Paros no Ken
The Sword of Paros

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

This review contains spoilers.


I enjoyed reading this but I'm a little confused at how should I feel about this manga. I liked it, but it could be better.

The story: was quite good, although it is a cliché. Throughout the manga is just about the warrior princess who did not accept anything that her father requested her to do. Even though she is a very strong person, the way she handle the things that it is just childish. She neglect anything that has to do with the kingdom and the responsibility that comes with the title. Though 8 chapters she only cared ... about her love Fiona. I do not appreciate the childish part of Erminia, because she did not care about the lives that where in danger because of her.

Art: I loved the detailed old-school art style, but sometimes it seemed a little to much. What I found disturbing was the fact that I could not understand who was the girl, neither the boy because the style that the artist had approach is very confusing.

Characters: were cute , but I thought they were nothing special compared to other characters . I would say that my favorites were Fiona and Yurias, because both of them tried to protect Erminia to the point where their lives will be in danger.

Enjoyment: I liked it, but sometimes I thought that something was missing and that sometimes the plot could have been better developed .

Overall: I appreciate the message. Love costs a lot, it is selfish and it is very hard to be complete without pursuing the feeling, even though it may destroy other lives.

Short and simple story about a fantasy realm that seems to lie in an anachronistic time-bending universe teetering between ancient Romans and vaguely medieval, so simple, in fact, which makes seeing people vehemently defend the labeling of this as a "yuri" even more bizarre. I don't actually care about it being labeled yuri/GL on this site as I assume that was what it was originally marketed as, but the comment going really hard on trying to portray this as anything it isn't is simply odd, and might I say, transphobic.

Erminia, at every possible turn, proclaims himself to be a man, and this is not ... only brought up in the case of who "the princess should marry"; at nigh every turn Erminia reaffirms over and over again that he is a man/wishes to be one, and believes he has the heart or soul of a man placed in the body of a woman in some sort of "cruel joke" from the deities or a catastrophic mistake. Do masculine lesbians exist, and have they existed in the past? Yes, certainly, but for goodness sake; stop trying to find loopholes to twist characters out of being transgender when this is legitimately the most straight forward fictional example I can think of for a trans man, alongside Claudine! from Riyoko Ikeda. The fact that the patriarchy affects transgender men does not make them any less transgender, no matter how much you wish for it. Playing the "sexist, homophobe" card against trans people seeing a character say, straightforwardly, "I believe the deity Janus, the two-faced, put my soul into the wrong body" and the hints throughout the series that Erminia was to be the ruler as both "man and woman" in one as opposed to rulers side-by-side of man and woman ("manly soul", "womanly vessel") and interpreting them as transgender, then you are a bigot. If your analysis of a series like Oniisama E, or any other of that same time period which tended to end with the women getting boyfriends and moving on from their lost loves includes disregarding that in favor of a lesbian reading (which, I believe, is completely fair), then why isn't this offered the same: disregard for the ending's dismissal of the character's prior feelings/wishes? Or is it simply that you believe a lesbian story has more a right to exist when stories of trans men are so few and far between comparitively? Anyways.

Contempt aside, it was a sweet story-- the ending seemed incredibly rushed in some aspects, I wish more things had had the time to be explored for the characters themselves aside from Erminia, and even then I do believe Erminia was in need of a bit of polish as well. Sudden tragedy striking and the series ending there was just how the manga writers in the days of yore liked to do it, so I can't at all say it was very surprising or had much a twist with this ending, but I personally felt as if it needed another chapter or two to further flesh out this world, the characters, and to perfect the ending. A quick and enjoyable read, nonetheless. :-)

Well...I haven't really read enough to write a review of this, but what is currently the only review was written by someone who...either doesn't know what transgender people are, or is "wilfully ignorant", and I don't really like that. This manga is nice because the art feels genuinely cared for and not like the artist was being tortured with deadlines the whole time; is that genuinely the case? Not sure, but it feels that way. But yeah, it's very beautiful and ornate like an ink tapestry, though some of the artistic choices are cornily rather than charmingly retro. As for the characters and plot, they're ... rather thin in keeping with the fairytale aesthetic, but beneath all those layers of mundanity fostering my apathy is an empathetic portrayal of someone trying to form an identity within a system that tries to reduce them to who they are on the surface. I think the way it utilises the surface level is also nice, because it points out how limiting certain forms of storytelling are when trying to express the human experience beyond the norms that the society that created them wants to foster.

Okay, Siphyr out.