Tenken

by Yumiko Shirai

The world has been annihilated and an evil bestial deity must be appeased. Saki, a young girl trying to escape destiny, finds refuge in an unusual and rough line of work. But she has been chosen for an unthinkable role: a princess must be sacrificed to the monster, Yamata-no-Orochi, at the fifty-year Tenken Festival. Can Manaka, the man in love with Saki, follow her into this abyss to save her from fate...only to discover the dark secret of the ceremony? Winner of the prestigious Japan Media Festival Arts Award, this stunning work of graphic fiction takes the reader into a whole new realm.

Genres: Manga, Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy

328 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2010

Reviews

[Ternessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tenken was a very interesting read for me. I enjoyed the Japanese mythology and the mangaka's art is realistic yet still kept the appeal of manga art for me. At some points the story began to feel a bit rushed or some parts didn't quite make sense. I'm still a bit confused as to what really happened in the pit with Saki and Shuji... The editors also missed some spelling errors which bothered me. They were minor but that's still no excuse. Because of these issues I give Tenken a three out of five.

[Nat]

Tenken will leave deep impression to the myth lovers. An ancient Japanese ceremony still continues after the next world war, what an amazing plot! I would not be surprised if there will be a movie out of this great graphic novel.

[Conor Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal manga. The symbolism is complex and simply astonishing. There are warnings for the future but also extreme optimism. Just give it a read.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid and satisfying read, although I sometimes found the action scenes a little confusing to follow. It's got a mystery flavor to it - what's really going on, and why? I'd recommend it for fans of Japanese culture and folk festivals. Unusually, this might almost qualify as "magical realism" in a manga for the way the dreams seem to cross into physical spaces!

[ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork was pixellated and the translation was poor.

I did not feel that the connection between Saki and Manaka was strong enough to support everything he did for her. They only knew each other as coworkers.

I had relatively high expectations for this but was a little disappointed. The plot and resolution was kind of cool, but confusing. The action scenes were basically indecipherable.

[Nadine · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 35%, I just cannot get into the story. The drawings are pretty and more water color (in grayscale) than pen and ink, and I am intrigued by the world building, but I don't know who's who and don't know what their motivations are. I found myself not looking forward to reading, and scrolling on my phone instead, so I took that as a sign to read something else.

[Cass · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this a week ago and I cannot recall anything about it. Meh.

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll admit right up front that while I watched a fair amount of anime as a teenager, I never explored the manga genre, and that while I've sampled a lot of forms of graphic storytelling, I don't think I've ever picked up a manga book before. But the blend of post-apocalyptic setting and traditional Japanese mythology sounded extremely promising (while I'm not a devotee of Japanese culture, I do like elements of it, have traveled there, etc.), so I thought this was worth trying. I won't try and summarize the plot, but in broad terms it involves an evil spirit who must be held at bay by the sacrifice of a young "princess" once every fifty years. The story opens with the reader meeting one such princess who has run away from home and is hiding out working on a construction gang until the festival date has passed. The leader of this construction crew is a nice young man who naturally ends up falling in love with the runaway princess and tryies to save her from the priesthood that demands her return.

The long and short of it is that I just couldn't get into the story or the art. I don't know if it's the conventions of the form or this writer/artist in particular, but I had difficulty following the flow of the story and the pacing felt really awkward to me. It was all just way too melodramatic for my taste, and the artwork and typography did nothing to engage me. I had particular problems with understanding facial expressions and body movements. About halfway though my interest flagged enough that I stopped reading closely and started skimming. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the storytelling and art works wonderfully for those who are regular readers of manga or have a deeper interest in or knowledge of Japanese mythology.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this book sitting on my shelf for over a year now but I finally managed to pick it up.

The story has potential. Or had.

It has interesting characters, but really only builds on two of them whom each have their own interesting back stories. The artwork is stellar, and the writing itself is fairly fluid.

What this story doesn't really do well is create a good flow. I find many of the scenes disorienting the way it jumps from perspective. The ending itself had been unfortunately skewed and left me confused as to what had happened and what exactly occurred.

I wish I could give this book a two and a half, but I can't. Unfortunately.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book explores manga while mixing other genres. The format is graphic novel, but Yumiko manages to put in more complicated thoughts and mix up the plot. A lot of manga is people with large eyes hitting each other, and the plot has some of that, but it also has deeper meanings, and the characters act how they would actually be in their situations.

[Elsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read some other Susano stories and I liked this take on it.

[Gunderhaegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Christmas book from this year provided a nice mixture of action, Japanese culture and religion together with an enticing mixture of reality and fantasy!