy flashbacks between Shuri and Sarasa.  Ageha seems rather disgusted with the whole thing, and washes his hands of things in time for Kasane to intervene.  Kasane sticks around, is only a little two-faced, and makes for a really great friend for Sarasa since they are both the same age.

Let’s not make light of Ageha’s scenes, though.  He gets a lot of things off his chest.  Things I was wondering if he would say all this time, and just feel… well, a little wrong in this situation.  They are more genuine for coming during the vacuum, I suppose.

Basara 14

All right, one more for tonight, just so that my Basara review backlog doesn’t get overwhelming.

This volume had some insane tension running through it.  The entire thing is just building up to the confrontation between Shuri and Sarasa.  I didn’t actually think it would happen this early in the series, but in this volume, you can feel it.  You know it won’t just be a tease this time.  It will happen, and soon, Asagi or no Asagi.

Renko and Hozumi have an unusually dramatic relationship.  Certainly death and suffering are no strangers to Basara, but there have been any number of times that I felt I was cheated out of a character death (Chacha and Zaki, Nachi in the next few volumes, Hayato and the characters that went north with him).  I… just figured that it would happen again.  But these two are literally tortured far worse than anyone else yet, I think.  It’s pretty horrible, and they aren’t really rewarded for their trouble, either.

I mentioned last volume that Shuri could find no allies in his former kingdom, and now that he’s back in his capitol, he also finds that all his former soldiers have fled since they fear his wrath after their coup d’etat.  He openly voices his doubts about his former style of ruling in fear.  He gets a lot back after losing his kingdom, but I sort of wondered at this point if he would be allowed to keep it since his policies were still haunting him.

The scene where Nakijin and Nachi both look at each other and imagine a pineapple is priceless.  No words are used, just a little drawing of a pineapple.  It’s perfect.  The technique is used again later.

Shuri and Sarasa very nearly come face to face thanks to Shuri’s weasely former aide.  Actually, Sarasa does get a good look at Shuri, but quickly puts her fears out of her mind.  Before this, all the circumstantial evidence that she’s been presented with linking Shuri and the Red King could be easily dismissed.  Shuri showing up when she was expecting the Red King?  Not so much.  Shuri doesn’t see her, though.  You know he would have made a beeline for her and slapped that old man silly for even suggesting that Sarasa and Tatara were the same person if he had.

The epic end to this battle has Tatara’s armies and the army of the Red King going head-to-head.  Tatara has the Red King ridiculously outnumbered, and it would be an easy win… save for the fact there are some strategies in play, the townspeople turn against them when the water supply is inadvertently cut off forever, and… well, nature turns against everybody.  You know how these types of battles are.

There’s a great scene very near the end where it shows both the Red King and Tatara surveying what a mess things have become and both coming to the realization that they’ve lost sight of their goal.  The last page of this volume was a serious cliffhanger, especially given what Sarasa had resolved to do next time she saw Shuri.

Basara 13

Yeah.  So I stopped to eat dinner, then read another volume of Basara.  I won’t talk about all of them tonight soas not to flood my front page with Basara reviews.  I’ll try to mix them in with other things tomorrow.

I had sort of guessed who Earth Bear was, so I wasn’t all that into the twist at the end of the prison segment.  I did like seeing Sarasa take care of Asagi like that, though.  He certainly does have his moments.

I liked that Matsunaga was actually a young guy under his mask, though.  I guess he just wears it to instill fear in the hearts of his enemies.  It doesn’t seem to work that well on Tatara.  The scene between him Tamon was pretty awesome, where Tamon complains that he still stinks after being in prison all that time, and Matsunaga tells him he always stinks and that’s why he never found a wife.  It’s not a very good joke, but it made me laugh all the same.

Ageha’s just awesome, too.  You have to wonder about his background as a slave.  He’s said before he wanted to kill Shido since he was the son of his abusive master, yet he didn’t, and he was really more of Shido’s friend.  But you’re not sure if maybe he was just biding his time.  Here, he takes abuse from both prisoners and the guards, and yet brushes both off as necessities and forgives everyone in the end.  Perhaps he’s setting a good example for things to come.

Shuri is also an interesting character.  I think he’s starting to see that what he was doing as the Red King was bad.  Bad enough that when he tries to take his throne, he is having problems convincing people he should have it back.  And actually, the only reason people may have been rooting for him was because King Ukon’s representative was much worse than Shuri ever was.

There’s an awesome scene were Asagi averts disaster for a little while longer.  Supposedly for his own reasons, but it certainly would have gone badly in the city if he had not intervened.

The infiltration of Suo City was quite good, both on Shuri’s side and Tatara’s.  I actually quite enjoyed Tatara’s scare tactics.  The two people she runs into and gets on her side are pretty awesome, just like every other character in this series.  I have no idea how it is I can’t bring myself to hate anyone in this series.  They’re all really great and serve their own individual purposes so well.  In this case, there’s a woman who runs a newspaper to keep the people of Suo City informed despite the fact she goes against the government to do so, and the artist who fights without violence to keep the city from being razed by the new ruler.

Things get really intense in this volume, and sort of keep going at an extremely fast pace through volume 15.

Basara 12

I really enjoy the covers of these books, too.  I’m a big fan of wraparound images, which I believe every volume has.  This one is one of my favorites, I love that image of Sarasa sitting inside a giant monster’s ribcage.

King Ukon’s family continues to expand.  I’ve read ahead of this volume, but so far, it seems like King Ukon has at least three sons (the Red, Blue, and Black Kings).  For some reason, I was under the impression that the Black King was King Ukon until volume 15 or 16.  Here in this prison, King Ukon’s younger brother rules, and his son, Shuri’s cousin, is head of the four guards.  I thought that what the the four guards called each other (Fire Fox, Water Deer, etc) were just titles, but apparently they are the actual names?

Also, the whole reveal about the place being run by children that couldn’t escape is total nonsense.  I can’t even wrap my brain around that.  Maybe I misunderstood what was going on.

The escape is well-orchestrated and involves a lot of Ageha, Nachi, the guy with the Genbu sword, some epic hot spring sources, and some backstabbing, which is an ever-present element in this series.  Asagi does it yet again, except he turns around again in the end.  He would be two-faced, except he only seems to be on his own side.  Why does Tatara trust him again?  I guess because he keeps pulling off these incredible feats and whatnot.  Maybe he is doing it to help her, I don’t know.

The virtue that winds up running into Nachi and helping him out was pretty awesome.  I figured all of those guys were just as twisted as Asagi, but maybe it’s just Umewaka that’s sort of evil.  At this point, I’ve read far enough ahead that Kikune is introduced, another virtue, and she’s just plain awesome.

I also liked the different blocks the prison was broken up into.  I wasn’t entirely clear why the prisoners were made to mine in block A, or what the purpose of having the prisoners hooked on smack in block B was, but I liked that the crazy got a block of his own.  I also liked the complex network of hot springs, water, and the balance of the hot spring sources and the cold winter outside.  It’s clear that a lot of thought went into designing the prison and working out all sorts of obstacles and stuff for the characters to run across.

But seriously.  Children?  Fire Fox?

Basara 11

Okay, I’m on a serious Basara kick.  I just sat down and read five volumes in a row.  I don’t get to enjoy series like this very much since I normally buy everything as it comes out.  Reading this all at once is fantastic since I don’t have to worry about cliffhangers.  I only have to worry about my tendency to flip ahead to find out how important plot threads resolve themselves.  I need to stop this.

Anyway.  I really liked the portrayal of the North as this hostile, mystic place.  Setting the scene with a boat strewn with blood and animal carcasses, devoid of its passengers was a great way to kick things off.  I also liked the weird obstacle course-test trail that Tatara and company had to go through to even get into the country.  It was sort of unexpected, and I love that all these areas have such distinctive personalities, so to speak.

One of the best scenes in the series so far is where Tatara and company were fleeing the mythical creatures, with the ally back on the ship describing his nightmarish trial in the country to reinforce everything that was happening.  Then Tatara just… stopped it by talking sense into everyone.  It was fantastic.  Her character is always very female, so I often forget that she’s the leader of this huge rebellion and is tougher than most people.

The prison scenes… yeah.  Ageha has it rough, and his devotion is quite touching, as is his nonchalance about everything that’s happened.  I do like the way the prison is organized with its four leaders and their maps, though, and I like that one of the generals looks so much like Shuri.  Makes you wonder what King Ukon must look like, with genes strong enough that two cousins look identical.

I also got a kick out of Nachi’s rescue mission.  He’s just awesome every time he appears.

And that bonus story in the back of the volume.  It screams “Please pay no attention to the fact we just revealed who this person’s identity is!  It’s totally NOT who we just said!  Ignore us!”

Basara 10

There’s some pretty epic battles in this volume.  Sarasa tries to hold off the assassins in the cave with the president, which proves to be a much more difficult task than it should be.  Then she randomly hops on Unten’s ship to try and stop him before he takes out Shuri’s ship, who’s been sailing under the pretext of being a ghost ship with the dead Red King on it.

Aside from Unten, both men need to worry about the Japanese Navy, which shows up off the coast of Okinawa after Unten’s assassination attempts fall through.  This doesn’t change Unten’s desire to take down Shuri, nor does it worry Shuri in the least, since he decides to take out the head ship and recruit his men back to his side.  He is only mildly successful until the European Navy shows up.

Shuri’s a clever boy, actually.  Both he and Sarasa.  Both feel the need to spill their guts to someone about the secrets they keep from others.  In Shuri’s case, he’s worried about telling Sarasa he’s the Red King, and in Sarasa’s case, she’s worried about telling her followers that she’s not really Tatara.

Sarasa’s problem seems less worrisome to me since it’s not actually Tatara the groups are following, but Sarasa.  Sarasa did something impressive to win each and every one of them over, and really only worked under false pretexts when she invoked her brother’s name in her home villiage to try and rally the people away from the slaughter with hope.  It just seems like she should have more pride in what she’s done.  And the person she confides in is right, anyone who gives up on her because she lied about her name is probably not worth having around anyway.  She should be worried about telling Shuri what she’s done, I think.

There’s a little more Shuri/Sarasa at the end of the volume, which I was not expecting.  The scene of the two of them on the bridge is quite lovely, but the scene that made the entire volume for me was the tantrum Shuri threw after he realized Sarasa had slipped off again.  Their devotion to one another amidst all these other things that they’re trying to accomplish is quite touching.

Also, Ageha is awesome, as always.  I know he meant to teach Tatara a lesson when he brought Senju to take care of, but the way he points out to him that there is no war where only one side is completely in the wrong is just awesome.  Tatara takes it to heart, but Senju doesn’t.  Senju is not at all happy with the arrangement.  I can’t tell if she’s going to stay or not.

Basara 9

YES.  The reunion happens here.  It isn’t quite what I imagined, but to make up for it, Shuri carries Sarasa into the ocean, dumps her, and then there’s a gloriously shoujo two-page spread of them hugging out in the waves.

I really, really love the art in this series.  I believe its vintage is early-mid 90s, and there are certain elements of 90s manga art in it, but I think there is nobody who can draw like Yumi Tamura.  I’m not even sure how to describe it… she uses a ton of screentone and just LAYERS of stuff.  There’s not a lot of detail, but there’s a lot going on in every panel.  Her linework is also insanely intricate and fluid.  I don’t think I commented on it before, but I really should have.

The first part of the volume details the political climate in Okinawa, along with a massive plot to turn the country over to Japan in exchange for the opportunity to rule over it.  This probably makes the guy setting up said plot one of the eviler characters that have appeared in the series, especially since his brother is such a nice guy.  Anyway, this plot involves drugging bulls, and then firing an arrow at the current president in the ensuing chaos.  I have to say, the bull thing is a new element to the assassination plots I’ve read.

Shuri sort of gets his second wind when he meets up with Sarasa, too, and Sarasa realizes Okinawa’s society is exactly what she wants to have for Japan.  Shuri tries out a few clever tricks and then sails off to battle, Sarasa foils some clever tricks and stays behind to do battle.  Their parting this time feels much better, and I think I can deal with the separation.  At least for a few volumes.

Clearly there is something very specific I want out of this series.  I like it because, while it is an extremely girly romance, there’s also no guarantee that they will be together in the end, which is not very characteristic of most shoujo series I read.  They could very well wind up killing each other, which would also be kind of interesting.

Basara 8

I was a bit sad this afternoon, since 7 was my last volume of Basara on hand and I didn’t even get any Shuri/Sarasa scenes.  I was pleased to find a fresh supply when I got home.  So pleased, in fact, that I read the next two volumes back-to-back, something I never do unless the series is excellent.  Basara is.

Alas, my Shuri/Sarasa thirst was not quenched in this volume.  I was teased right up to the very end with a reunion, and then it got pushed back to the next volume.  Literally, I was hoping for it right up to the last page.

Lots of other things happen that satisfy me, though.  The final outcome of the battle with the Red King at the shrine comes.  I’m not entirely clear on Shuri’s motives here.  I understand he was after his General, who he percieved as a traitor for sheltering Tatara’s mother.  Except he kept coming up with excuses as to why he shouldn’t attack.  Then he kept attacking, saying that it was an assault to flush out Tatara and all his forces.  I… guess he was targeting King Ukon?  Except King Ukon was aware of what was going on and was in no danger.  Perhaps he just wanted to destroy things.

This goes badly for him.  Very badly.  The second half of the volume seems to be an Asagi-engineered plot to oust and kill him.  It doesn’t quite succeed, but it does put Shuri in a very bad spot.  Very bad.  Shuri has no friends, and his calls for Sarasa wake her up in time to see that she is being assaulted.

Or not to see, since she’s damaged her eyes and has to keep them covered until she can see a special doctor, the man who taught Nagi.

Who happens to be in Okinawa.  Good thing Shuri winds up as a farmer in Okinawa!

The end.