Review by angh - The Sword of Kaigen

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

angh 's review for:

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

4.0

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Rating: 4/5 ⭐️

This is probably one of my favorite books of the year, by no means it’s perfect, but it’s a wonderful story.

The story starts like many fantasy books: a young protagonist attending school and something happens that shakes things up. In this case a new student that comes from outside of Kaigen. Mamoru is used to the traditions and lifestyle of his village, heavily influenced by Japanese culture; Kaigen seems to be stuck in the past, to the point you might think you’re reading a period story set in a fictional Samurai-Era Japan. But this new student brings technology and different customs, you realize the outside world does have advanced technology, and through a –literal– history lesson explaining past events, we learn that the history taught in Kaigen –approved by the Emperor– is not the same as everyone else in the world learns… suspicious, right?

The action was outstanding, from the street level fights during flashbacks, the training moments, to the huge battle spanning several chapters. The creativity, the energy, stakes, the way the power system –similar to element-bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Demon Slayer for a more recent reference– is used in the fights, and how it reflects their fighting style, whether hand-to-hand or sword, was really well done, so vivid and brutal.

While the book mostly focuses on the Matsuda family –at first we get Mamoru’s POV, the it starts to mix with his mother’s POV (Misaki), and we get the father’s POV (Takeru) towards the end– all the characters had moments to shine, to make you care about them, to the point some of the deaths and other… tragedies that happened to the supporting characters really hit hard. None of them stay the same as they were at the beginning of the story; even Takeru, who starts very unlikeable, has a sort of redemption at the end.

The worldbuilding it’s also some of the best I’ve seen, the clothing, honorifics, attitudes, older Japanese customs, and languages used, for every country. It really gave the feel of a big world, with different countries and cultures. And the power system it’s also related to where everyone comes from, like people from Kaigen have water-powers, people from Yamma wind, etc. So in a way, their powers, how they use them, and their fighting styles are all intrinsically related to their cultures.

I’m not giving it 5 stars because I think the pacing was just a little clumsy. There was a lot of info-dumping, especially at the beginning (as I said, there’s literally a history lesson) that made it a little dense to start. The book is written mostly in third person, but sometimes an omniscient narrator appears out of nowhere. The climax, the big battle, happens around the middle of the book, and the rest it’s basically the aftermath, how the surviving characters deal with loss and grief, how the village recovers. I get that was the intention, after all, the book is more focused on the main family than the war; it makes sense in this context –and I actually thought it was interesting– to focus on the aftermath and the family, but maybe it would’ve flowed better if the battle had happened closer to the end, maybe around the 75-80% mark? As interesting as it was, for moments it felt like a really long epilogue.

All this to say, this an incredible book with an amazing story, might not be perfect, but it’s become a favorite.

Content Warnings