Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Veers

Yoko collapsed and lay motionless on the trampled ground, an arm's length away from the wounded demon. For a moment that seemed like an eternity, both combatants were still. Then, in unison, the two raised their heads and found each other with their eyes. Yoko's sword shone were it stood, its point thrust into the ground, almost within reach. The beast's mouth cracked open in a mockery of a smile and breathed bloody foam onto the dirt of the road. Thus they sat, starting at each other."

-- Excerpts from The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow, chapter four, by Fuyumi Ono

I'll try to answer two questions in this review. First being how was it as a book and second how was it compared to the anime (and how do they differ and can you watch/read one first without ruining the other). This review is light on synopsis and assumes you're somewhat familiar with the story (even if said familiarity is just from reviews).

As a book, Sea of Shadow, the first in the Twelve Kingdoms series, is what you could call a sizable undertaking in all respects. As far as technicalities go, the book is eight chapters spanning 460 pages and is very well translated. Somehow TokyoPop managed to let a "wat" (rather than a "what") slip through their editing but that's pretty minor. The translation is top-notch, reads very well, and feels natural while retaining some of the important aspects of the original, such as the in-text kanji used to show the similarities between our world and the fantasy world. (Example here.) The book contains a handful of full-page black and white illustrations, about one per chapter. Fans of the anime should recognize everything in them on an initial flip-through and people new to the series will be able to have a more clear idea of how a few of the characters look.

As a Book
It's hard for me to write this part of the review since I've seen the anime twice through and knew more or less what was coming, but anyway... Story wise, Sea of Shadow starts off at a good pace with Yoko's haunting nightmares quickly showing something is going on; all is not well in this all-girls Japanese high school. The plot follows Yoko through a few days of her life in Japan before she gets whisked away to a strange world of hostile people and creatures where she must fend for herself, something she (like most people) is unaccustomed to. Feeling abandoned, betrayed, and confused for the majority of this book, Yoko struggles to conquer her own negativity and survive the hardships thrown at her by this new land.

As this is just the first volume, a lot of time is spent explaining the world, which is almost all done through dialog rather than narration. This was a good move by the author because it allows the reader and Yoko to both learn through the explanations and Yoko's questions without being crit for 9999 damage by walls of text. Also, the lessons are broken up by travel, other conversation, fights, and rare humor so that it never struck me as boring. Compared to Lord of the Rings, Twelve Kingdoms is light reading.

The passage I quoted above is something you'll see a lot of during the first two thirds of the book. Yoko travels for months on foot and is being constantly attacked. I wasn't bothered by it, but my mother said she felt like, "Oh, hey, another demon attack, hooray" about halfway through. While I see her point, like I said, I didn't think it was overkill, as it really helps show Yoko's character development (may sound strange but it's true, thanks to a certain little monkey).

One thing that I really enjoyed about the story (book or anime) is how Yoko develops. She starts off with several character flaws, some she's very aware of, some she is quickly slapped in the face with, and through this first book we see her deal with a lot of demons, including her inner ones. While she gets depressed from time to time it never depressed me, the reader, like some books have. Her attitude changes over the course of the story and I enjoyed the passages where she examined herself and made determined attempts to fix what she saw wrong in herself.

While there are some politics, history and geography lessons, fighting, demons, and some "spirited away," this is really a character-driven story. Yoko is a believable and well written character who makes very human choices and I really enjoy watching her change from a timid, people-pleasing schoolgirl into a determined, clear-sighted young adult. Feel free to be frustrated with her early on in the story, for I believe the author wants us to, but don't give up on her, because as she sees soon enough, giving up is never a solution.

As for the anime vs. the book and other related stuff
The main difference between this book and the anime, as noted in animenewsnetwork's review, is that in the anime Yoko and two of her friends get pulled into the other world together while in the book it is only Yoko. This was a big concern of mine when I heard about this because the anime makes excellent use of her two friends to show Yoko's character development and to give insight to the viewer into the mind of several characters who we'd otherwise know very little about. I don't want to give too much away here, but there is a reason for why all the things attack Yoko and in the book you don't find out until near the very end while in the anime you know much sooner thanks to Yoko and her friends being separated. Yoko's eventual resolution with Sugimoto in the anime was a good scene, but Sugimoto is only in the first few pages of the book so that conflict never even gets started.

Event wise, pretty much everything that happens in the book happens in the anime, though the order of a few of them is slightly different from what I remember the anime having...could just be me, though. The anime doesn't cut out much of the dialog--while Sea of Shadow does have a lot, there really isn't anything major that the anime didn't cover. The book ends with Yoko accepting her charge, so honestly a lot of the fun stuff in the anime (the other girl's storylines, Taiki's arc, and the wars) aren't covered at all, though they do mention Taiki being missing, which we'll get to read about in a later volume.

To answer the question about whether to read this first or watch the anime first or will doing one spoil the other...I think it will really depend on how much you liked what ever you were exposed to first. I watched the anime twice and really liked the characters and plots (and sub-plots). For me, reading the book was still very enjoyable. To contrast, I've read the Lord of the Rings trilogy twice but now that I've seen the movies I doubt I'll read the books again because the movies do a great job of condensing a lot of the bloat contained in LotR into something very enjoyable. But I didn't feel this way about Twelve Kingdoms. The anime is true to the book, so, again, I think if you liked one you'll like the other.