It wasn’t easy, but I stepped up my reading to get this book done in record time, so I could tell you about it while I was still in a Balsa kind of mood. (The next one is several books down on the pile so don’t expect anything for a while.)

Kami no Moribito begins on a, dare I say it?, happy note. Balsa and Tanda, finding themselves with some mutual downtime, decide to go on a trip together. They have a destination in mind, but the real point of the trip is to revisit places they like with a close companion, and eat good food – you know, a vacation.

When they arrive in an inn that Tanda likes and knows the folks who run it, they are catapulted out of vacation into a very complex story. While they are there, Balsa sees a group of nomads manhandling two children and, being Balsa, ends up saving the kids. We learn that the children have had a very, very hard life, which culminated in the raiding party invading their home, killing their father and raping their mother. When their mother died, the two were kept as servants and were just, that very night, sold to slavers.

Having rescued them, Balsa has Tanda tend to their wounds and the fevers they get from them. The younger of the two, Asura, has some kind of vision, or connection, to her people’s god, and it’s not a terribly good thing, by everyone else’s standards. Tanda’s acquaintance and former military man, Sfaru, is convinced that the right thing to do would be to kill her right now.

Tanda tells Balsa not to get involved with the kids, but when he sees she can’t stop herself, warns her to get the hell out, asap. Balsa grabs the girl and takes off.

The next morning Sfaru sends his sons after her, and tells the boy, Chikisa, the story of who the god is, and why Asura is dangerous. Not surprisingly, Chikisa is not particularly thrilled to know that Sfaru is after his little sister, but he’s wounded and weak and a child, so he trusts Tanda and Balsa and waits. Balsa uses all her wits to evade Sfaru’s sons, and fights, and severly, but not fatally, wounds one when he gets too close.

She runs to a large-ish city, where she heads toward the house of someone who owes her. The old lady, Masa, isn’t thrilled to see her, but takes to Asura right away. When Balsa asks if Asura could see herself living there, for the first time in her life, Asura finds a sense of hope in her heart. Masa offers her and her brother a place to live if they should come back.

Tanda and Sfaru aren’t far behind, though. Although Tanda betrayed him, Sfaru knows that Tanda knows Balsa best and takes him and Chikisa to track down Balsa and Asura. They learn that Balsa has left the city.

Balsa gets an introduction to a guide – she has to nearly break his arm to convince him that she’s worth helping, but once she beats him into the ground, he comes around and promises to lead her and Asura where they are headed…back to New Yogo, by way of the far north.

The book ends there, with Balsa and Asura running for their lives, and Tanda and Chikisa following along with Sfaru.

Of all of the Moribito books, it was probably so far the weakest. There were long chunks of story-telling that weren’t terribly compelling, especially the history of the Taru and their eponymous founder Taru no Hamaya, and a long, excruciating sidebar about the Princes of Rota and the one that fell in love with the daughter of Taru no Tamashi. When I got to a chapter than was three pages of talking about sheep, the story simply ground to a halt.

Nonetheless, once the world building was over, the story – especially the chase between Sfaru and his sons (in which Sfaru, who is also a shaman as well as a fighter, puts his spirit into a hawk to hunt Balsa) and Balsa, who anticipates this, is excellent. Unexpectedly cute is Masa, who wins as the oldest tsundere character ever. ^_^

Also nice were the fight scenes, in which Balsa always wins, even wounded, and the magical moment when she practices spear form under the light of the full moon while the children watch.

Overall – 7

While not the most compelling story ever, I’m interested to see what happens, so definitely will be reading the second book once I get through the other 6 or so books on my pile. ^_^ Balsa’s just that cool.

And here we are at the third of the Moribito series, the last one I have completed. I’m working on another now, but it’s slow going, so you’ll have to wait until I’m finished for that review. ^_^

In Yume no Moribito, we turn away from Balsa for a moment, to take a good look at Tanda. He and Balsa have known each other since childhood, and since then, they’ve been close. But in all that time, neither of them have made the inevitable leap into a “relationship.” Although it’s apparent to pretty much everyone that they belong together, Balsa will not make any commitments, and so, neither will Tanda.

But, while Balsa is staying with him after returning from Kanbal, Tanda learns that Crown Prince Chagum has fallen into a deep sleep and will not wake up. This might not have meant anything to anyone else, but in Tanda’s home village, his own niece has fallen into a deep sleep from which she will not awake. Tanda becomes convinced that it’s not a disease that’s causing the comas, but something that is keeping the children’s spirits from returning to them. Her father calls it a “curse” but Tanda rebukes him and decides that he will enter her dream and find her.

The rest of the book is taken up with Tanda’s adventure. Balsa is once again in the position of watching over his body, while Tanda’s spirit wanders in another world.

Once in the dream world, Tanda discovers that a spirit from this world is appearing to children as someone they know and asking them to join it. In his neice’s case, it appeared in the form of a minstrel she had fallen for. Tanda rescues her, but returns to the dream world to find and rescue Chagum.

Chagum, it turns out, had been called by his beloved, recently deceased older brother, Sagum. Tanda does manage to find the Prince, and with his help, he saves the other souls that have been captured in the dream. But as they approach the threshold of return, Balsa must join them to save them from the creature that has called them. Chagum and Balsa have not seen each other for about 18 months. Not surprisingly, Chagum is taller and starting to look more like a man than the boy she knew. They have a brief, poignant reunion and part again, Chagum to return to his body in the Imperial Palace and Balsa and Tanda to the village.

This series, like so many Japanese novels I’ve read was a lot of setup for a brief, but brilliant climax. But the adventure definitely takes second place to the relationship dynamic between Balsa and Tanda and the reunion scene between Chagum and Balsa.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

Some of the later novels in the series follow Chagum, so I’m waffling about reading them, but we’ll see. I liked him, but for me, it’s all about Balsa. ^_^

Now, back to Kami no Moribito for me!

In Moribito, Guardian of the Spirit, we learn Balsa’s tragic backstory, and why she cannot return to her country, Kanbal. In Moribito 2, Guardian of the Darkness, she returns to Kanbal to face her past.

Still in New Yogo, Balsa learns that the King who had had her father killed unjustly and caused her foster father Jiguro to take her out of the country as a child, has died. She decides to return to her country – and to her tribe – to face the wounds she still bears.

Of course, on the way, an adventure breaks out. As with the first book, it is two young people that help her figure out what has gone wrong where. And indeed, several things have gone terribly wrong. The land is suffering because a ritual has gone undone for too many years, the wrong person is in charge of her tribe and there is a conspiracy against her life.

Because it is Balsa, and not someone else, we can be content to watch her work out the pieces until she knows what must be done – and what must be done, right away, is the long neglected ritual in which a future tribe leader faces down the darkness.

Accompanying the true heir to the title of leader,  Balsa faces the spirits of the darkness and the joys and horrors until, at last, she comes face to face with her own ghosts.

The scene where she fights for not only her own life, but for her tribe’s future and her own mental well-being had me in tears. I was, and am, so glad that this was translated into English!

Once again, I recommend this book for a young person with an interest in myth and action. But more than the first book, this novel was all about Balsa – her childhood, her adulthood, her life. And for that, it was absolutely, fabulously awesome.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

At the end, she turns her sight on home…New Yogo…and Tanda. Awww. ^_^

Over on the Yuricon & ALC Publishing group on Facebook, I’ve started posting pictures of a few bad-ass female characters just for fun. Last week, I posted a picture of Balsa from Serei no Moribito. I’ve never really talked about the anime series here, because it’s not Yuri, but I’m reading the Light Novels and find that, despite the fact that they are not Yuri, I think they are worth talking about. So, here we are talking about them. ^_^

The first two volumes of the novel series were translated into English by Scholastic books. Much like the anime series, they didn’t get much play in critical or blogger circles and basically just slipped under the radar, which was a damn shame

The Moribito anime, to be brief, is stellar. I consider it, without question, to be the very best anime I’ve ever watched. Everything about it was excellent – characters, story, animation, music. The fact that the story is family-friendly and that there is someone for everyone in the family to identify with, just makes it that much better. Young, old, male, female, there’s someone to like. The strongest indicator that this was something special was when about 5 episodes in, both my wife and I realized we liked the kid. That never happens. And, not only did we like the kid, but by the end of the series, we loved him. Prince Chagum is an extraordinary character. All of them are.

The story, for those of you not familiar with it, is an episode in the life of a spear-wielding female bodyguard, Balsa. She has a tragic backstory of her own, but in the anime – and the first volume – she is drawn into an adventure of a lifetime. The second Prince of New Yogo is the target of an assassination attempt by his own father. His mother, the Second Queen, hires Balsa to save the Prince’s life. Why Chagum is being targeted and what happens, makes some of the most compelling anime ever made. The entire series is available and Media Blasters did a great job of it.

But today, we come to discuss the first novel of the series, Moribito, Guardian of the Spirit. Physically speaking, this book is gorgeous. The paper is a soft cream color and trim and text are a dark blue that gives the pages a slightly other-worldly feel.

The story follows the same outline as the anime, but is not nearly as detailed nor does it have as much character development as the anime. The long days while Balsa and Chagum build trust and a relationship are nowhere to be found in the book. The plot remains the same, but in a minimalist way, The action scenes remain intact and anyone who has watched the anime will recognize the story. For one of the few times in my life, I recommend the anime over the novel.

However, if you know of a budding young otaku and want to really encourage reading, hand them this book. It’s a good story, with likable protagonists, fantasy/myth elements and a lot of cool spear-wielding by Balsa.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

If you’ve read the first book and want to know whether the rest of the series is worth it, tune back in tomorrow, when we take on the next in the series. ^_^