#chunhyang

It’s nice that all the Hanshin Republic stuff got resolved on a nice note. Heck, Masayoshi even got to join Shogo’s group! That’s so sweet. Though, it would’ve been nice to see Sakura join in on the okonomiyaki party, but it makes sense for her to lay low as she just woke up and doesn’t remember a lot. Another sweet aspect about the end of this arc is that Arashi finally shows affection to Sorata after rejecting his flirtation for the whole arc—she was just shy and didn’t want to do PDA in front of their guests. I will miss the Kudans though…

The next world is the Land of Koryo which is loosely based on Clamp’s Legend of Chunhyang, which is an adaptation of the Korean folklore The Tale of Chunhyang, or Chunhyang-ga. Koryo was once the name of the land of Korea—it was like their ancient name in a sense? Anyways, Koryo is a world that is ruled by a tyrannical ryang-ban, or yangban in Korean. For the sake of my own sanity, I’ll refer to the characters of this world in Korean. Anyways, the tyrant hadn’t always been in power and he was able to achieve it with the help of Sakura’s feather. Because time flows differently in some worlds, the feathers can obstruct the sense of time and appear years or even centuries before the Tsubasa fam arrives.

Anyways, Chunhyang, a girl they meet, tells them about how their land became a depressing one ever since the yangban took over and while she wants to overthrow him, she’s too powerless. She’s still grieving over her mother’s death as she was a magician, or a shinban, that was killed by the yangban, They are waiting for a group called the Amenosa to arrive so that they can purge the yangban, but who knows when they’ll arrive? Because the yangban got some strange power, the Tsubasa fam decide to storm into the palace to get it back.

While Sakura is awake, she’s still too sleepy and not adjusted to her circumstances. She’s still a kind girl despite her amnesia as she stays behind with Chunhyang and is a great source of comfort for her. Sakura has some unusual powers in that she has extremely good luck, which Chunhyang believes that she’s a favorite child of the gods. The way people were freaking out over her constant wins in gambling was funny. 

This arc has a lot more action than in the previous arc as it’s more fantastical compared to the urban fantasy world of Hanshin. Then again, it’s straight to the point as there are less people to think about when it comes to the feather possession and the obvious culprit is the tyrant in power. I always liked that Syaoran, Kurogane and Fai get in the action in these worlds. This time, they got separated so it’s basically Syaoran vs the Yangban’s son and also the yangban and KuroFai fight with the Kiishin, a woman trapped in the castle as the yangban is using her powers to cause the magical disturbances across the land.

The funniest part is that because the group were concocting a plan on how to raid the castle but were stuck on how to get past the magical barrier, Mokona uses her Yuko cheat code to get her to help. This is to help with the xxxHolic continuity that takes place at the same time as Tsubasa, but also shows how important Yuko is to the story even if Mokona brings her out as a last minute cheat to resolve their problems. If only I could do that in real life…

Because Syaoran and Sakura have to restart their relationship from zero, he’s fiercely protective of her. It’s also to the point that their revamped bond does help Syaoran in an unusual way in that the yangban tried to take Sakura and Chunhyang hostage, but Syaoran later learned it was an illusion because Sakura doesn’t call Syaoran by his name like she used to. This manga never fails to give Syaoran one gut punch per volume…

My only gripe with this volume is that the translator’s notes never mention that the Land of Koryo is based off of Korea and that the terms they use are all Korean. Not once did Korea ever get mentioned in their notes and that slightly upsets me as a Korean myself. You’re telling me that words like omoni, aboji, shinban, and yangban are Japanese, Del Rey? At least mention it! Heck, Syaoran isn’t even a Japanese name—it’s Chinese!