For fantasy this may be, but the Japanese historical aspects are rather factual. Hearn never shies away from descriptions of torture and death, and scenes of a sexual nature are relayed in their historical truthfulness. The plot switches between them, Takeo’s chapters being written in the first person, and Kaede’s in the third. They are very much a product of their writing time, written before Young Adult books became what they are today, and are all the better for it. However apart from this the characters are exceptional. All I felt was that he was disrespecting Kaede and their supposed love.
For this reason I had a lot of trouble accepting the romance in the book whereas the first time I read it I thought it was amazingly romantic. The character actually appears to be a closet bisexual, but this isn’t the point, rather the point is that the romantic storyline revolves around an intensely passionate love and then a moment later the hero will go and sleep with someone else.
The talents are supernatural, but they aren’t over the top, they are in the main the sorts of talents that we often think might be possible to develop, such as acute hearing.īut something that I didn’t notice the first time I read the book, due to my age, was the main character’s sexual promiscuity. The main characters are strong, the heroine especially, and the reader is able to get to know them well in a reasonably short period of time. The book is a brilliant example of Young Adult Asian historical fiction (albeit written by a white westerner), and it takes the reader to various different locations without any big changes in plot. But reading it again I can see the flaws I didn’t see then. Because of my reading speed at the time, the climax took me 45 minutes to get through and along with the historic subject I was in heaven. I first read this book around its publication date and absolutely loved it, I remember staying up all night to finish it through this I came to discover how fantastic February mornings are as the sun rises, something I try to be awake to experience at least once a year to this day. Takeo’s not sure what’s happening but he knows that with these talents he may be able to defeat the tyrant. Now Takeo joins Lord Otori in wanting revenge, and it appears Lord Otori chose well, for when Takeo stops speaking through shock, magical talents begin to show themselves.
On the day his village was burned to the ground, Tomasu was found by a Lord who named him Takeo and took him under his wing. I suppose you could call it the ultimate reflective review. Please note that I wrote most of this review over a year ago and that the tone is different due both to the shift in my writing style and the fact that I wanted to make reference to the book being a re-read. A rather epic historical flavoured with fantasy.
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