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

[avierra.livejournal.com]

I like the Rachel Morgan books too. (Hey, we're breaking Chomiji's layout ;) ) Sookie is less urban fantasy than Rachel though. Have you read the Dante Valentine urban stuff? Not to pimp my own journal, but I wrote about the series when the last book came out: http://avierra.livejournal.com/23839.html

Rachel is more comparable to Dante, but Rachel is MUCH more likeable than Dante, and she also whines a lot less. When Rachel fucks up she admits it and moves on, and doesn't wallow in the existential angst of it all. Dante features a demon lover too, a total alpha male type (the reasons for which were explained during the series. BUT. I dunno, I am not down with the alpha male thing so much (If I had to live with one, either me or him or both of us would end up dead).

But Sookie is a vamp-ho, and I guess she's getting more involved with Eric over the course of the series, so we'll see how that plays out.

As far as Detective Inspector Chen, I am madly in love. Zhu Irzh isn't exactly like Gojyo, it's more the way he thinks about things, and his reluctant and inconvenient conscience (especially for a demon who is a relatively high-ranking police officer in the Vice squad: that is, he is charged with the promotion and spreading of Vice :D), and his sense of humor and viewpoint. He isn't broken like Gojyo is on his bad days (although Zhu Irzh does have mommy issues, haha). There are three books out, and one that was supposed to be out, but which is now backordered, dammit >:(

http://tinyurl.com/6yxwre

[chomiji]

It's not hardly a discussion if you don't break my layout!

That sounds like a really fascinating series.

Are either of you familiar with Barry Hughart's series about Master Li and Number Ten Ox? The first one, Bridge of Birds, is one of the most perfect fantasies - in its way - I've ever read. The sequels aren't quite as good. (If BoB is an A or A+ book, The Story of the Stone is a B- and Eight Skilled Gentlemen is a B+.)

[chomiji]

I think you'll really love them, although there is virtually no romance to ship, despite Number 10 Ox's frequent boyish crushes.

[avierra.livejournal.com]

So Sookie does end up getting closer to Eric in later books? I've been reading them sort of out of order as I get my hands on them, so I'm not troubling myself much with spoiler avoidance; how things happen is an interesting as what happens, here, and it's not as if that potential hasn't been telegraphed from fairly early on! That might disappoint the friend I've been passing my copies on to, though, she's got the hots for Bill. Me, I find both the vampy guys interesting in their own ways, but I was honestly rooting for her to see more of that hunky construction-company werewolf...he was *nice*, a lot more human and seemingly more potential for long-term compatibility than any of the vamps, and the UST between them was pretty darn smokin'...

Well, it sounds like you stopped reading a few volumes back, do you really want to know what goes on with the various love interests? (I don't want to spoil the unwilling. Although I personally LOVE being spoiled. ;) )

But yeah, she and Eric develop a "rapport." ;)But that they were strongly attracted to each other was apparent from the very first time they met (however reluctant it may have been), so I am not spilling any major beans there, I don't think.

[chomiji]

Hmmm ... I've started the first one, and I am not really fond of Sookie thus far. She's such a girl, even if she is brave and doesn't hesitate to attack scumbags with a length of chain ... . I'll read it all, though (I just got to where she encountered the other vamps at Bill's place and he ran them off). And then I might do a comparison between that and Robin McKinley's Sunshine ... which is also a vampire story with a first-person female narrator who works in food service! (Sunshine's a baker rather than a waitress, though.)

[avierra.livejournal.com]

One thing I really like about Sookie is that she tries to be decent and humane, even in the face of the people around her acting in rather un-nice ways. She has a strong moral code she follows, and when she deviates from it, even for good reasons, she reacts very strongly to having breached her own ethical system. She is not a worldly or cynical person, but she isn't a naif either -- it's not like she could be with her "talent," which she refers to unsentimentally as her "disability"; she essentially considers her telepathic ability to almost literally be a curse.

So basically, what Smilla said. I alsothink Sookie is a more humane and sympathetic type of person than Rachel, despite Rachel having a vulnerable side... but then Rachel isn't human. And she also has a lot more resources at her disposal than Sookie does.

Wow, I hadn't thought of contrasting Rachel and Sookie... that's a pretty interesting comparison actually. I was going to go on at some length, but since Chomiji is just starting to read Sookie, I'll hold off on that for a bit.

[chomiji]

See my comments to smilla, below ...

> sigh <

[chomiji]

The funny thing is, my first reaction to Sookie was "OMG, what a Mary Sue!" Because she lets you know, right off, on the first page, how good-looking she is. And then her first concern, when she's finally going to meet a powerful supernatural creature, is whether her lipstick is in good shape. I damn near threw the book across the Metro car. So help me, if that's not effing shallow, I don't know what is.

Sorry.

The scene where she goes after the Rats with a tire chain somewhat redeemed her for me. As I said, I'm willing to give the entire book a chance. But those first few paragraphs really exasperated me. Look, you saw my wedding album and all my pretties, you know I like to dress up and look nice. But when an author thinks that that's one of the first things you need to know about a character, and the character herself is that conscious of it - that's just so not me.

[avierra.livejournal.com]

Haha it's all good. Not everyone is going to like all the same things. :D (Rachel dwells on her appearance a lot as well, but only inasfar as she considers herself to be somewhat unnatractive. Yeah, like some big-busted, redheaded wench in a size-4 leather dress is going to be thought unattractive ;P)

FWIW, I don't think Sookie is a Mary Sue, but I can see how she comes across as one. I think that Harris was trying to do with Sookie was to create a woman who IS a girlie-type, and then throw her to the wolves (or vamps... same difference ;) )and see what comes out at the end. That's a bit of a different setup than urban fantasy.

Harris also plays with (or plays into, I am not yet sure which it is) a lot of stereotypes of the deep south, of which the ultrafeminine woman is one. So that's also some of what is going on, I think, but it doesn't make it any less exasperating for someone who doesn't like that stuff.

[chomiji]

I finished it ... I'll need to do a proper blog entry for it. But suffice it to say for now that I think the author just opened with a few unfortunate passages from my viewpoint, and they may well have been deliberately attempts to snag the usual chick lit crowd, and if so, no wonder I cringed away.

[chomiji]

Arrrgh ... well, now, of course, I'm worrying that I might have hurt your feelings.

But I think maybe now you can see why I was so upset and at sea when Red was badgering me about reading more feminine types of literature. It's really not a mindset that comes naturally to me at all, and I had a good deal of my childhood and adolescence being faced with my female inadequacies at the hands of my mother, other relatives, and snarky girls at school. It was to the point where when guys came on to me, I thought they were making fun of me.

When I finally got to feeling somewhat better about my looks - and I thank my blond-haired college guy and Karl for that - it was on my own terms. This meant acting more confidently, getting more exercise, getting better haircuts, and making sure that my clothes fit properly - not by the usual makeup-makeover, changing the way I dressed completely to something more feminine, and so on. I was still wearing pants whenever I could, T-shirts were still my wardrobe staples, but I felt comfortable in my skin, and it showed - guys wanted to talk to me at cons and so on. Of course, the fact that I had a steady at that point helped ... which is pretty ironic.

But I have very strong knee-jerk reaction to an emphasis on looks and on the idea that that's the main "weapon" a woman can bring to a dicey situation. I can get what [I think] you're saying - her (and possibly your) "talisman" in that sort of situation is the ritual of the warpaint ... mine would be far more likely some ritual deep breaths to trigger relaxation so that I could meet the opponent's gaze calmly and speak confidently and convincingly - which I know that I can do, if I'm calm.

I think another part of my negative association with makeup is that to me, it has a masklike aspect - obfuscation, dissembling, misrepresentation. I don't like to flirt, either, because that seems to me to be presenting a false front. I fiercely need to be liked, but I want it to be the real me that people are learning to like - I don't want there to be a time later on when they find out that I'm not really like what they first found interesting or attractive. It's bizarre to what lengths and in what directions insecurity can grow.

(It's amazing how deep and how serious these discussions get, isn't it? I'm sorry ... .)

[avierra.livejournal.com]

It's interesting what maekup represents to people, I mean, people have been putting colors and designs on their face and bodies since before recorded history. It's practically part of the human condition, I think. Although, having said that, I personally almost never wear it; in fact, I can't think of the last time I did. I suspect it has something to do with my mother, who (when she can afford it), wears full warpaint at the slightest pretext. So maybe in reaction that that, and maybe because my husband has a strongly negative reaction when I do (possibly because I don't apply it well, I don't know ;P ), but I do get that it makes some people feel better and more mentally prepared (as it does with my mother).

I think it's pretty interesting what people use to put themselves in a particular mindset, or as a coping mechanism. I am not sure I have a "face the world" mechanism, unless it's to think about things to the point of overthinking, sometimes, and just screw my courage up and do what I have to do. Then I vent to my husband when it's all done. ;)

[chomiji]

It's funny ... mulling this over (a lot today), I think it was more a case of confounded expecations. I found myself thinking of what kispexi2 was saying one time, about how every so often she really gets smacked in the face with the fact that just because people online are in synch with her on some issues, it doesn't mean they're in synch on all issues. And I think that's what happened here - I was expecting a very sympatico character, and right off, there was this big gap. And a little feeling of "Oh noes, these people I really like really like this character and identify with her and I want to shake her until her teeth rattle in her pretty li'l head! Woes! I am clearly not on the same wavelength as much as I thought I was!" and then my version of Gojyo's "Why am I so weak?" - "Why am I so weird?"

And then that made me angry, because I no longer put up with being made to feel weird. And so poor Sookie and her lipstick addiction took a much bigger hit than they deserved. Because I don't care if other people wear the stuff - I just don't like the feeling that someone thinks I should.

And very ironically, the Young Lady and I spent about an hour yesterday in Sephora, doing mother-daughter bonding over that very same stuff ... she wanted some concealer for blemishes and under-eye darkness, and she also bought some eye shadow, and we both tried on lip glosses (and complained about the stickiness in several cases), and I sniffed perfumes.

My husband doesn't think much of makeup one way or the other, unless there's too much of it. My Mom always wore at least lipstick, despite being an academic type, and she certainly owned and knew how to use the whole nine yards.

[chomiji]

Well, I'm relieved! I spoke very much from the gut, without thinking what it might sound like, and then I was mad at myself.

Yeah ... I wanted to have a kid (kids, actually, originally) because I like kids - not for the usual reasons, I guess. And I found out that it isn't quite like taking care of someone else's - I didn't quite count on the conflicting emotional crap (or the post-partum depression). But even the way most women talk about their kids drives me nuts.

(And let's not talk about the hypocrisy inherent in my talking about anyone's makeup as a mask and an obfuscation when I'm dying my hair to hide the grey ... .)

[chomiji]

It's very different ... you feel all those are part of the real you. I feel that any masks I've put on - successful student, my parents' (especially my mother's) daughter, suburban mom, dutiful employee - aren't me, and I resent them, and only put them on because the alternative was worse.

And yet I also know that feeling - where you said "someone who can't deal with that is telling me that only a certain limited part of myself is acceptable" - that's the business with Red and her attitude toward both my slash habit and my fondness for books with male protagonists, all over again.

I'm cross with that poor girl right now, and she doesn't even know it ... she came out so negatively about The Forbidden Kingdom that I decided not to blog it because I didn't want to get into an argument with her. And now I feel angry and resentful about it.

Does it help to know that when I see you, I'm proud to know this elegant person, and to think that she tells me special things?