borrow the sword of kaigen a theonite war story

His mother, Misaki, is the other main viewpoint character. When a new student at his school challenges everything Mamoru knows about history and current affairs, his is forced to reevaluate what is worth fighting for. Born to a clan of powerful Jijakalu (“water benders”), Mamoru is raised in a strict martial tradition which demands absolute obedience to a faraway emperor. One of the main narratives follows 14-year old Mamoru Matsuda. In this flipping of the historical script, the rocky coasts of Shirojima are the first line of defense-The Sword of Kaigen (surprise! It’s not some awesome artifact). The history differs from Earth in that the equivalent of Japan’s Greater East Asian Co Prosperity Sphere originates in Kaigen (“Korea”) but this Kaigenese Empire has weakened so much that neighboring Ranga (“China”) plans to invade. The story takes part in Shirojima Province, where the sheer power of martial magic has ensured that martial traditions endure. Airplanes, smartphones, and televisions co-exist with the Avatar equivalent of water-, air-, and fire benders (unfair comparison #2: I loved the originality of The Poppy War’s drug-centered magic more than Sword of Kaigen’s less uncommon elemental magic). It also mixes Last Airbender-like elemental magic with contemporary technology. Its continental landmasses are similar (turn the map upside-down!), so much that I wondered if it was a post-apocalyptic story where the coastlines changed from polar ice melt or tectonic shifts. On the surface, Wang’s Theonite world of Duna does not look much different from modern-day Earth.

My mistake, and one which was rectified within the first few pages (unfair comparison #1: one of my main complaints with The Poppy War was that I was unsure of the technology level until halfway through). The kimono-wearing young man facing the ocean, katana bared, screamed either a historical fiction or a Second World, Japanese-themed chanbara story. Fair or not, I couldn’t help but to compare the two books, and those comparisons invariably found their way into this review.Īs a reader and writer of Asian-themed fantasy, I wanted to read Sword of Kaigen from the first time its striking blue cover image flashed across my Facebook feed. With all the hype surrounding it, The Poppy War was my most anticipated release of 2018 but one whose expectations were so high, it left me underwhelmed. The Poppy War’s darkness meets The Last Airbender’s Elemental Magicīeing a Second World conflict between China and Japan, ML Wang’s Sword of Kaigen brought to my mind RF Kuang’s meteoric debut, The Poppy War.

Borrow the sword of kaigen a theonite war story