comfort manga: From Far Away

Because I’m feeling stressed lately, I decided to reread some old manga.

I started with From Far Away by Kyoko Hikawa, which is my favorite shojo manga series ever. It’s about Noriko, an ordinary-Japanese-schoolgirl (one breath), who gets thrown into a fantasy world. There is she meets the COOLEST guy ever. (wait a minute, pink sparkle hearts are getting in my way.)

He’s called Izark in the English language version. His big secret is that he is a sky demon. And the ordinary-Japanese-schoolgirl is the catalyst by which his awesome destructive power is unleashed.

I guess it’s no different than any other fantasy shojo. Noriko cries a lot (but then everyone in the whole world is determined to kill her). Izark is aloof and impossibly handsome. They have to save the world.

They can’t be together (sky demon) and they can’t be apart (true love). It’s not an especially carnal relationship but that makes it even more like an Andrew Lang fairy tale to me.

The couple is all loveliness, innocent love and noble suffering.

And to think that at first I thought it that it wouldn’t be romantic enough for me.

The series does feature nifty world building, much politics, rampaging monsters, evil wizards, extended fight scenes and gory death.

But that’s just filler.

Anyway, I decided to buy some manga to encourage myself to keep to going. I didn’t realize that I have only 3 more volumes to finish the series. So, I bought all of them!

Gotta go, the pink sparkle hearts are back. Gah! And dozens of puffy rainbows!