Tail of the Moon vol. 15: The saga concludes

I just finished the final installment of this series by Rinko Ueda, and although it wasn’t my favorite volume of the bunch (too much wrapping up and tying of loose ends), I enjoyed the series overall and I’m glad I stuck through until the end.

So, before focusing on this closing volume, some thoughts on the series as a whole. Tail of the Moon is a series that takes a pretty stupid-sounding premise and draws a surprisingly engaging and entertaining story from it. This is due mainly to a good cast of characters, a nice fast pacing, and a healthy sense of humor. The story focuses on Usagi, a young girl from a ninja clan during the pre-Tokugawa years, who is a good herbalist but a very bad ninja. She’s so useless, in fact, that her elders palm her off to the leader of a neighboring clan as a potential bride, figuring that’s all she’ll ever be good for. Unfortunately Hanzo, her husband-to-be, initially wants nothing to do with the clumsy, tactless girl, but Usagi has a way of winning people over in spite of her faults, and the two slowly get closer to one another.

The series isn’t just about romance, though; as the story progresses Usagi learns and grows into a more independent adult, and also gets caught up in the struggles and intrigue of the feuding clans and warlords of a very volatile historical period. I kind of liked how the author incorporated significant historical figures such as Tokugawa Ieyasu, Oda Nobunaga, Ranmaru Mori, and Sen no Rikyu into Usagi’s story, playfully reinterpreting them within the context of the story. And while the series manages to achieve a pretty wide scope (combining drama, romance, history, adventure, and humor), I can’t really say it was all that deep. But it sure was entertaining. I didn’t particularly like the artist’s style but I got used to it. It’s definitely a series geared towards younger readers, and many parts of it were downright ridiculous. But then again, if you can’t stomach a little ridiculousness once in a while I don’t think you’ve got much business reading manga in the first place.

So anyways, volume 15: In this final volume, the main conflict between Usagi and Hanzo over his revenge campaign against Nobunaga comes to a head and is finally resolved in a tense scene that would have been better if it hadn’t felt a little rushed and condensed. This climactic encounter also happens to take place in the middle of a siege on Honniji castle led by Mitsuhide, who’s been driven to desperation by misfortune and despair. Yet in spite of all this drama, almost everybody lives happily ever after and the series ends on a cheerful note. Did that sound abrupt? Well, it kinda was. I mean, I enjoyed revisiting all the characters and seeing (more or less) how their individual storylines were resolved, I wish it hadn’t been so rushed. The volume also included a cute short story at the end featuring a grown up Mamezo that provided an enjoyable conclusion to the series.