Strong, emotional debut
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Mizuho Kusanagi
Translation/Adaptation: JN Productions/Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane
What They Say
Princess Yona lives an ideal life as the only princess of her kingdom. Doted on by her father, the king, and protected by her faithful guard Hak, she cherishes the time spent with the man she loves, Su-won. But everything changes on her 16th birthday when tragedy strikes her family!
Yona reels from the shock of witnessing a loved one’s murder and having to fight for her life. With Hak’s help, she flees the palace and struggles to survive while evading her enemy’s forces. But where will this displaced princess go when all the paths before her are uncertain?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Yona of the Dawn anime received its fair share of critical acclaim when it aired in 2014. Now, the manga of the cult hit shoujo fantasy tale makes its English language debut. Fans of the anime are understandably excited, as its story ended just shy of the manga’s fiftieth chapter. But, you don’t have to already be a Yona fan to appreciate what’s going on in this first volume.
Yona is the princess of Hiryuu Palace which is located in a fictional, nebulously Eastern kingdom. With her biggest worries being her hair and communicating her feelings to Su-won, the man she dearly loves, it’s fair to say that Yona he leads a charmed life. Though she takes for granted both her father’s good will and the constant vigilance of her childhood friend (and one of the kingdom’s Five Great Generals) Hak, Yona isn’t actually the selfish person that the above descriptions might imply. In fact, she’s almost immediately likable. The palace is the only world she’s ever known, and the life of a princess is a sheltered one and can be rather self-involved. But Yona is a kind young woman who feels deeply and won’t shy away from responsibility. She comes across as a naive teenager more than a spoiled brat. She’s also a fifteen year old who is hopelessly in love, and it’s difficult for any fifteen-year-old to look past something like that.
Unfortunately, on the night of Yona’s sixteenth birthday party, something occurs which forces her to look beyond her own feelings. Su-won murders Yona’s father and seizes control of Hiryuu Palace. This event occurs at the end of the first chapter, and the rest of the book is spent either showing the emotional fallout or contextualizing how profound Su-won’s betrayal is by delving into Yona or Hak’s warm childhood memories of their time together with Su-won. Yona wakes from a dream of one such memory and mournfully tells Hak, “The three of us used to stare up at the sky together. That sky is nowhere to be seen now.” This storytelling technique–major event near the beginning followed by lots of context for that event— proves effective at generating empathy for the characters and creating a more vicarious experience for the reader.
Yona’s grief is beautifully, painfully illustrated throughout the book by Mizuho Kusanagi’s artistry. Whether Yona is in tearful denial or she completely retreats within herself, the reader observes her grief and believes it. The range of her emotional responses shown over time lends gravitas to Su-won’s actions and also gives the reader ample reason and opportunity to become further invested in her character, All the things she has held true were either taken away from her or proved to be false; her world, her life, is in pieces. Thankfully, Hak is there to assist the princess during her darkest hour.
Hak is very much an archetypical shoujo savior character. As her childhood friend, he has nursed a secret affection for her for many years, but he expresses his feelings by teasing or playfully undermining her. Early in the story, his jibes and Yona’s subsequent reactions provide a tonal shift from the princess’s internalizing. Such pivoting doesn’t work one hundred percent of the time, but after Su-won’s betrayal, Yona is in such a fragile emotional state that Hak can’t afford to tease. Instead, his dutiful devotion to Yona and the king rise to the forefront of his heart, and he pledges to protect the princess and one day return to the palace.
This volume ends with a difficult scene to see. Yona has been a shell or herself for some time, a lifeless doll for whom Hak must tend to every single thing. One night, she realizes that she has lost the hairpin that Su-won gave to her as a birthday gift, and suddenly, the life returns to her eyes and limbs. In search of her treasure, the princess wanders clumsily into the forest, which happens to be teeming with snakes, and promptly gets lost. Hak manages to retrieve Yona but gets snake-bitten in the process. It turns out that he had the hairpin, and, when he gives it back to Yona, she treats it with the tenderness and care afforded to one’s most prized possessions. This hairpin from the man who killed her father and shattered her life is still so important to her! We see this play out from Hak’s perspective, and he’s content to let her hold onto a lie if it keeps her going. She is still coming to terms with releasing her feelings for a reality that has evaporated. Watching Yona still in the grips of a past that she knows is false is very affecting.
In Summary
This is an incredibly strong debut from Yona of the Dawn. Major plot events with far-reaching ramifications happen quickly, but the reader is also given ample time to digest them and context to feel them right along with the characters. The core cast is well-defined and tremendously likable, and there’s still plenty of room for them to evolve, particularly Yona. You can see laid out before Yona the path for her to become something greater than she is now, and that possibility is exciting. Author/illustrator Mizuho Kusanagi takes great care to show us the characters’ internal lives and their emotional states of being, and this methodology is well-suited to a story with a severed relationship at its core. For fans of fantasy shoujo such as Basara, this is a no-brainer, but Yona’s writing elevates it above being merely genre fare. Recommended.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: August 2, 2016
MSRP: $9.99
