Shaman Warrior, vols. 1-5 (Park Joong-Ki)
Apr. 30th, 2008 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chomijiShaman 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.
Re: "Quick, someone call the Girl Police and file a report"
Date: 2008-05-17 05:09 pm (UTC)Re: "Quick, someone call the Girl Police and file a report"
Date: 2008-05-19 07:44 pm (UTC)I've got a strange/sweet image in mind of Gojyo coming upon one of his great-great-grandplants at some point, looking around to make sure no one's watching, and then giving it a gentle hug and kiss. I love the fact that they had red flowers.
Yeah, that term made me very exasperated the first time I heard it (in which sanada helps me come to grips with fangirldom, about a year and a half ago).
Re: "Quick, someone call the Girl Police and file a report"
Date: 2008-05-23 02:26 am (UTC)Oh, please, giggle all you want to! It was pretty funny! (Re-reading that made me miss sanada ... I think she's gone shy now that so many people are posting here, she rarely sticks aroiund to chat anymore ... >sigh!< ... I want all my friends to get along and be together and play nice, dammit!)
Somehow, there is something impossibly poignant, for me, about that statement about Hakkai's being pleased that they got some of Gojyo's coloring! I keep going back to re-read it! Yeah, I'm sure Gojyo feels a little sad that there isn't much he can do to fuss over them. I can imagine that strange little conversation ... .
"Hey, Hakkai, guess who I saw today, up by the road to Chenlun?
"Why, I'm sure I can't guess, Gojyo."
"One of the grandplants! Or ... I dunno, maybe one of the great-great-grandplants ... by now?"
"Oh Gojyo, don't worry about details like that - how did he look?"
XD
Re: "Quick, someone call the Girl Police and file a report"
Date: 2008-05-27 11:52 am (UTC)When I interviewed with the agency, it was for the Filer Technical Support group, which did Tier 2 telephone support for the electronic filing system. We had a bunch of roleplaying as part of the interview, including hysterical and/or abusive people. The branch chief was, very intelligently, looking for people with the right temperament as well as basic technical ability for troubleshooting.
I'm not sure how practical I meant him to be ... he's just trying to calm Gojyo down on the issue of how weirdly different his offspring are, and get him to focus on what he can appreciate! Yes, I think that's what Hakkai was doing in the blooming scene... and also, they were just so pretty, and no on but Gojyo was going to understand how much they meant to him.
(Of course, I start wondering about the biology/ecology of Hakkai's type of youkai .... .)
Re: "Quick, someone call the Girl Police and file a report"
Date: 2008-05-29 02:38 am (UTC)Re the tech support folks - exactly. Even if they never get tons of technical chops, they can still learn to ask the right questions in a reassuring manner, and write down a case history.
I don't know if I go for the count of the leaves - why vines? Too airy-fairy. I can certainly go with his being unique. Of course that still begs the question - why vines? Most of the other youkai seem to be animals, although we only see spider and centipede youkai, and can assume that Gyomaoh, from his name, is a (wild) cattle youkai. I wonder about the youkai in the village there - are they all of one tribe?
Yes, good question about Jien and water youkai abilities ... unless we want to count the fact that he really looks like a Marine! I'm guessing, from the fact that most of the youkai we meet seem to have no magical abilities to speak of, that it's not a given, anymore than it is with humans.
I have such a fluffy brain when it comes to fic. I'm beginning to think it's a problem - the better stuff has an edge that I don't seem to have. I was drabbling in my head, because of our conversation about the plant-babies and because vom_marlowe mentioned that it was Mpreg Week, about Hakkai daydreaming about wouldn't it be great if he and Gojyo had kids, and the fact that they'd be 3/4 youkai, and what that might mean.
Re: Fic, fluffy or not - and me as author
Date: 2008-06-03 02:49 am (UTC)Well, I guess I really want to write fic that will sear itself into someone's heart ... positively or negatively. On the one level, louiselux's "Mutability" is smutty fluff - Hakkai and Gjyo sneak off into the woods and screw each other's brains out, joyfully - but on the other hand, there's huge amounts of sexual tension to start with, and then there's the scary, ragged edge of disaster feeling when they start playing with fire by removing Hakkai's limiters. I'd like to get to the point where I could even approach that, but I'm still too shy and tentative.
Heh, maybe I'll try to write that almost-mpreg later this week. I was thinking about it this morning. This week's timed prompt was so short - 20 minutes!