Paros no Ken
The Sword of Paros

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

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. :-)

It's a good fairytale story with a twist. If you read this story thinking that the main character is trans then you're greatly mistaken, and is lowkey homophobic and sexist. Masculine women and lesbian exists, but during that time they just didn't have the words for how they're feeling so "feeling like a man" is the closest they could get. In the end she understand that she is still a woman but just that she can never love a man, hence, by modern definitions, a lesbian.

There's great attention to detail given to the art, it's just such a shame that it's rushed and the ... writing weakened near the end. If they built it up a bit more then it would have felt more like a complete story. That being said though, I guess it sticks to the fairytale format of it being short and the ending being up to interpretations. The ending seems happy considering for when it was made so I love it for that.

If you want to read something that is short, classic, and is of substance this is a good read. It also helps a lot that it's got class that is sorely missing from most yuri/gl stories nowadays.

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.