Yona of the Dawn

So I bought a book that suppose to help you market and sell your book. It’s more for self publishers (which I’m not) so I don’t know how much it will help. I have not started reading it yet, but I should in a few days.

I thought this week I would talk about another book series I like. Now again it’s from the Japanese genre, so it's mangas. (For those of you who don’t know what that is, think graphic novel that you read the opposite way, back to front.) There is an anime of this show, but it really only gets the story started. It only covers the first eight books or so. The books written are in the 30’s, I think. (Book 22 has just been translated into English so that’s as far as I am. I’ve found more translated online, but I think I will wait for the books to be officially translated and released. I think that might help support the author more, but in that I really don’t know much.)

If you have not guessed that name of the story yet, it's Yona of the Dawn. I don’t want to give too much of the story away so I will try to do this without spoilers again. You follow a princess, Yona, and her companions after she leaves the royal palace and must began a whole new life. The setting I’ve heard is basted off of ancient Korea. It’s not modern. It’s also a fantasy so there are things out of the realm of reality. That being said, I think they take a very real approach to many things. When the story starts out, it can feel a bit cliché and predictable, but the writing gets better and better as it goes. Your main villain at the beginning seems to have a normal motive for his tracery, though an understandable one. But as the story goes on he gets more complicated. There are times you seriously question if he is a villain. He did a bad thing for a good reason. But how far will he go with it? How much is he willing to sacrifice, and what is he thinking? Honestly I don’t know. He’s something of an enigma and as interesting as *beep*.

Relationships are real and complicated. So are the characters. The author does a wonderful job of making all the characters different and keeping them that way. It brings up a surprising amount of politics, and what it takes, and is like, to rule a country. (Not as mad or cut throat as Game of Thrones, but still real.) I’m not a person who likes or gets into politics, yet I can get into this. It brings out the failures of being a complete pacifist, but also how being a war mongrel is no better. It’s very real for being fantasy and made up.

Oh and did I mention it’s full of comedy. Every book as at least one scene I bust up laughing at. There are innuendos, though they tend to sail over the top of the main character, Yona’s head. (Hak is my favorite. He can be an ass and a sweet heart. He loves to pick on Yona, and others, but would lay down his life for her too, Literally!)

What more can I say. The characters act and think like real people. Like what if your best friend betrayed you? Now say you had romantic feelings for that person. For some you would hate that person’s guts. For others, maybe you hate them and can’t forgive them but, your feelings don’t just die. Others might advise you to hate them and tell you never to have feeling for them again (which might be what most of us would advise or think), but I think it very realistic that one might struggle with lingering feelings. Such relationships are complicated and messy. Its cut and dry, black and white, but often real life isn’t so simple.

I think it’s this sort of thing that makes me love Yona of the Dawn so much. The lore is interesting, the humor great, but the realisticness of it all, along with well written characters and story line, make me love it.

I told my new friend about Yona of the Dawn a few months ago, and she is totally hooked now too. It’s great to have someone to talk to about it. Your main character is a girl, but I would not call it a girly story. The anime is a good start, but the books get even better after it’s done. (Check out the OVA’s. That gives a gimps of what the books get into, the last two anyway.)

Well that’s all for this week. Just a quick plug on something I like and why. God Bless.