The CLAMP Project: Episode 11: RG Veda volume 10

Volume 10 of RG Veda is just a series of one death after another. That's certainly one way to end a series, though the body count and the sheer amount of blood and violence make me wonder. Not about RG Veda, but about another CLAMP series, X, which has been on hold since 2003 because of the amount of violence in the ending. It could be that since X is set in a modern world, the violence was seen as more disturbing than violence in a fantasy world like RG Veda. Regardless, I'd love to see the end of X, and this will certainly not be the last time that I mention that in this project. It's interesting to think about the impact of X on RG Veda and RG Veda on X. By the time that RG Veda had finished, there had already been at least seven volumes of X published. Tokyo Babylon had been over for years. And Cardcaptor Sakura was just about to start. That's a lot of work to happen at the same time as RG Veda, and I think that RG Veda ended up suffering for it. 

After Karura's death, Kendappa explains to Sohma that she knew that Sohma was fighting a losing battle going against Taishakuten, but she had to let her go and fight against him because Kendappa knew that Sohma would never be happy otherwise. How's that for a tragic relationship? It gets worse.

Yasha kills Bishamonten, who is revealed to have joined Taishakuten's side only because he was promised that he would be able to marry Kisshouten. Kisshouten mourns her dead husband - it turns out that even though he married her as a prize after the rebellion, she'd already been in love with him all along. She doesn't have long to mourn - no one does in RG Veda - because Taishakuten quickly strikes her down, after telling her that her father, the former God King, did things that were worse than what a demon would do. It's a very violent death, too - he slices her in half from the shoulder down. Ow.

Meanwhile, Kujaku has been having wordless and confusing flashbacks showing a lady with an eye on her forehead behind bars, strangling a small child with black wings. He reveals to Taishakuten's stargazer that he's a stargazer himself, only one marked by a terrible sin.

Yama and Taishakuten fight one another until Zouchouten steps in and asks if Taishakuten cares for his kingdom at all. Taishakuten admits that no, he doesn't care for Tenkai at all - he's only doing what he's doing because of a promise he made in the past.

Ashura shows up and reveals that he killed Ryuu, taunts Yasha that he was foolish to awaken him, and says all he wants is to destroy the world. He fights against Yasha for a while, telling him that the Ashura that Yasha knew earlier is dead. He stabs Yasha in the shoulder and then disappears in a white light - the Ashura castle has awakened and he's been transported there.

Yasha runs after Ashura and Sohma goes against Taishakuten. She's completely unmatched, however, so Kendappa steps in. If Sohma is going to have to die, Kendappa is going to kill her herself. Yet another tragic relationship. At this point, the meaning of all these deaths and tragedies is sort of starting to wear away. There's just been so much death and so much destruction and so much tragedy that it just doesn't have any impact. Kendappa stabs Sohma, and as Sohma lays dying, Kendappa slices her own throat. Sohma awakens and tries to give Kendappa her blood to pass along her immortality, but Taishakuten pulls Sohma away before she can succeed, saying that there is nothing worse than living without the person you love.

Thankfully, the destruction stops for a bit and we get some revelations. Ashura, in his castle, receives the memories of his father. At the same time, Kujaku reveals his own truths to Yasha. It turns out that the prophecy had more to it than we had known. Basically, Ashura was destined to destroy the world. When Lord Ashura found that out, he decided that he would do everything he could to keep his son from doing so. He recruited Taishakuten to his aid. Taishakuten's price? Ashura himself. I'm amazed it took CLAMP this long to reveal some boy's love in their first series. Taishakuten and Ashura became lovers. Taishakuten swore to help Ashura and to prevent his son from destroying the world. He staged his rebellion so he'd be in a position to stop the Six Stars from gathering together, in hopes of preventing the prophecy from happening.

After the rebellion, Ashura asked Taishakuten to kill him and eat his body, so that Taishakuten would inherit his powers and be able to strike down the new Ashura. Taishakuten did so (another tragic relationship!!!), which is what caused his third eye to pop out on his forehead. 

Kujaku's third eye, on the other hand, was through no fault of his own - he was the son of the old God King and his sister, a stargazer. Because Kujaku's death was a sign of the king's crime of incest, Kujaku and his mother were locked away. Young Kujaku tried to kill himself to let his mother be released from the prison, but then his mother stepped in and tried to strangle him. What happened next is unclear - either Kujaku stabbed his mother accidentally with the stargazer staff or someone else did.

Yasha's sword, the Yama sword, is a special sword that will be able to control the Ashuras. Kujaku has been working behind the scenes to try to form a special bond between Yasha and Ashura in the hopes that Ashura will not kill Yasha and fulfill the prophecy.

In the end, it works out. Yasha confronts Ashura, who charges Yasha, but love wins out and at the last minute, turns his sword on himself. Ashura is swallowed up by his tentacle plant things and stays in stasis for some time. Yasha swears to stay by Ashura's side until he awakens. Sometime later, Kujaku comes and stabs himself with his staff, offering up his life in order to awaken Ashura. Yasha and Ashura go on to live happily ever after, even though Ashura feels pretty guilty about having killed everyone and all.

Now that it's over, I'm glad I read RG Veda for the sake of completion, but I'll never read it again. If it hadn't been by artists that I enjoy and part of this project, I'm not sure I would have finished it. It suffered from a real lack of momentum in the middle and from too-extreme brutality by the end. One tragedy at a time can bring pathos and emotion to a story, but when they come one after another after another, they lose any impact that they might have had. There's some interesting ideas with the twists - Taishakuten's real motivations, Kendappa's true allegiance - but they come too late, at a time when too much else was happening. There's no time to reflect on the revelations. Finally, the ending, with Ashura and Yasha going off to live happily together, was just too sappy - especially in comparison to the violence and tragedy that had filled the rest of the last volume.

Next up: a special side episode on the RG Veda anime, followed by CLAMP's next series: Man of Many Faces.

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).