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Finally a Mirage Post!
Jan. 6th, 2012 11:20 pmI have just (finally) read Mirage of Blaze 17.23, thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
quaint_twilight's excellent translation. I am impressed that she's now translating directly from the Japanese after some years translating from Chinese. I'm in awe of her language skills!
As for the chapter itself, it was fascinating and chock full of goodness, which makes me lament the wait to read more:
(No major spoilers)
* One of the best Nobunaga scenes of I've read: his dialogue was spot on; it was easy as pie to hear his voice in those lines. And I don't blame Haruie for being scared of him. (But where is Ranmaru? He never seems to be around anymore.)
* I also feel like there was some good foreshadowing of big plot reveals re. the forces that are actually behind the overarching plot arc. I don't know enough about the overarching plot arc to know for sure, but it was tantalizing.
* Great Kagetora stuff too. He was in his "I'm going to be very calm and pretend that all the agonies of my life don't really affect me" mode, which is, I think, the mode he's in for most of his 400 years, but we tend to forget it in MoB, where we see him so often in a state of terminal meltdown. It was great to see him being so very "Kagetora-sama": sharp, collected, self-assured, and a paragon of integrity.
* Mitsuhide is interesting too. It's nice to see someone in the Yami Sengoku who presents an agenda other than the usual. Kagetora was really listening to him, without exactly trusting him, which seems a very reasonable response to what Mitsuhide was giving him.
Niggle: Haruie gets her ass kicked too much. Bar Naoetora in their worser stages of emotional falling apart, she is the Yashashuu weak link, and I do wish Kuwabara-sensei had not made it the woman. I'm really ready for her to do something other than get captured.
quaint_twilight's excellent translation. I am impressed that she's now translating directly from the Japanese after some years translating from Chinese. I'm in awe of her language skills!As for the chapter itself, it was fascinating and chock full of goodness, which makes me lament the wait to read more:
(No major spoilers)
* One of the best Nobunaga scenes of I've read: his dialogue was spot on; it was easy as pie to hear his voice in those lines. And I don't blame Haruie for being scared of him. (But where is Ranmaru? He never seems to be around anymore.)
* I also feel like there was some good foreshadowing of big plot reveals re. the forces that are actually behind the overarching plot arc. I don't know enough about the overarching plot arc to know for sure, but it was tantalizing.
* Great Kagetora stuff too. He was in his "I'm going to be very calm and pretend that all the agonies of my life don't really affect me" mode, which is, I think, the mode he's in for most of his 400 years, but we tend to forget it in MoB, where we see him so often in a state of terminal meltdown. It was great to see him being so very "Kagetora-sama": sharp, collected, self-assured, and a paragon of integrity.
* Mitsuhide is interesting too. It's nice to see someone in the Yami Sengoku who presents an agenda other than the usual. Kagetora was really listening to him, without exactly trusting him, which seems a very reasonable response to what Mitsuhide was giving him.
Niggle: Haruie gets her ass kicked too much. Bar Naoetora in their worser stages of emotional falling apart, she is the Yashashuu weak link, and I do wish Kuwabara-sensei had not made it the woman. I'm really ready for her to do something other than get captured.
