Ack too many things to post about—!!!

Chap­ter 13 is out and the long awaited scene (spoiler!?) is finally here! I guess that marks an end to the first extended arc of Akagami no Shirayuki-hime (Eng­lish: Red-haired Snow-White princess), and I am utterly impressed. I never thought I’d see so much.. sen­si­bil­ity, or ratio­nale, in a fan­tasy shoujo manga. I mean not only is the entire cast (all of them that mat­ters) lik­able, but they’re all intel­li­gent and hard-working peo­ple, whose actions are log­i­cal, and whose emo­tions are bal­anced, con­sid­ered, and devel­oped only in response to other character’s actions (rather than any plot device).

Even more shock­ingly, the hero never over­shad­ows or over­pro­tects the hero­ine, who is as inde­pen­dent and capa­ble as they come with­out get­ting unnec­es­sar­ily stub­born.  She’s has the role of Cin­derella in a rela­tion­ship with the prince and I can’t even pick out any sig­nif­i­cant flaws in the polit­i­cal interactions!

Is this even shoujo any­more? Cause I sure can’t spot any of shoujo manga’s major flaws. Well, appar­ently man­gaka Aizuki Sorata begs to dif­fer as she crafts this mas­ter­piece, com­plete with one of the most sim­plis­ti­cally beau­ti­ful art styles I’ve seen. Its even more amaz­ing that this seems to be her first ongo­ing series! Wow do I see some amaz­ing works com­ing out of this mangaka’s career!

It is truly a hid­den gem amongst manga. (well, thanks to Aeran­dria, prob­a­bly not so hid­den anymore).

Rea­sons for Read­ing (I guess this is a Review):

• A remark­able hero­ine — she’s not per­fect, she’s not strong, but she tack­les every­thing with smart think­ing and an iron will.
• Great art style — sim­plis­tic yet ele­gantly beau­ti­ful, cute with­out rely­ing on chibi-esque pro­por­tions, all-fitting yet unique.
• Excel­lent sup­port cast — a lik­able and ratio­nale cast who reflect­ing upon the main cou­ple from all the respec­tive sides of the palace structure.
• Good pac­ing — unex­pected things may come but noth­ing jumps out of the blue, feel­ings and deci­sions come grad­u­ally but not too slow.

Expo­si­tion

As the name goes, the story fol­lows the foot­steps of Shi­rayuki, a peas­ant girl with unique apple-red hair. Because of the extra­or­di­nary rar­ity of her hair, the fool­ish Prince Raji of her home coun­try decides that she would make a good trea­sure con­cu­bine and requests a mar­riage. Shi­rayuki wasn’t given a choice but she also wasn’t going to become part of some stu­pid aristocrat’s col­lec­tion — so she cuts off a piece of her red hair for him and leaves the country.

Along her route she meets a trio of trav­el­ers, led by a young man named Zen — some­one of obvi­ous pres­tige. Because of his posi­tion and the unwanted atten­tion it draws, Zen starts off rather cau­tious of Shi­rayuki, but her hon­esty and deter­mi­na­tion man­ages to gain his trust and support.

How­ever, Princes Raji wasn’t fin­ished yet, and as he attempts to take Shi­rayuki his plans acci­den­tally get Zen involved, poi­son­ing him. As Shi­rayuki returns boldly to seek the anti­dote for her newly acquainted friend, Zen and his Royal Guards infil­trates Raji’s place and breaks down the doors. Here Zen reveals his true title — the 2nd Prince of the neigh­bor­ing king­dom of Clar­ines — and man­ages to break the con­fronta­tion with some smart think­ing. After forc­ing Raji to with­draw, Zen encour­age Shi­rayuki to begin her own life and choose her own fate — and hence she fol­lows him to Clar­ines and their adven­tures begin.

Char­ac­ters & Story

It sounds like the start of a fairy tale, but Shi­rayuki is no Cin­derella, and she’s cer­tainly not reliant upon the Prince. Their rela­tion­ship purely starts off as that of close friends, and slowly devel­ops as they cross tri­als and chal­lenges. But even then Shi­rayuki had no wish to use her spe­cial posi­tion. She would get into the Palace through her own means — through her dream by becom­ing a Royal Phar­ma­cist. Over­com­ing tri­als with her own dili­gence and cre­ativ­ity, she man­ages to not only be Zen’s friend, but also become a trusted helper to Zen within the Cas­tle. Her path was a chal­leng­ing one, for every­one ques­tioned the con­cept of some peas­ant girl becom­ing attached to the Prince, but Shi­rayuki took them head on with con­sid­er­a­tion, cun­ning, and an abun­dance of sheer deter­mi­na­tion and guts.

Zen, on the other hand, was no over­bear­ing main char­ac­ter either. He watched care­fully from the side­lines and let Shi­rayuki do her thing, putting his faith in her strength of char­ac­ter and com­ing only to help when nec­es­sary. Mean­while, he tack­led his own prob­lems — be it his brother the Crown Prince’s dis­plea­sure or admin­is­tra­tive duties of his own.

Shi­rayuki, Prince Zen’s truest ally

The main char­ac­ters cer­tainly weren’t the only. There were Zen’s royal guards Mit­suhide and Kiki, the Royal Phar­ma­cists, the Ninja Obi, the Mar­quis Haruka, the Crown Prince Izana, and even Prince Raji returns — all of them offered inde­pen­dent opin­ions and log­i­cal actions of their own, reflect­ing upon the main cou­ple from all the respec­tive sides of the palace struc­ture. At the same time, they’re also devel­op­ing lives and weav­ing pair­ings of their own…

This, is how a fairy tale should be done. This, is a fairy tale done right.

Now keep this up, and Akagami no Shirayuki-hime will def­i­nitely be get­ting a per­ma­nent seat on my MAL manga top 5.

I really love the clothes design too~

Okay now I seri­ously need sleep…

Pos­si­bly Related Posts

• Thank You, Angel Beats!
• Arakure and the Yakuza Shoujo
• Simoun’s Cre­ative Fan­tasy and Setting-driven Storytelling

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 22:16 and is filed under Manga. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.