![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My current (and long-time) favorite boys' fantasy adventure manga is Kekkaishi. Yes, even more than Fullmetal Alchemist, as much as I like it heaps. Kekkaishi doesn't reach the emotional heights or dramatic sweep of FMA, but instead builds a slowly rising tension that pulls the adventure along. It initially looks like a standard series using standard tropes, but how Yellow Tanabe develops the tropes fascinates me -- making this the only shounen fantasy that's kept me reading past chapter 250.
Premise in summary: teenager Yoshimori Sumimura and Tokine Yukimura are the heirs of neighboring rival families of barrier magic (kekkai) users charged with protecting the sacred Karasumori site from the ayakashi (monsters, demons, however you want to translate that) that are attracted to its power. 400 years ago, Karasumori was a castle, but after the time of castles passed, people built a school on the site. As one does. And yes, Yoshimori and Tokine are, and this is the biggest gimme of the setup, students there, in the middle- and high-school divisions, respectively. Having to also patrol the site all night takes its tolls on Yoshimori, including in the small scale addictions to coffee-milk and napping during class, and in the large a bullheaded determination to never again (after the prologue of a first chapter) allow someone get hurt because of Karasumori.
Which makes it sounds bog-standard shounen. Not only is the execution is neither bog nor standard, but it soon grows beyond standard. I mean, even aside from how Yoshimori is a cake otaku.*
The opening out of the world is carefully paced, as we explore the mystery of Karasumori and the various powers that want to control it. No sudden introductions of large groups of characters, but a gradual unfolding of players -- and when a new group does show up, only a few members are introduced at a time, as they come into play. Aligned with the complexity of the world, there is also no black and white morality. Well, Yoshimori and Tokine (and their grandparents) are white hats, and the intermittent ayakashis-of-the-week out for a power-snack are just monsters -- but everyone else, including those who manipulate both those parties, wears gray or darker. Even Yoshimori's older brother (passed over as heir by means only recently made clear) has dirty hands and murky motivations as he combats the darker hats.
So well paced, that I cannot tell for the most recent chapters whether we're really in the end-game it appears or the resulting revelations of hidden identities is another way of opening things out.
Another example of opening out: as Yoshimori and Tokine grow as kekkai users, they learn uses for cubic force fields beyond containing and collapsing upon ayakashi. They're shields as well. Since they're not limited to resting on the ground, they can become platforms -- and stairs into the sky. Nor are they limited to equal-sided cubes, but can be long narrow spears. Raise one from beneath an object and you can launch it -- or yourself. Raise one sideways, and you can punch with it. And so on. The working through the implications of this one type of magic (we eventually meet other types) is neatly done, in a way I strongly suspect would appeal to SF readers.
Another appealing aspect is the female characters -- not just Tokine, who may not equal Yoshimori in raw power** but makes up for it with skillful and strategic use of kekkai. She's two years older, 16 to his 14, and the difference in maturity plays out in their dynamics. Also, she's just as gutsy and determined as our hero: when Tokine is held captive,*** she breaks herself out -- just in time to meet Yoshimori's rescue party. She's on-board with Yoshimori's ultimate goal, for entirely her own reasons. And then there's most impressively scary character of the entire cast: Yoshimori's mother, who first appears on stage holding the leash to a god-class dragon. For the record, the Bechdel Test is passed, if not impressively -- it takes a while to do so by any means other than Tokine training with her grandmother.
Hand-in-hand with the respect the female characters get, there's also limited fanservice. In the first 8 volumes, there's exactly one frame with any at all, a chapter splash page with Tokine soaking in a bathtub. Volume 9 introduces a secondary villain with a stripperific outfit, but once she's taken care of it's several more volumes before we meet anything else (another bathtub scene, this time in-series). And then there's some tengu samba dancers in full carnival mode (in context, it almost makes sense). The point being: being able to count on one hand the total instances in the first 20 volumes is astonishingly low for a shounen adventure of this type.**** Or to put it another way, there's no fanservice to get in the way of the story.
It is tempting to claim this is because the artist is a woman, but there are enough fanservice-laden series by other women to give in to temptation.*****
But speaking of art, it is solid. Tanabe has her perspective down cold -- essential given all those cubic kekkai -- and it shows in her landscapes both in cities and the countryside. The establishing frames are a delight, especially given her apparent fascination with traditional Japanese architecture (oh, those castles!), and the battlegrounds always clear. She also constantly shifts the camera eye without being jarring about it, to provide interesting and often insightful points of view.
One pattern I've noticed this read-through: during climactic battles, half the time the decisive blow isn't given by the protagonists, but by something even worse than the enemy. Never in a repetitive way, and certainly not predictably, but often enough to be interesting. Eventually, the onion will run out of layers and the game out of players, but until then, it's an interesting counter to the triumphalism of typical shounen series.
Series ongoing and licensed, with 24 volumes out in the States, 33 in Japan, and a couple dozen serialized chapters not yet collected. The anime (also licensed) is a competent and relatively faithful adaptation, covering the first 12 volumes in 52 episodes.
* As in he obsessively bakes and decorates them in his spare time.
** Though she's still powerful enough to kill a land-god, albeit a damaged one away from its land.
*** After she's arrested for killing that land-god.
**** The level rises a little after that.
***** It's also not necessarily Tanabe's training, as she was an assistant to Mitsuru Adachi before breaking in, and his stories are liberally decorated with lighthearted mild fanservice.
... five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain / and a hundred percent reason to remember the name
---L.
Premise in summary: teenager Yoshimori Sumimura and Tokine Yukimura are the heirs of neighboring rival families of barrier magic (kekkai) users charged with protecting the sacred Karasumori site from the ayakashi (monsters, demons, however you want to translate that) that are attracted to its power. 400 years ago, Karasumori was a castle, but after the time of castles passed, people built a school on the site. As one does. And yes, Yoshimori and Tokine are, and this is the biggest gimme of the setup, students there, in the middle- and high-school divisions, respectively. Having to also patrol the site all night takes its tolls on Yoshimori, including in the small scale addictions to coffee-milk and napping during class, and in the large a bullheaded determination to never again (after the prologue of a first chapter) allow someone get hurt because of Karasumori.
Which makes it sounds bog-standard shounen. Not only is the execution is neither bog nor standard, but it soon grows beyond standard. I mean, even aside from how Yoshimori is a cake otaku.*
The opening out of the world is carefully paced, as we explore the mystery of Karasumori and the various powers that want to control it. No sudden introductions of large groups of characters, but a gradual unfolding of players -- and when a new group does show up, only a few members are introduced at a time, as they come into play. Aligned with the complexity of the world, there is also no black and white morality. Well, Yoshimori and Tokine (and their grandparents) are white hats, and the intermittent ayakashis-of-the-week out for a power-snack are just monsters -- but everyone else, including those who manipulate both those parties, wears gray or darker. Even Yoshimori's older brother (passed over as heir by means only recently made clear) has dirty hands and murky motivations as he combats the darker hats.
So well paced, that I cannot tell for the most recent chapters whether we're really in the end-game it appears or the resulting revelations of hidden identities is another way of opening things out.
Another example of opening out: as Yoshimori and Tokine grow as kekkai users, they learn uses for cubic force fields beyond containing and collapsing upon ayakashi. They're shields as well. Since they're not limited to resting on the ground, they can become platforms -- and stairs into the sky. Nor are they limited to equal-sided cubes, but can be long narrow spears. Raise one from beneath an object and you can launch it -- or yourself. Raise one sideways, and you can punch with it. And so on. The working through the implications of this one type of magic (we eventually meet other types) is neatly done, in a way I strongly suspect would appeal to SF readers.
Another appealing aspect is the female characters -- not just Tokine, who may not equal Yoshimori in raw power** but makes up for it with skillful and strategic use of kekkai. She's two years older, 16 to his 14, and the difference in maturity plays out in their dynamics. Also, she's just as gutsy and determined as our hero: when Tokine is held captive,*** she breaks herself out -- just in time to meet Yoshimori's rescue party. She's on-board with Yoshimori's ultimate goal, for entirely her own reasons. And then there's most impressively scary character of the entire cast: Yoshimori's mother, who first appears on stage holding the leash to a god-class dragon. For the record, the Bechdel Test is passed, if not impressively -- it takes a while to do so by any means other than Tokine training with her grandmother.
Hand-in-hand with the respect the female characters get, there's also limited fanservice. In the first 8 volumes, there's exactly one frame with any at all, a chapter splash page with Tokine soaking in a bathtub. Volume 9 introduces a secondary villain with a stripperific outfit, but once she's taken care of it's several more volumes before we meet anything else (another bathtub scene, this time in-series). And then there's some tengu samba dancers in full carnival mode (in context, it almost makes sense). The point being: being able to count on one hand the total instances in the first 20 volumes is astonishingly low for a shounen adventure of this type.**** Or to put it another way, there's no fanservice to get in the way of the story.
It is tempting to claim this is because the artist is a woman, but there are enough fanservice-laden series by other women to give in to temptation.*****
But speaking of art, it is solid. Tanabe has her perspective down cold -- essential given all those cubic kekkai -- and it shows in her landscapes both in cities and the countryside. The establishing frames are a delight, especially given her apparent fascination with traditional Japanese architecture (oh, those castles!), and the battlegrounds always clear. She also constantly shifts the camera eye without being jarring about it, to provide interesting and often insightful points of view.
One pattern I've noticed this read-through: during climactic battles, half the time the decisive blow isn't given by the protagonists, but by something even worse than the enemy. Never in a repetitive way, and certainly not predictably, but often enough to be interesting. Eventually, the onion will run out of layers and the game out of players, but until then, it's an interesting counter to the triumphalism of typical shounen series.
Series ongoing and licensed, with 24 volumes out in the States, 33 in Japan, and a couple dozen serialized chapters not yet collected. The anime (also licensed) is a competent and relatively faithful adaptation, covering the first 12 volumes in 52 episodes.
* As in he obsessively bakes and decorates them in his spare time.
** Though she's still powerful enough to kill a land-god, albeit a damaged one away from its land.
*** After she's arrested for killing that land-god.
**** The level rises a little after that.
***** It's also not necessarily Tanabe's training, as she was an assistant to Mitsuru Adachi before breaking in, and his stories are liberally decorated with lighthearted mild fanservice.
... five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain / and a hundred percent reason to remember the name
---L.