Watanabe Takeo - Kaze Hikaru, vol. 01 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

In order to avenge the deaths of her father and brother, Tominaga Sei shaves her head, disguises herself as a boy, renames herself "Kamiya Seizaburo" and joins the Shinsengumi. There, she's soon discovered by Okita Soji, who proceeds to take her under his wing instead of kicking her out.

This sounds like something I should love: girl-disguised-as-boy kicking ass, Shinsengumi, and right-around-Meiji-era Japan. And yet, I was so bored that I never even got around to finishing vol. 2.

I just don't like Sei very much, and I found that the humor of the manga really isn't all that funny to me. Sei freaks out every other second about the behavior of the Shinsengumi; she doesn't think that their bathroom humor, jokes about women, or assorted drunken parties are funny at all. Neither do I, but Sei objects on a more moral level; she doesn't think that honorable people upholding the honor of the shogun who have lots of honor (did I mention the honor thing?) should act that way. Mostly I want to slap her on the side of the head and tell her to get a life, or at least to get a better sense of how the real world works.

When she's not freaking out about honor and bushi and the bushi code, she's freaking out over Okita or getting teary-eyed about her revenge. Unfortunately, this also bores me and/or makes me want to slap her on the side of the head.

Sei seems to be the sort of person who doesn't actually know anything about how life works (why yes, you can be a promiscuous bastard and still be a folk hero to people), and the entire narrative on how she learns that wow, contradictions can actually exist in life, that the honorable and noble way of the bushi can also involve killing people in cold blood, and etc. isn't a narrative that interests me in the least.

On a more minor note, I don't like the art either.

Wow, I'm grumpy today.

On a less grumpy note, I'm not quite sure why this was published in Viz's Shojo Beat. The panel layouts, the narrative, the art and the main conflicts all seem to be very shounen to me. Maybe it's the Shinsengumi thing and the crush on Okita thing?

Comments

[octopedingenue]

I'm sorry you didn't like it! I've been reading Kaze Hikaru through Shojo Beat back issues and have grown very fond of it (and I love the art! oh, manga tastes); I'm dropping everything but it and Crimson Hero on this read-through and I'll go back to everything else later.

Sei's incredible naivete (how does a doctor raise someone so sheltered? did especially no women talk to her at all ever?) hasn't really bothered me so far; she cries a lot but at least gets out and does something most of the time. And Okita Soji dies at age 25, and is 20 in the series now (and I love him in KH despite his blinking neon "DOOOOMED" sign, because he reminds me the happy heartbreaking Naruto ninjas), so I figure Sei will have another 5 series-years or so to discover the bleak horribleness of life. Good times, good times.

Interesting point about the art & such; I'd pegged it as more old-school simple style shoujo but nothing struck me as shonen.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I think I'm pretty grumpy today, sigh. Though I wasn't particularly interested when I read it a few days ago either...

I think it's the naive heroine thing; been there done that way too many times with romance novels.

The art itself feels very old-school, but it's the panel layouts that really ping "shounen" to me. But that could just be more old-school stuff, I am not sure.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I keep reading this even though I haven't been liking it all that much. I think I'm trying to ignore Sei and only read about the Shinsengumi.:)

I also haven't cared for the art here; the art in Peacemaker is much more to my liking too.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Oh too bad. I love girl dresses up as boy and kicks ass stories.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I'm actually very fond of this one; I recommend reading the story in which Sei gets her first period, and if you don't like that, there's no point. But! Meiji-era metaphors for first period getting tangled up with Shinsengumi metaphors for other stuff! Attack of the clashing headspaces! Okita for once genuinely confused! It is awesome.

It's also subject matter like that that makes me peg it as shoujo rather than shounen, although it was an odd duck for Shoujo Beat and I wasn't surprised when they took it out. They tend to prefer things that are more readily accessible in issue-by-issue format and also that don't require as much general context.

[oyceter]

Hee!

Oh, I forgot to mention how completely freaked out I was when Saito showed up. I did a few versions of the double take before realizing it was the same guy from Kenshin.

[oyceter]

Well, other people seem to like it much more than me, so maybe try anyway?

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe I'll see if I can bookmooch it. One interesting thing, though, is that if this counts as shojo/romance then we've got a lot more room for kicking ass in that genre.

[oyceter]

I dunno.. I haven't been very fond of the other clashing headspaces things going on. Maybe it will stay on the tbr pile, but just lower.

[(Anonymous)]

I do like this manga as well, but i like to compare and contrast the characters of the manga and the actual people they are based on. I like japanese history, and the Shinsengumi are one of my favorite groups during the Bakumatsu era! :D for anyone who likes the Shinsengumi, i reccomend trying to get a hold of "Shinsengumi!" its a show on NHK, it may be hard to get a hold of, but its a great fictual show. It is Japanese yes, however you can get them subtitled.

[(Anonymous)]

I do like this manga as well, but i like to compare and contrast the characters of the manga and the actual people they are based on. I like japanese history, and the Shinsengumi are one of my favorite groups during the Bakumatsu era! :D for anyone who likes the Shinsengumi, i reccomend trying to get a hold of "Shinsengumi!" its a show on NHK, it may be hard to get a hold of, but its a great factual show. It is Japanese yes, however you can get them subtitled.

[(Anonymous)]

sorry, i didnt mean to post that twice :(

[oyceter]

Thanks for the tip!

(er, are you by any chance the one who asked if I was Lt. Noin earlier? Feel free to comment anon, though it's always nice to know who it is handle-wise)

I love the Bakumatsu era.