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lleullawgyffes's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
the best-executed scenes were Tadaka’s journey through the Shadowlands and Kaede’s second encounter with the Emperor. more cohesive than The Crane, at least, but the Ujimitsu and Tsukune scenes felt — even though I like Ujimitsu! — like distractions from the main plot. the Japanese was still messy (“Oni no Tadaka”). the biggest problems were Junzo and Ujina. on the level of the series as a whole, Junzo has barely been mentioned — but now, suddenly, Kaede and Kachiko are casually conversing about him over board games as if it’s common knowledge that he’s the one rallying Fu Leng’s forces and releasing the plague. Ujina, likewise, feels like he’s part of a larger plot around Kaede, but we’ve had no prior indication of what this plot actually is (including in The Scorpion, where Kaede was also a POV character), and the end of the book leaves us no clearer than the beginning. there’s only so much I’m willing to accept as ~a mystery of the Void~ before you need to give me some idea of what’s going on.
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