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Loading... Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Book 1by Hideyuki Kikuchi
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Drama.
Fiction.
Horror.
Science Fiction & Fantasy.
HTML: After a devastating earthquake that left most of Japan in ruins, the district ward of Shinjuku in Tokyo has opened up a doorway into another dimensionâ??becoming the halfway-house suspended between the mortal world and the supernatural. Setsura Aki, undercover P.I., is considered the best "man hunter" in the business. He allies himself with friend and rival, Doctor Mephistoâ??a wizard of physical and spiritual surgery. Together, they battle the evil forces that overrun the city. Coming from the deepest and darkest parts of China, four immortal demons, led by the Princess of vampires, have surmounted four thousand years of space and time to seize control of Shinjuku and make it their own. It is up to Setsura and Mephisto to uncover their new formidable foes'dark plans for the city. Can the duo stop them before they plunge the living populace into a new level of fear and slavery none can escape No library descriptions found. |
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Ever since the Devil Quake, Demon City Shinjuku has become a corrupt and sordid place. Cut off from much of the outside world, the city serves as a sort of safe haven for the paranormal. Demonkind and humankind live side by side in a very precarious balance. The arrival of four ancient and powerful Chinese vampires who want to control the city for their own purposes threaten to upset that balance. It is up to two of the city's most dangerous, feared, admired, and talented residents to stop them: Aki Setsura, senbei shop owner and skilled private investigator, and Doctor Mephisto, also known as the demon physician. If the two men hope to save their city from the greatest evil it has ever faced, they will first have to put aside their differences and work together.
Yashakiden features not one, but two unnaturally beautiful, supernaturally inclined protagonists. In fact, both Aki and Mephisto's primary characteristic seems to be how gorgeous they are. Kikuchi never misses an opportunity to remind the reader of their beauty, although it is generally stated rather than being described in any depth. This goes for many of the vampires, too. Personally, I need my characters to be more than paranormal pretty boys to really engage me in the story. (Not that I have anything against pretty boys; quite the contrary.) Fortunately, there are some glimmers of hope towards the end of the first volume of Yashakiden that they will actually be interesting characters after all. The mystery that Kikuchi has shrouded them in is frustrating because it seems like the author is simply withholding information from the readers rather than there being anything inherently mysterious about the men.
I don't know if it is the fault of the original Japanese or the English translation, but for the most part the writing in the first volume of Yashakiden is pretty terrible. It does get better as the novel progresses, but even towards the end of the book there were turns of phrases that honestly made me cringe. Often, the narrative would even deliberately contradict itself for dramatic purposes. However, the more depraved or grotesque a scene, and often this was the same thing, the better the writing was. It could actually be quite good. The bloody, far from vanilla sex scenes that seem to come out of nowhere are fine examples of this. I should note that the portrayal of women in the novel isn't particularly flattering. Granted, many of them are vampires, but still. Fortunately, they are somewhat balanced out by Takako, who is more than just a sex fiend. Despite some of my misgivings I will be reading the next volume of Yashakiden and probably more after that. I really like Demon City Shinjuku and much of the world-building. It seems like the story could get very interesting very soon.
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