Anatolia Story aka Red River
I've just finished the manga, all glorious 28 volumes (minus one towards the end). Thanks to nawlins7, who pointed me towards this site. My interest in this manga goes way back, as it was in the first few issues of ShoComi that I got. But starting such a long manga at the end is not exactly to my liking, so I just skipped it looking at the pretty pictures from time to time.
The story starts out pretty simple: A Japanese girl named Yuri gets pulled into the past, to Anatolia, seat of the Hittite empire, by an evil queen who's out to kill the offspring of the queens before her, so her son becomes king. Of course she gets saved by one of the princes. His name is Kail and he soon falls for her. So far so good, this is were most manga usually turn all sappy and the heroine starts making a lot of stupid things for all the wrong reasons. But Anatolia Story is different! Loosely based on a few historic events it embraces its characters, gives them soul and spirit. It shows how they life AND die (to my greatest sorrow). This manga made me laugh, it made me scared of turning toward the next page, it made me cry (too many times to count) and it made me happy.
When I first started reading manga I fell in love with Fushigi Yuugi (and I still love it), then I fell in love with "Please Save my Earth". Finally I was able to read Basara and was simply amazed by the complexity. But I think that Anatolia Story beats them all. It's an amazing and deep story. Nothing is simple in here, nothing earned easily and nothing lasts forever. The manga is out in English and German (and probably many more languages). If you haven't read it yet, give it a try. I'm sure I'll pick it up on my next trip to Japan and it will sit proudly next to the series mentioned above.
Thank you Shinohara Chie for taking me along on this ride and for making me look up some history :)
The story starts out pretty simple: A Japanese girl named Yuri gets pulled into the past, to Anatolia, seat of the Hittite empire, by an evil queen who's out to kill the offspring of the queens before her, so her son becomes king. Of course she gets saved by one of the princes. His name is Kail and he soon falls for her. So far so good, this is were most manga usually turn all sappy and the heroine starts making a lot of stupid things for all the wrong reasons. But Anatolia Story is different! Loosely based on a few historic events it embraces its characters, gives them soul and spirit. It shows how they life AND die (to my greatest sorrow). This manga made me laugh, it made me scared of turning toward the next page, it made me cry (too many times to count) and it made me happy.
When I first started reading manga I fell in love with Fushigi Yuugi (and I still love it), then I fell in love with "Please Save my Earth". Finally I was able to read Basara and was simply amazed by the complexity. But I think that Anatolia Story beats them all. It's an amazing and deep story. Nothing is simple in here, nothing earned easily and nothing lasts forever. The manga is out in English and German (and probably many more languages). If you haven't read it yet, give it a try. I'm sure I'll pick it up on my next trip to Japan and it will sit proudly next to the series mentioned above.
Thank you Shinohara Chie for taking me along on this ride and for making me look up some history :)