By Fuyumi Ono and Akihiro Yamada. Released in Japan as “Tsuki no Kage, Kage no Umi” by X Bunko White Heart. Released in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment. Translated by Kim Morrissy. Adapted by Monica Sullivan.
There’s isekai, and then there’s ISEKAI. This is one of the OG isekai, back before it was a genre, and around the same time as the other majorly influential OG isekai, Fushigi Yuugi. Almost twenty years ago, Tokyopop published the first half of the series, but it then got cancelled due to poor sales, as happened a lot back then. Now it’s back, with a new translation and a spiffy looking cover. And after reading this first volume, I cannot help but feel a sneering contempt for those modern wannabe isekai. Oh, the poor guy who gets truck-kun’d into another world, and all he has its a cool sword, a bunch of catgirls, and a guild that lets him explore all the dungeons he wants for money. Or he’s summoned to be the savior of the world… well, actually, that is SORT OF how Twelve Kingdoms starts. But things go very bad very quickly. This book is dark as hell.
Youko Nakajima has been having bad dreams. Dreams of being trapped in darkness, unable to move, while hungry killer beasts are running towards her. They are making life difficult for her at her private all-girls’ school,. where she tries to keep up good grades, be a nice girl that’s easy to get along with, and ignore the bullying of other girls lower on the totem pole. Then one day, while in the teacher’s office where they’re getting annoyed about her red hair – again – suddenly a man shows up, says she needs to come with him, and tries to drag her off. Then she’s attacked by the same animals that were in her dream, who burst through the window and injure the faculty. Then she’s being told to kill then with a sword that is handed to her. Then she is possessed by a creature that can manipulate her body so she can swing the sword. Then… she’s flown to another world.
For those who saw the anime when it came out in 2002 and wonder where the other two Japanese kids are, they’re not here. (OK, Sugimoto is here to get bullied, but she doesn’t get isekai’d). Youko is all alone – indeed, very much all alone, as she quickly loses the handsome guy insisting that she come with him to fulfill her destiny and ends up in a hostile country. The book is very well written, with evocative descriptions and Youko’s descent from terror into confusion into anger into just giving up is incredibly well done. That said… in Japan, the next volume came out one month later, and I’m going to assume that things get better for her in that. That does leave this volume, which is just unrelenting. She’s torn from Japan and told she can never return. She’s imprisoned, and told she’ll likely be executed. She meets one or two nice people… who immediately turn out to be not-so-nice. By the end of the book she can’t accept that anyone being nice to her isn’t secretly evil, and is on the verge of starvation, exhaustion, and death because she’s also having to battle countless youma every single night. This is a MISERABLE isekai for her.
That said, this is a 30+-year-old series, so I know things get better for her. Eventually. Till then, this is gorgeous trauma.
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