The Sword of Kaigen

it takes a while to get going but it does pick up at around ~150 pages or so. nevertheless those first couple of chapters are an absolute slog to get through and could have used a lot more tightening up.

so! i finished this in 3 days... i'd heard this was a japanese-inspired fantasy standalone with magic similar to avatar: the last airbender, which got me interested. and overall... it was alright. first, my biggest gripe: the amount of just straight-up japanese. the author is east asian but not japanese, which explains sooo much. was there anything added by making characters count, “ichi! ni! san!” instead of just writing it as “one! two! three!” ? was there any need for the string of japanese sentences in the last chapter, even with the excuse of a character translating for someone else? why have characters use japanese phrases/expressions like “ano” when you're just going to write them saying “um” a couple pages later? it felt very... weeb-y. sorry. the dialogue being in italics if it was being spoken in a different language/dialect was also grating as hell, but you get used to it.

anyway that's not even mentioning the amount of in-universe jargon this book has. i read this on an e-reader and i was NOT about to flip back and forth between my page and the glossary every couple of seconds to see what the hell a numu or jijakalu (there's no ‘lu' sound in japanese btw) was. and what on earth was the point of inventing new units of measurement? all it did was overcomplicate things!

anyhow... i have other criticisms. the strange reverse-racism/reverse imperialists part of the worldbuilding left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth; making the stand-in for koreans an oppressor of the stand-in for the japanese was certainly... a choice. the eugenics element of the worldbuilding is also never really interrogated or dismantled. it's just there. also, i still hate takeru and think he should have killed himself. idgaf. piece of shit father, piece of shit husband, he didn't deserve any of the understanding or forgiveness he got at the end. him being abused by his father doesn't justify AT ALL how he treated misaki or his children, and, inb4 “he learned from his mistakes and is trying to be a better person,” I don't care. Guards, kill this clown.

the story, on the whole, wraps up in a weird spot. it's a standalone supposedly, but the story threads about the assassins goes nowhere by the end of the book and the implications of the ending (an army of elemental orphans?) feels more like the beginning of a series than it does a satisfying conclusion to a fantasy novel. overall, it just felt very... abrupt. the beginning should have been trimmed down to service what Wang wanted to do with the ending, or the story should have ended before everything just slides back from the fantastic action sequences to more dull monologues and info-dumping. speaking of info dumping... that history lecture in chapter 2 is ridiculous and almost made me dnf the book. but i guess one terribly-executed info dump wasn't enough, because later on there's a chapter dedicated to characters just talking about their religions. like why is this here?

Lol when i started writing this i had rated it 3 stars but i had to bump it down to 2.5 because of how many things annoyed me. however i do think the action sequences/fights were written well and some of the character work (misaki in particular) was very good. i'm not sure why people don't like misaki? maybe she's not the most likeable character but to me she's a very very compelling and interesting character (although i really had to suspend my disbelief when her backstory revealed that she and her friends, at 14 years old, were fighting fully-grown adult criminals and WINNING...) also i'm not going to pretend like i didn't cry, because i did. misaki and mamoru's relationship was so moving and her grief at losing him and wishing she had loved him better made me BAWL. so in all... 2.5/5. thought i would've liked it better, but oh well. it is what it is.

Wow. Just wow.

This has got to be one of the most innovative takes on fantasy I have ever read. It reads like a combined Kurosawa film with street fighter style magic powers set in a modern world but with a traditionalist main focus point that almost feels medieval Japanese. The end result is a jediesque group of sword fighters wielding swords and magic in a truly phenomenal manner. The battles in this book are epic mangaesque sequences that vividly role off the page and leave the reader breathless.

Beneath this is a truly amazing cast of characters: the son fighting for his fathers acceptance, the wife whose hidden past is masked by the traditionalism of the society she lives in, the foreign kid bringing new ideas and helping to unmask propaganda, the traditionalist husband struggling to understand the changing world around him.

There is an amazingly jarring juxtaposition between the almost feudal living style at the centre of the book and the cyberpunk stylings of the world outside - and the gradual encroachment of the modern world into this oasis of peace is one of the main stories running through the book.

This book came highly recommended, but even with all that I was surprised by just how innovative it was. I really need to delve more into Wang's Theonite universe. It is a truly fascinating place.

An amazing and well built fantasy standalone. So sad to see that the other serie by the same author has been discontinued or I would have jump straight back in this universe.

A great character centered story about duty, tradition and sacrifice with an amazing elementary magic system. Highly recommend this read !