Other Media Review: YONA OF THE DAWN

              

  Imagine witnessing the man you thought you were going to marry, murder your father right before your eyes. That’s the heart- crushing event that starts off the anime, YONA OF THE DAWN.  This anime is part of a genre known as the reverse harem where a young, naïve woman, usually a teenager  finds herself surrounded by handsome men and most, if not all of them are vying for her affections. Normally, I wouldn’t touch a set-up like that with a 20-foot pole, but this anime so far surpassed all the traps of the genre that I just had to watch all twenty-four episodes in a week. 

                The traps I’m referring to include indecisive damsel in distress heroines that never grow , male characters who are little more than cardboard cut-outs and antagonists who are evil because they’re the villain.  YONA avoided all of those, while still holding true to the genre. 

                Our heroine, Yona  is the naïve, sheltered princess of the fantasy kingdom of Kouka. Her biggest problems are that she doesn’t like her red hair and her cousin, Soo-won(it’s a historical and an anime , so kissing cousins aren’t really taboo) just doesn’t seem to notice her.  Everything shatters on her sixteenth birthday when the murder I mentioned earlier happens.  Her and her bodyguard, Son Hak flee the palace and find shelter in Hak’s hometown, the Wind Village. Yona is naturally so deep in shock that she’s little more than a doll with Hak pulling her along by the hand. She eventually recovers enough to function and learns of a prophecy with her at the center. She’s the reincarnation of a great king named Hiryuu, who once saved Kouka from a war with the power of his four devoted dragon servants. Yona must gather the reincarnations of those four dragons to save the world from another great evil.

                Now, in an ordinary reverse harem series her development would stop there, she’d set off to find the four dragons (who are all attractive men of course) and have to be saved by them every episode without returning the favor, all the while struggling to choose which one she loves. Yona is not like that at all. All twenty-four episodes are basically character development for her. She only starts out as a helpless  damsel-in-distress, as the series goes on she gets stronger and stronger until the last few episodes where she proves that she’s going to become the badass that the audience sees in the first episode. I won’t spoil it here, but she gets a truly crowning moment of awesome in episode twenty-two. Her growth is done realistically as well, she doesn’t just become an action girl overnight. She struggles to learn even basic fighting techniques and cries a lot, but no matter what she tries her best to help out her friends and the peasants her father neglected as king.  The anime doesn’t shy away from showing her effort to become stronger either, when she first starts working with a bow, her hands are covered in bruises, but she never gives up. There’s a moment in the final arc of the series where she creeps along a narrow cliff with the ocean roaring below her to get a plant for a pirate captain so she can fight the leader of a human trafficking ring alongside her friends. She is crying and shaking the entire time, but never gives up the task. At one point she falls from the cliff and is rescued by one of the dragons, the captain told her she couldn’t get any help with the task, so she tells the captain that she will do the task again without help. The captain  says she passes the test anyways, but damn! Any writers of any media, who want to create strong, female role models for girls, take note! On top of that she’s not really indecisive on who she loves, she cares about  every guy in her harem equally and isn’t flirting with any of them because she is confused and conflicted since she saw THE GUY SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING TO MARRY KILL HER FATHER.  Not to mention, she has a kingdom to save. Again, writers of female characters take note!

                The point is Yona is one of the best heroines I’ve come across in a while and before I turn into a puddle of squee let’s move on to the guys in Yona’s harem. They are all complex and lovable character, most with dark and troubled pasts. The first guy and the one shaping up to be her main love interest is Son Hak, her childhood friend and bodyguard. He’s the strongest man in Kouka, but strikes quickly with his long sword (not a euphemism). Because of his skill he’s received the nickname Ryuuji or The Thunder Beast. He was Wind Village General, until he and Yona became fugitives.  He’s kinda grumpy, sarcastic and likes to tease everyone, but he loves Yona so damn much it hurts. Unlike the four dragons he doesn’t protect her due to fate or anything like that; he just loves her that much. He also desires her a lot, but knows his place. She’s a princess and he’s a glorified servant, he also knows that she still has feelings for Soo-won despite his betrayal. As the green dragon puts it “they’re very close, but there’s a distance between them” and it’s painful to watch because you want them to be together so badly.  

                Furthermore, when he and Yona were kids they saw a lot of Soo-won and three of them were incredibly close friends.  Hak would have been perfectly happy if Yona married Soo-won as long as he could be at their side as well, so Soo-won betrayed him as much as Yona, making the whole situation that much more tragic.

                The second guy in Yona’s harem is Yun, he’s the youngest guy in the harem (only fifteen), so Yona can’t see him as anything other than a younger brother. Ironically, he’s also the wisest and most serious of the bunch.  Unlike most of the other guys and Yona he isn’t really a fighter, but can do just about anything else and strategize like the best of them.  Like Yona does at first he resents the fact that he can’t fight and therefore can’t protect Yona, but it’s pretty clear that without him Team Yona wouldn’t last since he’s a great medic on top of many other skills, he just doesn’t realize it.  He also won’t admit that he feels insecure at all due the Tsundere side of him, which is an anime term for a character that tries to appear smug and mean, but still wears their heart on their sleeve so the viewer knows exactly what they are feeling, although they won’t admit to it.

                Like Hak he isn’t a dragon either. Yona met him when she and Hak visited a priest to help them decide where to go once they became fugitives. He joins them because he wanted to see the world and they seemed like a pleasant enough pair to see it with.

                Rounding out the main cast you have the four dragon gods:  Gija the white dragon, Shin-Ah the blue dragon, Jae-Ha the green dragon and Zeno the yellow dragon. Gija has one arm with the strength of ten men. Shin-Ah has beautiful dragon eyes that can see great distances, but  can paralyze someone or stop their heart if he wished.  Jae-Ha has a dragon leg that helps him leap distances so great that it almost looks like he’s flying and Zeno has an indestructible body. Like the rest of the cast they all complex personalities that go far beyond cardboard cut-outs.

                Gija lived in an isolated village his entire life. The villagers basically worshipped him and made sure he was well-cared for, but were incredibly overprotective and never let him leave, so Gija is quite naïve. Not that Gija wanted to leave until he met King Hiryuu since Of course, the king was actually Yona  and Gija eventually develops a little, one-sided,  puppy dog crush on her in addition to vowing to stay by her side and protect, seriously he jumps at the call as soon as he meets her.  He’s also afraid of bugs,

Which makes him kind of adorable. Like Yona he’s learning that the world is not the pretty place his guardians told him about.

                Sin-Ha is the  second dragon they meet thanks to Gija being able to sense him, but his life wasn’t nearly as idealistic as Gija’s. Because of the blue dragon’s cursed eyes the villagers hate it every time the blue dragon is reincarnated and slap a mask on the new born’s face immediately.  Shin-Ah’s mother even killed herself over giving birth to him. Most of Shin-Ah’s life was spent deep in the village’s caves without friends. There’s a lot more sadness to his past that I won’t add here because of spoilers and this review is getting quite long.

                As far as personality goes, Shin-Ah is a little socially awkward and quiet due to his life in isolation and he was reluctant to join Team Yona because of his power, but because Yona showed him kindness and promised friendship he joins and is given his name, Shin-Ah by Yona in a really touching scene that I won’t spoil here.

                When the group meets Jae-Ha, he’s a Robin Hood-like pirate protecting a port town from an evil overlord who is also head of a human trafficking ring. Like Shin-Ah his freedom was restricted, as of episode 24 and chapter 85ish  of the manga(Japanese comic book) the nature his captivity is very vague, but he escaped it and as a result values his freedom a great deal. It takes an entire arc for him to join Team Yona and even then he insists that it was his own choice and has nothing to do with his dragon blood. He’s also the oldest of the group and a huge flirt, but he is also protective of women. He appears to have some feelings for Yona beyond his dragon blood, but Yona doesn’t reciprocate more than she does with the other members of her harem, so I’m still pretty sure Hak is still the lead man.

                Zeno joined the group because they had food and he was hungry. Basically, he’s a mystery and neither the manga or anime (so far) have gone too deeply into his past. He appears to be a strange man with his head in the clouds, but there are moments when he sounds as wise as the priest, Ik-Su. He doesn’t appear to have any feelings beyond friendship for Yona.

                The secondary cast is just as colorful as the main characters and have J.K. Rowling worthy complexities that you don’t usually see in supporting characters. I could probably talk about just them for another twenty pages, but I won’t because there is still a lot to cover, so I’m going to move on to the antagonist of this anime.

                Firstly, this is an anime of gray morality, which is another reason I enjoyed it so much. Soo-won is the big bad of the story, the man who killed Yona’s father right before her eyes and betrayed his childhood friends, but as the story went on I learned that King Il, Yona’s father was not a good king. He forbade war and weapons and severely neglected his kingdom. As soon as Soo-Won becomes king, he actually sets out to make it stronger and fix the loads of corruption that crossed the borders.  Among many other good deeds, he singlehandedly restored the moral of Kouka’s earth tribe.  He also mourned the loss of his childhood friends when they supposedly died, despite the fact that they’re fugitives. Even when he finds out both of them are alive and well he doesn’t actively seek their arrest.   The only thing that really makes him a villain is that he killed King Il out of revenge and  is in  opposition(sort of ) to Yona and Hak. This isn’t how you simply write a Shojo villain; this is how you write a truly great antagonist. His reasons for what he did are sympathetic, if this was his story Yona and Hak would be the antagonists. This is why everyone should watch this anime immediately!

                On the technical side of things the music is great; in fact I never skipped the first opening once. It consisted of images foreshadowing later events in the series with a beautiful Asian instrumentals playing in the background. The sound tract in general is lovely and suits the story being told perfectly. The animation isn’t the best I’ve seen, but all the characters have a unique look with individual faces that suit each character. Also the costume porn is gorgeous, although most characters have a limited wardrobe. The voice acting is excellent as well.

                All and all this  anime has it all: romance, action, adventure, comedy and GREAT character development. The only gripe I have is that the comedy sometimes felt a little out of place, and it needs a season two ASAP, but I’m still going to give this anime a five out five. The entire series could be viewed on crunchyroll.com  for free , so readers you have no excuse, go watch it!