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Saturday, February 23, 2008

New Thing #43--Make Mine Manga

Donald is quite a fan of fantasy novels and games. Today I asked him to make a recommendation of a book so I could read manga. Manga is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons.

Turns out that Donald introduced me to a classic--Osama Tezula's Phoenix series. He has several of the 12 volumes in the series; I chose the first volume, which is called DAWN. Phoenix is Tezula's "life's work"; each of the books tells a separate, self-contained story and takes place in a different era. Phoenix is about reincarnation. Each story involves a search for immortality. The phoenix's blood is believed to grant eternal life, but immortality in Phoenix is either unobtainable or a terrible curse.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I learned that DAWN takes place in the era of Queen Himiko (an actual ruler) of the Yamataikoku (an ancient Japanese country). Using her army, led by feudal general Saruta, to invade Japan, she seeks the Phoenix and eternal youth.

It took me a couple of pages to get interested in the book, then I had trouble putting it down. The plot was really interesting, although Dawn had a lot of violence in its pictures. The book was definitely for adults and not kids!

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