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!