Things I Have Learned From Basara (part one):

[esmenet]

The most romantic thing you can do for your boyfriend is rebuilding his totally trashed city while he's gone.

The most romantic thing you can do for your girlfriend is helping her reform your country into a democratic paradise.

EVERYBODY WINS.


Eight more volumes to go!

Comments

[aldanise]

I think you may just have convinced me to read this series.

(When does this happen? I'd swear I've read the first couple of volumes and not gotten to it...)

\o/!

[esmenet]

It may read better the second time through; I think I got past the marathon arc and stopped the first time I read it.

They go off to the democratic paradise of Okinawa at around volume nine, I think, and that's where the politics aspect really starts to get rolling. I daren't explain any more than that, I think.

The Red King's capital Suoh starts to play a fairly major part pretty early on—it's one of the early hints that the Red King can actually be a pretty okay ruler—gets sort of blown up in volume twelve(ish), and Sarasa sends Shuri a bottle of Suou wine (only place in the province that can grow grapes, since the whole place is basically a desert) as a sign that the city is recovering in one of the late-teens volumes.

I think things really start to get interesting at around volume four, if you start out needing a goal to power through the early bits. Please do try, if only so I can have more people to talk about this to. :D

[dolores_crane]

That sounds amazing! (Have you read Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga? It's a bit like this.)

[thady]

Oh, Basara is awesome. I've stopped buying (and reading) the volumes around #10, when I didn't have the money anymore. But I really loved what I've read. I'm planning to buy the other volumes now that I have a job and the money.