(As a note, all romanizations are works in progress – these names are actually kind of a pain to guess at.)
Now here’s a post that’s been a long time in coming. I was originally introduced to this series courtesy of the wonderful Wyatt Salazar (whose stuff you really should look at) probably a year and change ago, when he asked me if I knew anything about it because he found the artwork interesting. Likewise interested, I finally had a chance to delve into it when I came to live in Japan. I’ve had this book since I bought it from Kinokuniya in Matsuyama back in August of last year. I kept telling myself “I’ve got to read this book” and true to form, I read it piecemeal for so long, that finally this past week I finished the first book. Hopefully I can get the rest read in a more timely fashion, or I’ll never ever catch up.
For the uninformed (not hard, this title is pretty low-key despite having a good number of volumes), Rakuin no Monshou is a fantasy/sci-fi series by Sugihara Tomonori. The central plot is as follows: the Kingdom of Garbera and the Mephius Empire have long been enemies. However, after the most recent war, the rulers of both countries decide to try their hand at peace by arranging a wedding between Imperial Prince Gil Mephius and Princess Vileena Auer.
Then, things get complicated.
Cast
Orba – The main male character of the series. Orba is a peasant turned gladiator-slave, all of 17 years old. He bears a striking resemblance to Imperial Prince Gil Mephius. His older brother went to fight in the war with Garbera, and presumably died. He was separated from his mother and other villagers when their refugee camp was assaulted. He has a fondness for heroic legends and myths.
Vileena Auer – The main female character of the series. The third princess of the “Kingdom of Knights”, Garbera. A very idealistic young woman, she is engaged to Gil Mephius at the age of 14. She is often described as having tomboyish behavior. She likes to be very involved in military affairs. Was kidnapped at age 9, but the knight Ryucown saved her. She was originally engaged to Ryucown, but it was broken to broker peace with Mephius.
Fedom – A nobleman of Mephius. He is a key member of the pro-peace anti-Imperial faction. He arranges for Orba to be fitted with the special mask. He is also the first – and only – nobleman to discover the death of Gil, prompting him to find and obtain Orba to act as a double. He is short-tempered and not a little manipulative.
Gowen – A senior gladiator-slave. After Orba is chosen to act as a double to Gil, Gowen serves as one of Orba’s advisers and confidants. He’s one of the few people that know the truth about Orba being Gil’s double.
Ryucown – A very famous, very zealous, very influential knight of Garbera. He rescued Vileena when she was very young, and was promised her hand in exchange. After the arranged marriage went through, Ryucown staged a revolt, claiming a portion of Garbera territory for his own under the belief that Garbera needs to return to its knightly ideals.
Albury – Leader of the unit of soldiers that Orba’s brother was attached to. Also the man who ordered the attacking of the refugee camp and the murder of its inhabitants, to claim that Garbera perpetrated indiscriminate slaughter. A general in the army, he seems capable. He is very interested in his personal advancement, and feels that Gil – or more precisely Orba acting as Gil – is an utter imbecile.
Also Appearing
Gil Mephius – The Imperial Prince of Mephius. He is shown to be a humongous jackass, and completely worthless. After being shamed by Inary, he invokes the right of first night at a wedding he stumbles across. He is shot to death by the bride’s father.
Inary Mephius – Gil’s step-sister. She makes a very brief appearance in the book making fun of Gil for being worthless, but plays a larger role in later books.
Hou Ran – The dragon-keeper for the Tarkus gladiator group. She is soft-spoken and mysterious, and has the ability to understand the voices of the dragons.
And a whole bunch of other people who aren’t really worth naming yet.
Synopsis
Rakuin no Monshou opens up with a conversation between Vileena and her grandfather, Jiorg Auer, about the upcoming marriage, in which Jiorg compares it to a bloodless war that Vileena will have to fight for the rest of her life.
Soon after, the scene shifts to an arena, where Gil and Inary watch the Tarkus sword-slaves do battle against each other, and then a dragon. The dragon goes out of control, Gil shits himself in fear and runs away, while Inary watches in horror as the beast charges her, before being stopped and killed by one of the two warriors, a young man wearing a steel mask styled after a tiger. Afterwards, Orba is treated to congratulations for his latest success, and the dynamics of the Tarkus gladiator group are explored, including the introduction of Gowen and Hou Ran.
We also see here a flashback to explain how Orba came to be in his present circumstances. He lived in a village on the outskirts of Mephius, close to Garbera, with his mother and older brother. When the war with Garbera started, his brother went to join the war, and garrisoned a fortress that was taken over not long after. Shortly thereafter, Orba’s village is sacked by the Garbera army, and Orba is forced to use a sword he finds in his house to defend his mother from the predations of two soldiers. He is nearly killed, but is saved by a knight, who kills the two soldiers. Orba, his mother, and the surviving villagers flee, and establish a camp, which is shortly attacked by a Mephius army, led by General Albury, with orders to kill everyone and blame it on Garbera.
Orba is separated from his mother, and eventually makes his way to the capital of Mephius, where he joins and leads a gang of child thieves. However, he is eventually caught and brought to trial. When Fedom discovers how amazingly similar he appears to Imperial Prince Gil, he orders a special mask be affixed to his face with no way to remove it, and then given to the Tarkus gladiator group.
A scene shift and return to current time shows Gil coming in from a night of carousing with his friends. He is scolded by one of his servants, who says his father wants to see him. Gil meets with his father who chews him out for wasting all his time partying. Gil doesn’t care. However, after a conversation with Inary that leaves him hurting, he rides out alone. He stumbles across a wedding, and demands the right of first night with the bride. Before he can, however, he is shot to death by the bride’s father.
Fedom, who chased after Gil after witnessing the manchild’s swift departure, happens across the scene. He covers the entire mess up and goes to the Tarkus gladiator group to find Orba. He removes the tiger mask from Orba, revealing a face identical to Gil’s. Orba, as a child, already bore an incredible resemblance to Gil, and the mask was affixed to magically shape his face into a perfect replica. Orba is not told of Gil’s death, merely that he is to act as Gil’s double while they investigate the potential threat of assassination as a result of the wedding. From then on, Orba is given lessons by Gil’s page, Dean, on proper behavior in high society, which Orba messes up at his first debut.
Shockingly, Orba and Vileena’s relationship does not get off to a great start. On top of things being an arranged marriage, the difference in station and ideals makes things very rocky between them. Vileena, the idealist, very quickly begins to grate on Orba, whose family was torn apart by the whims of nobles. This, of course, is not helped by the news of Ryucown’s rebellion, which is startlingly announced by an attempted assassination/kidnapping at the arena in celebration of the impending marriage.
Garbera, in an attempt to dissociate themselves from Ryucown’s actions, suggests that a joint Garbera/Mephius force be sent to eliminate Ryucown’s forces. Orba, as Gil, is given command and sent along. Most of the soldiers are less than thrilled, especially as what was supposed to be a single battle turns into a drawn-out siege with Orba giving no orders and forbidding any kind of movement to join the battle.
Eventually, a Ryucown sympathizer within the Tarkus gladiator group, which was mobilized alongside the regular Mephius army at Orba’s request, helps a number of Ryucown’s men get inside the Mephius encampment to kidnap Vileena. As she is whisked away, a renewed assault by Ryucown’s forces put an end to Mephius’ inaction in the siege. The Mephius soldiers are completely caught off-guard.
In the stronghold, Ryucown and Vileena have an argument over ideals, with Vileena saying that Ryucown is a traitor, and Ryucown saying that Garbera has betrayed its own ideals, and he simply wants to return it to the correct path. Their conversation is interrupted by Orba, once more wearing his tiger mask and posing as a gladiator, who engages Ryucown in a swordfight.
Back on the battlefield, the tides of battle are suddenly shifted as the Tarkus gladiators join in the fight, and Gowen explains that Orba/Gil was waiting for Ryucown to make his inevitable move before striking back. The Mephius/gladiator forces press in on the fortress, but the closer they get, the harder the battle becomes, as Ryucown’s forces, with superior arms, morale, and training, hold the siege back.
Inside, Orba is taken down by Ryucown. Vileena responds by stealing a nearby soldier’s gun and holding it to her head. The ensuing standoff lasts long enough for Orba to catch his second wind and notice the short sword Ryucown wields is inscribed with his name on it – the same sword that his brother Rowan had requested, that was taken by the Garbera knight when his village was destroyed. Orba demands it back, and then kills Ryucown in the second round of their fight. Outside, the renewed joint attack of Mephius and Garbera crushes Ryucown’s soldiers.
In the closing pages, Orba encounters Albury, but opts not to attack him – surrounded by soldiers as he was, even if Orba had killed the general, he himself would die too. He also muses on his dual identities as Orba, the peasant-cum-gladiator and Gil, the Imperial Prince of Mephius.
Why is this book worth reading?
Well, far be it from me to tell you what you should and shouldn’t read, but this book is a lot of fun for a number of reasons. The first is that a lot of the traditional trappings of character archetypes and personalities are averted pretty hard. None of the characters that have a real amount of page time are one-dimensional. Even the “boo hiss” characters like Ryucown and Albury, characters who do legitimately bad things, aren’t simply misguided purists or walking incarnations of evil. For someone who can’t stand the traditional “here’s a boring main character and a variety of women with one-note personalities, now we’ll put them in a funny situation and see what happens” approach to cast-building, this is quite refreshing.
The second is that the art really is good. Like, really really good. Seriously. I can’t think of any reason why a studio hasn’t opted to pick up Rakuin no Monshou for animation except that perhaps there isn’t enough awkward sexualizing of a 14-year old girl to appeal to the average anime viewer. Even as a mostly text-based medium, Rakuin no Monshou’s art is enough reason to pick it up and read it. And maybe bug someone to translate it.
Not me – even though I enjoy the book, I’m way too slow or otherwise busy to actually maintain a schedule translating at a pace that wouldn’t get me bitched at on forums.
There are a few curious oddities though. Rakuin no Monshou suggests a low-magic setting. There’s a bit of backstory about some crazy-ass magic emperor but magic by and large seems to be gone in the modern setting, except for examples like Orba’s mask. In contrast, there are technological oddities at play. Guns are present in the setting, though they aren’t described in great detail in book 1 – my best guess is that we’re looking at musket-level technology. There are also flight-capable vessels, called flying carriages and dragonbone ships. This is in addition to the ground troops, who have access to horses and flightless dragons as mounts. All while still wielding traditional armaments. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really obsessing over the realism of how this all works together, but it was something that struck me as incredibly odd as I was reading.
Overall, though, Rakuin no Monshou is a series that gets way too little attention, both at home and abroad. I’d love to see more attention paid to it, and I’d love to be able to talk to people on the internet about it as obsessively as people do about far, far worse series. Sugihara’s work here is far too good to languish in relative obscurity.
test of sanity 
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