Brave Story

Yesterday, a package came from Japan and more or less completed the literary collection of one of my favorite series ever.

Miyuki Miyabe's Brave Story, or rather the story turned into a manga series by Youichirou Ono, ranks among my most favorite manga ever. I liked the manga so much, I decided to shell out the money for the book series - which I kinda dread reading as it's 1300 pages strong. I don't ever think I've lasted a book in Japanese, but it's looking like I might start. Who knows.

But, the development of the main character isn't something I see too often in, well, just about anything. In fact, Wataru becomes a rather respectable person, changing from a scrappy little kid to a total badass who can put his own feelings behind him for the good of everyone else. (Spoiler Alert) It was about when he gave up going to save the girl he liked to save the country he landed in... that was when I started to see how awesome he was. Most lesser novels maybe would've done something so that he would gloriously staved off an invasion all by himself and gotten to the chance to save the girl too, but Wataru? He knows what's more important. It takes a lot to give up what you really want for the sake of others, but he was able to do it. (End Spoiler Alert)

Mitsuru was an excellent villian, even if his character started out kinda with a generic sob story. He was shrewd, manipulating, and pretty cold-hearted, but the sort of schemes he cooked up and the way he was able to maneuver around situations with words as well as with power was well executed. And the fight scenes... well, there are some really creative powers, and some really intense fights. Even if I think they might go a bit overboard at times, they're just awesome.

So, now I have the novel series that spawned the manga, both of which have been translated into English though I think the guys in charge of the manga have closed their doors. We'll see if I'm able to read it - the last books I've ever read were the Chronicles of Prydian, and that was a long time ago.