The CLAMP Project: Episode 10: RG Veda volume 9

I'd forgotten that one of the things that CLAMP does well are twist endings, where people aren't who you expected them to be all along. I also forgot about just how terrible a person Demon Ashura was, what with the blood-licking and the evil taunting in the first book. So I was pleasantly surprised reading volume 9 of RG Veda. For a while there, I was losing patience with the series, but everything is moving quickly here. It's sometimes possible for a strong ending to overcome a slow middle section. That's especially true in manga, where it can take months or even years to go from one volume to the next. 

Lady Kendappa is revealed to be not only the Sixth Star, but also Jikokuten, the fourth of Taishakuten's great generals. That's not really that surprising when I think about it: She's the only character who has had the slightest hint of ambiguity about her (aside from Kujaku, who is mostly a mystery, and demon Ashura, who vanished for most of the series), and so it makes sense that she'd be the one with the divided loyalties. She bursts onto the scene in magnificent armor covered in horns and spikes. Best of all, her harp transforms into a giant curved sword. It's a great great character design. Just look how well it works as cosplay. 

Kendappa refuses to join the rest of the Six Stars when they attack the castle, because her loyalty lies with the strongest warrior in the world: Taishakuten. She curses Sohma for being too weak to fight back, but does not kill her. Various others of the stars face off against Taishakuten's generals as Ashura goes straight after his mother.

Ashura attacks his mother, against Tenou's wishes. Tenou begs him for leniency, but Demon Ashura has taken over and Ashura can't be swayed. He runs the Shura sword clean through Shashi, resulting in a very CLAMP image of Ashura holding Shashi in his arms as she dies. It's a very familiar pose, one that we'll definitely see at least once more in another CLAMP series, but very striking.

Ashura and Shashi

At this point, we're probably supposed to feel badly that Ashura was willing to kill his own mother, if Tenou's crying is any indication, but she was so terrible that her death seems reasonable. With Shashi dead, Ashura can take the seal from her forehead and use it to completely awaken the Shura sword. This turns Ashura into a full-out demon and unlocks the passageway between Taishakuten's castle and Shura castle.

Ashura is swallowed up by mechanical looking tentacles that seem a lot like what Lord Ashura saw in his future in the flashback last volume. He emerges, older and now completely changed from the sweet child who was seen earlier in the series. He craves nothing but destruction and shows this by striking down Ryuu.

The rest of the Six Stars sense Ryuu's death, but they're busy in a fight of their own. Karura insists on facing off against Taishakuten alone, but she's too weak and is defeated. So our heroes end the book in a bad place: out of the six stars, one is still fighting for the enemy, one has turned into a demon, and two are dead, leaving just Yasha and Sohma. Yasha, of course, will be heartbroken to see that Ashura has turned evil, and Sohma is basically crippled because of her love for Kendappa. 

It's hard to see now how we'll get anything resembling a happy ending. We know that Ashura is going to kill Yasha, and now it seems pretty likely that nothing will happen to get away from that. The only possibility is in a really interesting exchange that happened between Taishakuten and Kujaku. Kujaku reveals that he, like Taishakuten, has a third eye in the middle of his forehead. This eye is a mark of having done something so terrible that even a demon wouldn't consider it. Kujaku also reveals that he's someone who "used to live here" - the former Lord Ashura reborn perhaps?

I'm impressed at how my attitude towards the series can change so quickly in a single volume. So much happened here that was actually surprising and interesting that I can almost start to forgive the meandering in the middle of the series. It could have been better if it were shorter, but I'm pretty convinced now that CLAMP is going to pull off a satisfying ending, if not a happy one.

The CLAMP Project: Episode 9: RG Veda volume 8

Finally, we have five of the six stars! And we've known about all five for half the series. Why did it have to be such a secret if it was going to be the most obvious choice? Yasha, Ashura, Ryuu, and Sohma are all Stars, along with Karura. The big question going into volume 9 is "Who is the sixth star?" The options seem to be Tenou, the kindhearted prince who is Ashura's brother, Kendappa, the royal harpist who now is clearly manipulating things so that Taishakuten will be defeated, or perhaps the general with a weakness for Karura whose name is escaping me because these names are killers.

There's another mystery repeated in volume 8, but I can't see how that really matters: "Who is the fourth great general?" 

As we start volume 8, Karura makes short work of Aguni, which of course she does, because she's a woman and so is Aguni and somehow the women always end up fighting one another in these types of series. Everyone learns that Rasetsu is dead, including Shara, who grieves for about a second before offering some horses to Yasha and the rest. She says that she promised Rasetsu that she would not cry when he died. It's the type of promise that people make and keep all the time in fiction that I don't think would ever work in real life. (Anyway, she doesn't have long to pretend not to grieve, because she kills herself soon after they leave. Supposedly this is because she doesn't want to reveal their whereabouts, but it's also because she doesn't want to live on without her husband, and because she's a character who isn't super duper important to the story, and so she can't be allowed to live.)

Ashura pops into his demon form and reveals that lo and behold, we've had four of the Six Stars all along, and Karura makes five! Then he changes back to his real form and says that he wants to go to Taishakuten's castle. He wants to confront his mother about why she tried to kill him. And he wants to confront Taishakuten about why he keeps killing people and causing sadness.

Tenou and Ashura

On the way there, our party runs into Tenou and Kendappa on a date. Tenou has just asked Kendappa to marry him, the poor fool. Kendappa and Sohma stare longingly. Tenou and Ashura have a psychic connection of some sort and realize one another's identity, but there won't be any time for a real meeting, because Komoukuten shows up, looking very much like a character right out of Ruroni Kenshin.

Komoukuten fights with Yasha, unwisely taunting him with tales of how he killed Rasetsu and split Shara's body in half. Yasha gets furious and does something that I can only describe as "going Super Saiyan". He glows, his hair flows up into the air, and his fighting aura becomes a physical thing that literally disintegrates Komoukuten.

Is this CLAMP or Dragonball?

At this point, the artwork is the main reason to read RG Veda, and it continues to stun. There are some great two-page panels, like the silent meeting of the eyes between Tenou and Ashura as they realize that they are brothers, or Tenou revealing a field of giant flowing blossoms to Kendappa, or Komoukuten facing off against Yasha. The magical auras in the fight scenes flow around the page like fire or wind. I never cease to be impressed with the way that things flow in CLAMP artwork.

I'm happy to only have two books left and to be able to move on soon. Tokyo Babylon is calling to me, and it's only a few short volumes away.

The CLAMP Project: Episode 8: RG Veda volume 7

At least more happens in volume 7 of RG Veda, but not with our main characters. Ashura, Yasha, and the rest end up staying with Shara, a nice human woman who turns out to be Rasetsu's wife. CLAMP spent most of volume 7 trying to hide her identity, but it wasn't very effective because it was revealed in the next-volume preview of volume 6. I hate when people do that. I wonder if that was a Tokyopop decision or if it was in the original text.

Ashura bonds with Shara and asks questions about what it means to be a family and protect the people you love. Yasha lets Ashura do whatever he wants. Finally, we get an explanation for that: Because the Shura sword will lead them to the six stars, and because the Shura sword is inside of Ashura, Yasha figures the best option is to follow Ashura's whims. It's not a bad reason to wander around randomly. Eventually, the fire god Aguni attacks and there's some fighting that is interrupted when Karura finally shows up.

Meanwhile, we spend quite a bit of time in the castle. Queen Shashi plots to have her son Tenou replace Taishakuten as God King, which she feels will put herself into power. Prince Tenou, Ashura's brother, attempts to hit on Kendappa, who is clearly oblivious and uninterested. Kendappa again swears her allegiance to Taishakuten, but simultaneously hides the fact that she knows that Karura is alive. General Zouchouten, the guy who stopped Taishakuten from killing Karura, also knows that she is alive, but refuses to say anything. Taishakuten speaks of the one thing that he wants to protect, which he'll give up everything for. 

There are a couple of experimental wordless passages here that depict battles. The first one is a flashback to the battle between Taishakuten and the former God King. The second is a demonstration battle between Tenou and Zouchouten. They're really effective sections, showing just how skilled the artwork is. It's clearly the artwork that drew in the audience for RG Veda, because the story just isn't there. But the art is absolutely stunning.

Finally, the volume ends with a confusing flashback to Lord Ashura (our Ashura's father) in the past. He speaks of his "sin" and confronts a fellow pointy-eared individual who is wrapped up in some sort of machine. He knows that there is some destiny that he does not want to happen, so he speaks to Yasha and tells him to protect the thing that he finds precious. He mentions his child, so it's clear that he's referring to our Ashura, but I can't tell if speaking to Yasha about protecting Ashura was Lord Ashura's crime, or if there was some other crime involved.

Throughout the chapter, there's a theme of how fighting your destiny makes you a sinner because you're going against the laws of the universe, but I don't think CLAMP believes that. In fact, most CLAMP characters manage to work within their destiny to do good. It's just not clear enough what Lord Ashura knew, what he did to try to prevent it, or why it matters.

The CLAMP Project: Episode 7: RG Veda volume 6

What is this, a shounen manga? I kept being reminded of Ruroni Kenshin as I read the sixth volume of RG Veda. 

Yasha takes his party back to the Yasha tribe's destroyed village once again. This time, he's going to burn the bodies of the dead villagers. I'm not sure how long has passed since the start of the series, but by this point, I wouldn't imagine there was much left of the bodies to burn. Still, because there are only about 5 places in the world, that's where we are for volume 6.

Karura, who decided to join Yasha, only shows up in a quick vision at the beginning of the book. Sohma is at least there and gets some speaking parts, though now she's filling in for Gigei and acting motherly towards Ashura. Ashura continues to insist that the only person who appreciates him and loves him is Yasha, yet Ryuu and Sohma and even Kujaku all seem awfully friendly towards him.

While Yasha's burning whatever is left of the village, his long-lost brother Rasetsu shows up. Rasetsu sports giant spiky armor and a killer mullet and fights with two scythes connected by a chain. He could have come straight out of Kenshin. He's justifiably angry at Yasha for protecting Ashura and getting his tribe killed and so he attacks Yasha. 

The rest of the book is pretty much taken up by the two of them fighting and remembering the past. Rasetsu was Yasha's younger brother, but he was the son of the king's wife. Yasha's mother was a concubine, so Rasetsu should have been the next leader of the tribe. But Rasetsu decided that Yasha was the stronger warrior, so he left the village so that Yasha would have to lead. Now he's back, and pissed off that Yasha got everyone killed.

Eventually, Yasha explains to Rasetsu that he was told by the old Lord Ashura that he should protect whatever is most precious to him, even if it meant death, if he wanted to fulfill his destiny. He's come to realize that it wasn't his tribe, but rather Ashura, that is most precious to him, so he's going to protect Ashura. I'm not sure how it took him so long to realize this since he's been acting like a father to Ashura for the last six books, but RG Veda is full of people taking far too long to come to emotional decisions that they seem to have already made. Rasetsu gives up on killing Yasha, saying that he gave up on the tribe, too, so they were basically even. Then he goes out and gets himself killed, despite saying that all he wants to do is live to protect the one he loves. It's probably supposed to be tragic, but it all happens so fast that I just shrugged it off.

Meanwhile there's a whole lot of Ashura feeling guilty for getting the Yasha tribe killed, and of Yasha feeling guilty for getting the Yasha tribe killed, and Ashura wanting to protect Yasha, and Yasha wanting to protect Ashura, and Ashura feeling bad that his mother tried to kill him and of course, the prophecy of the six stars. Four books to go. Four more stars to find and a final battle to be fought.

At least when a book is all fighting, it's easy to get through quickly.

The CLAMP Project: Episode 6: RG Veda Volume 5

Here we are, halfway through the series, and we now have two of the six stars identified. We only have 5 books left for our heroes to find four more stars, defeat Taishakuten (I have no doubts that this will happen - there's not enough sophistication in the story for there to be a neutral or bad ending), and for Ashura to kill Yasha. That's not a lot of time, and it's one reason why I'm not happy with what happened in RG Veda volume 5.

This volume focused almost entirely on Karura, only by the end, I found her losing her initial appeal. Once a powerful warrior, she's shown here to be wishy-washy and indecisive, impulsive in the worst way possible, and generally weak-willed. She spends the days after her sister's death in her sister's room, crying and refusing to eat or sleep. Kendappa, the harpist who may or may not be Yasha's half-sister, comes to revive Karura by playing the song that Karoubinga sang as she died.

Upon hearing the song, Karura is revived and vows to seek revenge against Taishakuten. If things had stopped here, I would have been happy. She had her grief, it's time to move on, and we can get going with the story. Unfortunately, Kendappa convinces Karura that what Karoubinga really would have wanted is for her to keep on living instead of throwing away her life for vengeance. So Karura changes her mind in the space of a single conversation and decides to keep working for Taishakuten like she always has.

Kendappa is a bit of an enigma here. She speaks to Taishakuten as if she is completely loyal to him and convinces Karura not to fight against him, but in the past, she helped Yasha. So many of the characters are this way - only serving Taishakuten because it's easier - that it seems like rebellion has been brewing for years.

Only Taishakuten proceeds to behave in the worst possible way imaginable for someone who is trying to keep the loyalty of a barely-willing populace. He calls Karura to his castle and reveals that he fed her sister's body to his pet beasts. Let me repeat that: We have a king so cruel that he takes his fourth-strongest general, kills her sister, lets his pets eat her body, and then rubs it in her face -- this despite the fact that she was willingly serving him for hundreds of years. There's never any indication that he has any idea that Karura has helped Yasha and Ashura. She doesn't put any outward sign that she's not willing to serve him. And he still feeds her sister to his pets. It's not exactly the smartest political move.

Again: How is this guy still in power? No one likes him. This can't be the worst thing he's done in the last 300 years. Even with 300,000 warriors, someone at some point has to have wanted to slip some poison into his food or something. It's completely unbelievable. His actions don't show him as a strong leader, and so there's no tension about whether or not he will be defeated. I half think that as soon as Ashura shows up, everyone in the castle will turn their back on Taishakuten, who will somehow be allowed to escape and live a life in exile.

So Karura, finding that her sister was pet food, lashes out at Taishakuten in rage. One would think that would be the end of her and her people, yet somehow King So-Cruel-He-Feeds-Girls-To-Pets is convinced by Zouchouten to let her go. This is so stupid that I have to say it again: The king, knowing that his fourth-strongest general is now never going to follow him again, and has indeed attacked him in the middle of his own castle, decides to let her go with a simple demotion. 

Karura returns to her air castle, makes her people promise not to act against Taishakuten, and fakes her own death so that he won't decide to attack her tribe. That being done, we flash over to Ashura, who sees Karura's image in his sword: she's the second of the six stars, and we've wasted an entire book and a whole lot of brain cells to get her to make a decision she should have been able to make back when Taishakuten had simply just killed the beloved sister whose protection was the only reason why she served him. 

Is it over yet? I really just want it to be over.

The CLAMP Project: Episode 5: RG Veda Volume 4

I spoke too soon. Just an hour or so ago I was praising CLAMP for adding a strong female character, and here comes volume 4 of RG Veda, with only two women present at all.

The first is Taishakuten's soothsayer, Hanranya, who isn't even called by name. She's unable to watch Ashura, Yasha, and Ryuu in her water mirror because Kujaku is blocking her. Taishakuten has sent another of his generals, Vahyu, to lure Ashura, Yasha, and Ryuu near the lair of a monster that lives near the destroyed Yasha village in the north.

Without any clear direction in mind, Yasha has been wandering around at random. It's so nonsensical that Kujaku, ever present and ever-watching, even says so. After leaving the air castle in the south, they've wandered north to the ruins of the Yasha village. I still just don't get it. Why don't they go somewhere off in the woods somewhere and stay for a few months, let Ashura catch another growth spurt, maybe spread some rumors and see if any fellow rebels come to join their cause? Why go wandering around in circles? 

It's especially strange because it seems like both the air castle and the Yasha village are within a day's travelling distance of Taishakuten's castle. It's possible for Yasha to travel from the castle to Kuyou's hiding place to the village and then off to Ashura's woods in a day or so. It's also possible for the messenger from Taishakuten to kidnap Karyoubinga and take her back to Taishakuten in the amount of time that it took for Karura to take a walk in the market. So why on earth is Yasha staying so close when he knows that he has to gather more people before Taishakuten can be defeated? The answer is easy, but disappointing: because the creator just can't come up with any more places. That's why the world feels so small.

So Yasha, Ashura, and Ryuu end up at the Yasha village, where a monster who lives in an ice castle is waiting for them. This monster has been waiting all its life to attack Yasha, yet somehow never got the chance during the hundreds of years that Yasha was living in the village. It waits until now, when it's convenient for the story. 

The monster sends magical butterflies to attack Yasha and Ashura with disturbing psychic visions. Ashura sees Gigei, who is then killed before his eyes, and the villager who blamed him for the destruction of the village. Finally, he's faced with his mother, who tried to kill him as a baby. It's hard not to feel bad for little-boy Ashura, even knowing that demon Ashura lurks inside him. 

Yasha sees the dead Yasha villagers, who blame him for their deaths, and is sucked away into the ice castle, where a monster with a little girl's beautiful face and an insect-like body traps him in ice, planning to eat him and gain his strength. Before it can do that, however, Kujaku leads Ashura and Ryuu to the castle, where they defeat Vahyu's forces with the help of Sohma.

There's woman number two! It turns out that Sohma's not been following the group around after all - she's been back with Kisshouten. This shows the smallness of the world, because she could show up quickly enough to make a difference as soon as the attack started, so Kisshouten must be very very close to the Ashura village. It also shows how much Sohma matters to the story when her being with the characters is pretty much the same as her being away from them.

Kujaku performs a rite on Ashura that fully wakes the Shura sword - and the Ashura demon, which really freaks out Ryuu. Then they all enter the castle, where Ashura frees Yasha and Kukaju slays the monster, revealing his true black-winged form.

Kujaku, from the Tenmagouka artbook. Image source minitokyo.net

So there we go, 40% in to the story and we still only have 1 of the Six Stars. Meanwhile, Taishakuten is losing generals left and right. I think all that's left is his head general Bishamonten. It's clear here that Ohkawa, who is creating the story, just doesn't have the chops yet to keep together an epic of this nature. RG Veda should be a vast, world-spanning tale, but most of the time new characters are killed shortly after their introduction. The world is tiny, able to be travelled from end to end in a day or two, and the villain is so incompetent that it's amazing he's gotten anywhere at all. There's a saying that all authors should write their first novel and then throw it away, never to be seen by anyone else. I'm not going to go as far as to say that's what should have happened with RG Veda. It's entertaining, as long as you don't think about the logistics (or the women).

The CLAMP Project: Episode 4: RG Veda Volume 3

I'll admit it, I was getting a little worried there. RG Veda is a manga for girls/women, by a group of women, and up until Volume 3, the only women in the story were playing minor parts at best. They were dancers or musicians or wives or lovers - the sort of secondary bit players that women tend to be in many fantasy series. 

I'm not going to go proclaiming that all stories need to star strong women - strong men are interesting, too - but I'm a little tired of women always being the wives and the priestesses and the supporting cast in a way that I never really recognized until I played Final Fantasy XIII. At the opening of that story, we were presented with a female protagonist who was a strong soldier fighting to save her sister. Lightning's initial battle role wasn't the support job, it was the fighter job, and until I saw that, I didn't realize just how much I had wanted to see a woman in a video game who wasn't just a healer. Eventually, Lightning became a supporting cast member in her own story, and did gain one of those support jobs, and then the entire story went to pieces, but I prefer to remember her as the character she was in the first half of the game. Yes, she was essentially a female version of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, but what's so wrong with that? 

Last night I read an article by author Daniel Swenson about the story possibilities opened by changing his originally-male protagonist into a female. While reading Volume 3 of RG Veda, I couldn't help but think of that article. There's really no reason so far that Yasha couldn't have been a woman. The only loss would have been that there would be one less bishounen pretty-boy for readers to ogle. A great warrior leader? Can be a woman. Who decides to rebel against an evil leader for the love of a child? Definitely could be a woman. The father-son relationship developing between Yasha and Ashura is interesting, but there's no reason that it couldn't be a mother-son relationship.

That's why I was relieved to see that Volume 3 is devoted mainly to the introduction of new character Karura, queen of the air-faring Karura tribe. She's one of the Guardian Warriors of Tenkai - on the same level as Ryuu and Yasha, sharing their role as a protector of the land. The Karura protect the lands to the south from their castle in the air, which is only accessible by flying on the back of giant birds. Each Karura's life is tied to that of a bird, so Karura has a garuda bird (like a giant phoenix) which rides on her shoulder at all times, making her look like one of the Biblical Archangels.

Picture from the RG Veda Tenmagouka artbook. Not my scan, from minitokyo.net

Karura, like Lightning, is motivated to protect her little sister, Karyoubinga. Karyoubinga is a sickly child who has never left the purified air of the air castle. Karura hates Taishakuten's rule, but she's served as a loyal servant to the usurper king for the last 300 years solely out of fear of what his retaliatory blow would do to her sister.

With the other two Guardian Warriors gone - and for some reason, no one has put it together that Ryuu's vanishing at the same time that Yasha was travelling through the dragon kingdom means that Ryuu ran off with Yasha - Karura and her people are essential to Taishakuten's security forces. He even says so himself. Right before he has a messenger kidnap Karyoubinga from the air castle and bring her to sing at a celebration of the 300th anniversary of his rule. I'm flabbergasted at this point that this man has managed to rule for 300 days, let alone 300 years. There's absolutely no motivation for this move - it's something he does out of a cruelly capricious whim. Karyoubinga dies from exposure to the dirty air of the world, and suddenly Taishakuten has yet another enemy where once he had an ally.

At this point, I'm half expecting that the end of the story will be Taishakuten tripping over his own robes and falling onto his own swordpoint. There's something to be said of people bringing about their own downfalls due to pride, but then there's something else to be said about outright stupidity. It's as if CLAMP can't figure out how to write a villain who is both powerful and yet vulnerable to their heroes' attack. 

Back to Yasha, Ashura, Ryuu, and the silent, almost never-seen, certainly never-heard-from Souma: Yasha destroys Varuna with a magical sword attack. Ashura's demon side awakens and goes to release the Souma sword. It turns out that all that stuff about having to wait for an eclipse was just Kahra lying to Kumareten in order to have more time with him. She's been tied to the Shura sword somehow, so in order for the sword to be awakened, she has to die. Out of his love for her, Kumareten chooses to die, as well. And so we lose a few more characters. These brief vignettes provide a history to the world, but I feel like they're distracting me from learning more about the really important characters in the story, like Yasha, who gets very little development aside from his wanting to 1) protect Ashura and 2) bring down Taishakuten.

Another guess for the future: any character whose name we've learned who somehow manages not to die will be one of the Six Stars. We're 30% finished with the series and only know one of the Six Stars (Yasha). Probably, Ryuu, Karura, and maybe Souma will all be Stars as well. We'll see as the story goes on.