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labingiIf you like boys love that is weighty and intense, and if you are potentially willing to read a long text with lots of Japanese history, I extremely strongly recommend checking out Mirage of Blaze. (And please do not judge this light novel series by the anime! The series is so much better than that.)
Brief synopsis: Mirage of Blaze is a 40-volume light novel series about five 400-year-old samurai spirit warriors tasked with exorcising vengeful spirits. Two of the five, the leader of the group and his bodyguard, have angsty, epic love across the centuries. (The story itself is mostly set in the “present” of the 1990s.) And, yes, if you wait long enough, it has lots of graphic sex.
So far, so good, but what sets this series apart?
Psychology: Mirage is one of the most psychologically intense and astute works I have read in any genre, so much so that it has, no joke, become a central tool for me in understanding my own life. Now, this is not to say it never does anything psychologically unrealistic. And it is certainly not to say that these crazy people should be one’s role models. But the 400-year journey of the two principals through their own damaged psyches toward eventual healing speaks volumes about how human beings and human relationships work. It is both agonizing and ultimately hopeful—and in that, strange to say, it hits the Les Misérables zone for me, that is, it finds a transcendent hope through surmounting tremendous bleakness.
Buddhism: Mirage is a fascinating exploration of Buddhist teaching, ranging from an intense critique of the project of seeking non-attachment and Enlightenment to a heartfelt enactment of the beauty of this very journey. It is philosophically challenging and insightful.
Japanese History, Religion, and Mythology: Most of the main characters in Mirage are broad fictionalizations of historical figures, mainly from the Warring States Period. The story digs intensively into historical context and personages, religious sects, and mythology. This not only makes it an excellent source of interesting information about Japan but lends a real-life, intertextual weight to the story. It’s not just about made-up characters in a light novel. It’s about real events, real beliefs, ancient stories. It is part of something bigger, an epic worth mentioning along with ancient epics, a discussion of history and philosophy worth exploring along with other great texts.
Like any authentic exploration of the rawness of human life, it’s hilarious. Now, the characters in Mirage themselves rarely crack jokes, but the series has some beautiful strokes of melodramatic self-satire. It’s sometimes hard to tell which things are meant to be funny, but it doesn’t matter. It’s ridiculous, like human life, and has given me many hours of laughter.
It’s a profound exploration of love. Mirage has many tropes that are common in boys love: older man and teen boy, obvious seme and uke, dub-con, graphic sex, etc., but really blasts the clichés by taking them so dead seriously and then going so far beyond them. It is a story about profoundly knowing someone. It’s a story about how we hurt each other—and heal each other. It’s a story about how life is more complex than just the epic love between two lovers, about how friends, family, loyalties, duties, morality all intertwine. It’s about facing life and death and self. It’s about knowing oneself. It is absolutely true.
There are plays, and they are awesome! As lackluster as the anime can be, there have more recently been stage plays produced of the series’ prequel novels (set in the 1950s, early 1960s). To date, there are four plays, three of them released as DVDs (the fourth should be out in 2018). The DVDs are sold raw, but there are summaries for all of them and sub files for the first two. They are not perfect, but they are very engaging.
Okay, after all that selling, a few warnings:
Sexual Violence: Like almost everything in its genre, the story has what we, in real life, would consider sexual assault, both between the principals and in other contexts. And sometimes this is not taken as seriously as one might wish it were. (Other times, it is taken very seriously.)
It’s not fully translated into English. I guess I owe it to you to mention that. I am proud to say that a group of dedicated fans has now translated/summarized the vast majority of the story, including its final arc, but there are a few gaps in story and a lot of missing word-by-word translation. Still, there’s enough available now to make the story very deeply accessible. I say this as a fan who can only read the text in English.
Um, it’s not perfect. At the risk of overselling, let me confess this. The prose is sometimes not inspired, especially in the early volumes. Some bits are boring, especially the first time through when you lack the requisite Japanese background historical knowledge. Some plots/characters don’t quite come to fruition. I mean, it’s not perfect but no sprawling epic is. If you have a taste for this genre, it’s well worth your time.
Brief synopsis: Mirage of Blaze is a 40-volume light novel series about five 400-year-old samurai spirit warriors tasked with exorcising vengeful spirits. Two of the five, the leader of the group and his bodyguard, have angsty, epic love across the centuries. (The story itself is mostly set in the “present” of the 1990s.) And, yes, if you wait long enough, it has lots of graphic sex.
So far, so good, but what sets this series apart?
Psychology: Mirage is one of the most psychologically intense and astute works I have read in any genre, so much so that it has, no joke, become a central tool for me in understanding my own life. Now, this is not to say it never does anything psychologically unrealistic. And it is certainly not to say that these crazy people should be one’s role models. But the 400-year journey of the two principals through their own damaged psyches toward eventual healing speaks volumes about how human beings and human relationships work. It is both agonizing and ultimately hopeful—and in that, strange to say, it hits the Les Misérables zone for me, that is, it finds a transcendent hope through surmounting tremendous bleakness.
Buddhism: Mirage is a fascinating exploration of Buddhist teaching, ranging from an intense critique of the project of seeking non-attachment and Enlightenment to a heartfelt enactment of the beauty of this very journey. It is philosophically challenging and insightful.
Japanese History, Religion, and Mythology: Most of the main characters in Mirage are broad fictionalizations of historical figures, mainly from the Warring States Period. The story digs intensively into historical context and personages, religious sects, and mythology. This not only makes it an excellent source of interesting information about Japan but lends a real-life, intertextual weight to the story. It’s not just about made-up characters in a light novel. It’s about real events, real beliefs, ancient stories. It is part of something bigger, an epic worth mentioning along with ancient epics, a discussion of history and philosophy worth exploring along with other great texts.
Like any authentic exploration of the rawness of human life, it’s hilarious. Now, the characters in Mirage themselves rarely crack jokes, but the series has some beautiful strokes of melodramatic self-satire. It’s sometimes hard to tell which things are meant to be funny, but it doesn’t matter. It’s ridiculous, like human life, and has given me many hours of laughter.
It’s a profound exploration of love. Mirage has many tropes that are common in boys love: older man and teen boy, obvious seme and uke, dub-con, graphic sex, etc., but really blasts the clichés by taking them so dead seriously and then going so far beyond them. It is a story about profoundly knowing someone. It’s a story about how we hurt each other—and heal each other. It’s a story about how life is more complex than just the epic love between two lovers, about how friends, family, loyalties, duties, morality all intertwine. It’s about facing life and death and self. It’s about knowing oneself. It is absolutely true.
There are plays, and they are awesome! As lackluster as the anime can be, there have more recently been stage plays produced of the series’ prequel novels (set in the 1950s, early 1960s). To date, there are four plays, three of them released as DVDs (the fourth should be out in 2018). The DVDs are sold raw, but there are summaries for all of them and sub files for the first two. They are not perfect, but they are very engaging.
Okay, after all that selling, a few warnings:
Sexual Violence: Like almost everything in its genre, the story has what we, in real life, would consider sexual assault, both between the principals and in other contexts. And sometimes this is not taken as seriously as one might wish it were. (Other times, it is taken very seriously.)
It’s not fully translated into English. I guess I owe it to you to mention that. I am proud to say that a group of dedicated fans has now translated/summarized the vast majority of the story, including its final arc, but there are a few gaps in story and a lot of missing word-by-word translation. Still, there’s enough available now to make the story very deeply accessible. I say this as a fan who can only read the text in English.
Um, it’s not perfect. At the risk of overselling, let me confess this. The prose is sometimes not inspired, especially in the early volumes. Some bits are boring, especially the first time through when you lack the requisite Japanese background historical knowledge. Some plots/characters don’t quite come to fruition. I mean, it’s not perfect but no sprawling epic is. If you have a taste for this genre, it’s well worth your time.
