レバダン・希望の花 1

An older historical BL manga

I actually read this some time before marking it on Natively; I wanted to come back to it and refresh my memory for this review. It's a good thing I did, too; this is one of those books where my knowledge of the language has been completely night and day when comparing reading sessions, and I can really leverage that knowledge when writing this review.

レバダン・希望の花 is, in a nutshell, a work of historical fiction set in the present day centered around the conflict between the Protestant Church and supporters of an Eastern mystic. (Wow, that was fun to type.) Now that I have your interest, let me explain a little more (note: minor story setup spoilers): our hero, 神無 佐保 (かんな さほ), is on his way from Japan to Australia for an engineering internship, when suddenly his plane hits a nasty piece of turbulence. He's knocked unconscious and wakes in an ornate room, and is greeted by a man who calls him "聖者". 佐保 finds himself in the country of レバダン, a place seemingly ripped straight from 16th century England, and for good reason: one of the country's founders, a man with magical powers from the east, the titular レバダン, enclosed the country of レバダン (which seems to be on an island) within a barrier so that it would remain undisturbed after he passed on. The country was founded during the 16th century and remained completely isolated as time passed, leading to very little technological development.

(Story setup spoilers end here)

Due to the circumstances of レバダン's isolation from the world at large, everyone in it speaks and dresses in formal, old-fashioned English (/Japanese), and topics focus around the life and running of a medieval kingdom. For those who, like me, weren't exposed to much of that kind of speak in a book before, it can feel fairly impenetrable. Full furigana is provided, thankfully, and once you have the vocabulary down the grammar should be fairly straightforward. There are some pages that can feel like walls of text for those already having to read with their dictionary constantly open, so be warned for some slower reading sessions. The whole book isn't like that, however; it's mostly limited to the discussions of history or politics.

The art: this series started publication in 1995, and I'm guessing this must've been one of the author's earlier works. The art is, to put is simply, rough. Backgrounds, specifically buildings and the like, are beautifully done, but 戸川 視友's character art is unfortunately pretty bad. Proportions are all over the place, characters stand/pose awkwardly (and occasionally seem to float off the floor), and some people are tough to tell apart if you can't get a good look at their clothing. I'm assuming the art improves as you go (been a while since I read the other books, and the art is never the first thing that pops into my mind when I think of them), but be warned it can be a lot to take in for those not used to a very 90's artstyle mixed with plenty of jank. (Note: after finishing the full series, I can attest that the mangaka's art does improve.)

The romance so far isn't a major driving force in the story; エドワード is pretty forward with 佐保, but there's nothing other than kisses so far for those concerned.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested; if the art is an issue for you, I hope you can overlook it at least temporarily in order to see the story and characters beneath.