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]

We have an elderly female pitbull with a bad eye problem in one eye up the street. She's named Vanessa ... &nbnp; ;-)   she's a total snugglebunny but between her conventionally fierce appearance (and she's brindle, too) and that icky looking eye, most people won't pet her.

Interesting about the more, er, interactive nature of your current neighborhood. I wonder what the difference in demographics is.

[chomiji]

It's funny, because I associate big black dogs with labs and newfies, and think about them as friendly but somewhat clueless.

Your features definitely strike me as Native or maybe Oriental, which could easily lead to a guess of Latina for some people. Despite the hair, I wouldn't have thought "Russian" or "English," for sure. But most people don't really analyze facial features very well. Early interests in cultural anthropology and stage makeup (! ... I never did anything with it, but there was a book I pored over, over and over) made me a little more conscious of actual features. There's a definite difference, for example, between the features of those from Indochina and those of someone who's got the classic mainland Chinese features, and yet again someone who's Korean. I can't always describe what the differences are, but I know the whole thing when I see it.

[chomiji]

Yes ... when I think about possibly having a dog in my future, I find myself thinking about the problems in handling an older larger dog if I myself become somewhat infirm. Our naighbor down the street will clearly be having some issues that way with Vanessa soon, if he doesn't already (he's elderly and not too steady on his feet himself). But then I've had dogs before, even though they were small.

It's interesting that no one has made that guess about your heritage before, but it's true that the Latino population of this area has been growing, and so people may not have been so aware of it (same when you lived in Philly).

I've known several mixed Asian/Caucasian men (no women before, for whatever reason), so the way the features tend to go isn't strange to me: my high school friend Alfred Sturtevant's mother was from Burma, and one colleague who was German-Hawaiian himself (another former military child) identified another colleague of ours as "that tall Asian guy," and something finally clicked: oh yeah, so he is!

Mugen in the manga is very proud and up-front about his heritage.