Animeless #2 – Kannazuki no Miko manga scanlated
Posted on | December 26, 2006 | 11 Comments |
Unless you’ve had your head in the sand or have just found your way into the wonderful world of anime yuri, you will probably have heard of the wonderfully weird yuri series a year ago – Kannazuki no Miko. (loosely translated, Priestesses of the Godless Moon). Applauded at the time for its wonderfully upfront portrayal of yuri love between Chikane (the archetypal evil-yuri from which all evilyuri stems) and Himeko (your typical retiring, confused about her sexuality type who loves Chikane with love of purest white lily innocence), it was only marred (rather majorly, in my eyes) by the need to include some rather heavy duty mecha.
The anime itself was adapted from a two volume manga of the same name, of which two groups have been scanlating. Aquastar-anime (currently also translating Mahou Sensei Negima) and Otenba (also translating Shoujo Sect). Yesterday I finally realised that Aquastar had finally finished scanlating volume two, so I read it with the vigour of a ten year old child at 00:01 on Christmas Day.
Since Volume 1 was translated such a long time ago, the only defining features I can remember of the storyline are that Chikane appears, rather Sachiko-esque in her “look at all the money my family has” kind of way and Yumi, ahem, Himeko, falls in love with her at first sight when she finds her way into her secret garden (I’m sure there’s some kind of metaphor there, I just can’t put my finger in it. Ahem. On it.). Chikane knows that she is the Sun princess, the other half of her, the Moon princess, so he decides to get closer to Himeko, then, in the deepest of night, RAPE HER WITH A FLUTE. That concludes volume 1.
Volume 2 starts with Himeko waking up the next day and wondering whether it was all a dream, until she meets up with Chikane, who is very much “Yes, I did rape you with a flute – isn’t that what you do on a first date?”, and it is revealed that she is working in tandem with the Orochi, the evil gods of lore, in order to reunite the gods and destroy the world to repeat an endless cycle in which one of the priestesses must sacrifice their life so that the other one may choose in what way the world may be reborn.
In the rest of the book, the relationship and love that Himeko feels towards Chikane is portrayed beautifully. As Chikane struggles to change Himeko’s destiny and make her hate her enough to kill her, so that Himeko would not have to die and perhaps breaking the cycle of rebirth and tragic romance, the most touching scene is when both princesses are on the moon, with the Earth breaking into dust beneath them and Chikane finally realises that no matter how much she tries to make Himeko hate her, that act just isn’t possible becuase Himeko sees that all the actions are out of love.
Then she realises that even though the priestesses have gone through this cycle countless times, and with full knowledge that it would happen again, they always chose to be reborn on the same world to live out the same lives, the same tragedy, just to see each other and love each other again.
The real mystery in the story is why the mangaka even thought to include Oogami Souma, the Orochi seventh neck. In the anime he was a much more important character, but in the manga his only purpose seems to be to confuse Himeko about whether Chikane loves her or him; fight some random pointless battles and then die horribly at the wave of Chikane’s hand. Comis relief perhaps?
Mecha does also feature heavily in the Kannazuki manga, and I think that it also suffers heavily for it, as it gets in the way of the extraordinarily touching main story. In fact, the mecha component of the manga seems almost alien and artificially interposed with the main relationship plot, almost that the mecha was another manga that got randomly mixed in with Kannazuki before it went to press. It would probably be possible to erase all the mecha scenes from the manga and still have a comprehensible storyline.
To conclude, Kannazuki no Miko is a short manga that focuses on the eternal love between the Moon and Sun priestesses, who in this life happen to be Himemiya Chikane and Kurusugawa Himeko, eternally destined to meet each other, fall in love and tragically fated that one must always kill the other and the story play out again. The art style is fantastic, soft but definite lines and just the right amount of cute really capture the femininity of the relationship scenes well and the pages are not too cluttered – I have always been a fan of the minimalist style. The artist is not afraid to tread the line vaguely into erotic manga territory and the sex scene is very tastefully done.
One of the main reasons that the manga/anime has become famous as well is the creation of the “evil yuri” character in Chikane, I believe the first mainstream application of this character type, which has been carried on in other anime as Shizuru (Mai HiME) and Shizuma (Strawberry Panic). It has even spawned a few 4chan memes, I believe.
All in all, Kannazuki is a beautifully portrayed short story about yuri love with some mecha that can be ignored on the strength of the main storyline. I highly recommend it and hope that there will be more yuri manga in the future to follow suit.
Oh, and it has flute rape.
Thats always a plus.
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December 27th, 2006 @ 6:23 am
As one of the guys who read the scripts prior to the editing, it was a pretty odd(?) feeling to go through it, while checking out the raws… Especially going through the SFX in the “flute rape” scene… *boing*
Plus, it’s pretty hard to read when someone’s in the same room, looking over your shoulder.
December 28th, 2006 @ 7:06 am
Sorry, you fail your yuri history lesson. :-) Chikane was *hardly* the first evil brunette in yuri. As I’ve mentioned a few times on Okazu, the first yuri couple, the one that Chikane and Himeko are mere shadows of, were Simone (evil brunette) and Racine (naive blonde) from Shiroi Heya no Futari from 1971.
Kaishaku didn’t invent much in KnM (stole the Orochi, stole the main characters, stole every other character from somewhere pretty much identifiable…) and inventing flute rape isn’t much to base a reputation on. :-)
Cheers,
Erica
http://okazu.blogspot.com
December 28th, 2006 @ 9:52 am
Thank you Erica – always good to be corrected by a higher power! It’s good to know thet yuri has been going from way back when.
However, you cannot underestimate the value of the invention of flute rape…
December 30th, 2006 @ 10:38 am
Whoa, I hadn’t noticed that they’d finished the second volume and it looks like I’ll be needing to pick that up.
Overall I enjoyed the Kannaduki anime, but I never understood the need to tie the mecha stuff into it. It always seemed like it would have been a lot more compelling if the Orochi had attacked the girls just as they were instead. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who watched that show for the mecha.
The really strange thing is that the new Kaishaku series starting in Japan next week (Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora) appears to be some kind of quasi-sequel – it has Chikane and Himeko, though their names are different and they appear to be antagonists this time – yet it seems to still have the whole mecha thing going on, which is a little disappointing. I’ll still be watching it though. That said, the trailer didn’t score very high on the Yuriometer, so it might not be worth it.
Oh, and a side note: Kannaduki no Miko was October 2004, so it’s two years ago now, not last year. :)
January 27th, 2007 @ 7:03 am
>>Oh, and it has flute rape.
Speaking of spawning memes…
>>inventing flute rape isn’t much to base a reputation on. :-)
This is a problem. Kaishaku didn’t invent flute rape. Some reader on AnimeSuki forums was just a blind little bitch and mistook a sheathed TANTO (not a flute!) for, well, a flute. And then said reader clashed with some people in the Shoujoai.com forums and what got taken away from that encounter, and by whom? … http://kyousora.com holds all the answers, I believe.
June 19th, 2007 @ 3:34 am
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! tduonpqfxabml
December 15th, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
love it awsome show
January 7th, 2008 @ 12:38 am
Lolikitsune is right, it was a tanto, not a flute. However the term “flute rape” just stuck and its unfortunately gonna stay that way. I think flute rape sounds funnier and less “lethal” than tanto rape anyway, lol
I’m glad Erica brought up Shiroi Heya no Futari, I was actually reading about that today. Another shoujo ai manga from the 70’s worth mentioning is Oniisama E by Riyoko Ikeda. I used to watch the anime in Italian on the international channel when I was younger. Its got some pretty dark themes.
January 31st, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
This Anime is pretty SWEET!!!
April 19th, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
I cried when i saw ep.12 and was touched~ I like Chikaneeeeeeeee!!! :D Honestly i was once in Himeko’s position… *sigh* But i cant allow it! nooooooo! lolz… Demo,i enjoy watching animes like Kannazuki. Although it reminds me of my past rofl~
October 10th, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
hol a todas