Shaman Warrior, vols. 1-5 (Park Joong-Ki)

[chomiji]

Shaman warriors have the ability to transform their bodies in various ways, making them formidable war machines. As this series opens, a legendary shaman, Yarong, meets his death under circumstances that seem highly suspicious to his servant, the massive fighter Batu. Batu swears to defend his master's child, Yaki, but he soon finds this far more difficult than he expected: shaman warriors are being hunted down and killed, with the circumstances of Yarong's death being twisted to provide an excuse. Batu at last decides he must take desperate measures to ensure that little Yaki survives and becomes able to defend herself.

Thus far, this is playing out like an almost gender-blind shounen/seinen adventure. There are more male characters than female characters (especially in the first volume), but the female characters we've encountered thus far are fighting, doing magic, and adventuring along with the men. These female characters are also generally drawn with reasonable bustlines and amazingly modest clothing. The story includes betrayal, loyalty beyond the grave, a variety of non-romantic attachments (siblings, master-servant, parent-child, team mates, etc.), and complex politics. The artwork is gorgeous, illustration rather than cartoon, along the lines of Inoue's work on Vagabond and Samura's work on Blade of the Immortal (and when we do encounter grotesques, they're all the more unnerving because they're so well-drawn).

Oh, and telophase? Batu the Destroyer traveling with little Yaki is just your kind of thing!

Shaman Warrior, vols. 1-5 (review)

(FYI - that's teenaged Yaki in the icon.)

OK ... wild theories time. The Mr. and I don't think Yarong was Yaki's father. We think Yarong was Yaki's mother.

This may sound like total crack - after all, we have a number of pictures of bare-chested Yarong in vol. 1, and that's a totally masculine-looking torso, very much in the realistic mode: not tapered and bishie-ish, but compactly muscled and slightly stocky. But think about how Yarong has a tiny baby, and Batu keeps urging him to take it easy because "you can't fight anymore. Your body can't take it" and the General who sends Yarong off on his fatal mission apologizes that he had to "inform you of this while your body is still changing," and then later this same General thinks of Yarong with this statement:"I have plucked the most beautiful flower in all Kugai ... ."

I guess only time will tell.

Park gets a little weird with names: there is a character called Genji (female, and supposedly Batu's sister) and another called Aragorn (the tattooed warlord of a clan that's being forced out by the General). Genji is a lot of fun - frankly outspoken, a skilled fighter, and a master of disguise. Aragorn's a pretty good character too, but I keep twitching every time I read that name ... .

Yaki's experiences in the Butcher Camps are all too realistic, except in one area, and I think Park is actually to be commended for not going for the sexual angle in most of what happens to her. I also like how Yatilla gives her a reason to go on and be strong. He's a very promising character, and I hope we'll see more of him.

My only regret thus far is that Yarong was killed off so soon. He was just my sort of character.

Comments

[chomiji]

I just didn't think much of myself when I was little or an adolescent - being someone else seemed preferable.

My early girl crushes - I think I mentioned this - were a whole series of brown-short-haired wiry tomboyish girls (actually, I think Marian "the girl with the dogs" in The Horse Without a Head was blonde, but she fit in every other way): Goth of Karres, Dido Twite in Joan Aiken's AU England historical fantasies, Petrova Fossil in Ballet Shoes (she wanted to be a mechanic or a pilot), and Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. You'll notice that none of them were the fancy-dress type ... .

;-)

So I guess it's not too surprising that later on, I admired Annie Lennox' boyish gender-bending look.

[chomiji]

We really make a sort of bizarre Mutt-and-Jeff, not-quite-butch--not-really-femme duo, don't we? It confounds so many of the expectations ... my being the more maternal one, for example.

I remember Mara, vaguely. I ought to see whether the Young Lady would cough up our copies of Sally Watson's historical novels for you to borrow. I'm not sure why I didn't glom onto the heroines of those more ... I recall liking Kelpie in Witch of the Glens, and she has similar moments to Mara's when she's temporarily taken into a wealthy household, but I didn't secretly wish I were her, the way I did with the gamine brigade.

[chomiji]

What, you mean there are official names for these stereotypes? Where can I educate myself about this?

XD

The Watsons are fun - she has a taste for gentle snark that's enjoyable. The books are sometimes anvil-y - Jade, in particular, gets up on a soap box about women's rights and roles, and equality for non-white races. But it has pirates! Slightly sanitized pirates (no frigging in the rigging), but pirates, nonetheless.

I sometimes think hurt/comfort goes farther back than that for most of us - all too often, being hurt or sick was probably the only way most of us got attention as kids.

[chomiji]

Heh, so if I'd swung the other way entirely I'd be a Granola Lesbian. That figures - the neighborhood is full of them (although the ones across the street with the two little boys moved to Bethesda last year). I'm really not seriously obsessed with the health food stuff enough to be a good one, though.

I never seem to get the kind of fussing over in person that I want, but online seems to be working out fairly well for giving me a goodly portion of what I need ... . I think my mother got overwhelmed by her emotions about my neediness when I was sick or hurt - I've felt it myself with Caroline sometimes - so I didn't get what I wanted and was too self-denigrating to think of demanding it.

The first time I remember coming across hurt/comfort was during the Batman movie of my childhood: Robin takes a bullet in the foot and Batman has to take it out ... my first slashy moment! (Although I didn't realize it until 20 years or more later.) There's also a lovely sequence in Rumer Godden's children's book The Diddakoi, which is about a young Romany orphan and how she eventually finds a - somewhat unconventional - family, where seven-year-old Kizzy is convalescing from pneumonia, and the description of what enticing little bits of food she's given, and the coal fire in the old nursery where she's staying, and how the kind old Admiral whose house it is comes to visit her every morning ... .

[chomiji]

Hee, I should try it again. I may have fallen victim to the bane of any poll - selecting the answers I thought I ought to select. Certainly the definitions that I just found online for those two seem much more the thing, you're quite right.

I think you have rec'ced the Holmes slash thing, but I never read much of the originals ... my bias against 19th-century lit coming out again. I was such a fraud as an English major.

[chomiji]

You know, good point - I love Kipling! So maybe I ought to try some Doyle ... .

Even if I wanted to, I've become too soft and cuddly-looking to try to be tough, I think! (Despite my Rosie the Riverter forearms.)

[chomiji]

I should probably try The White Company, then. Maybe I'll see about snagging a paperback for the trip!

I was more butchlike in high school, when I was helping my dad with the garden and the aquarium and working the lighting board at stage crew!