The main story of
Basara wrapped up in volume 25. These two volumes, the last ones (Which is why they’ve been on the shelf for a few months…I don’t want it to be over. Expect trauma if
Blade of the Immortal ever ends.) are collections of various short stories and novellas. The main things here, of course, are the novellas. Two are set post series, and the other is set 100 years earlier.
Katana, the prequel story, tells the story of how the four swords came to be scattered, and the first rebellion against the royal family, through the eyes of Tara, a woman who fought alongside the four leaders. We know going in that some of these characters are the great-grandparents of the regular cast, that they’ll fail, some will die, and the rest will be separated. Most characters have counterparts in the main story, though who they are isn’t obvious until the end. It’s entirely possible that it’s at least as tragic and angsty as the main story. If you’ve read
Basara, then you know that’s pretty impressive. The tragedy, however, isn’t in who dies, but in what happens to the survivors, and how they live. And just like
Basara is always Sarasa’s story, Katana is always Tara’s story, right down to the final, and hardest, blow.
( spoiler stories )The rest of the stories are a few fewback stories (Little Hijiri and Nachi! Also incredibly cute! Super hyperactive 10-year-old and super stoic and serious 10-year-old stuck on a drifting ship full of tangerines!) and looks into the lives of the surviving characters after the war. There’re also two AU stories, one of which features the cast participating in a musical context. I didn’t like it quite as much as the AU from a while back with Sarasa infiltrating an all-boy’s school (AU Tataras are always attacked, resulting in AU Sarasas going off to investigate and then panicking the AU Tataras by falling for the AU Shuris.) but the cast in musical bands is something else.
And I can’t help but notice that AU Shuris are always sweet and open and immediately protective towards Sarasa. Actually, this is true of regular Shuri, at least towards Sarasa. It’s just the rest of the world. (Yes, Shuri is a bastard. I love him beyond reason and most shoujo guys come up lacking when I compare them to him-just like most shoujo comes up lacking when I compare it to
Basara-but he’s a bastard. Though part of it is that Tamura really does make him complex and never makes excuses for him-or letting him make excuses for himself-or creating easy outs for “angsty but not that bad” or pretending that he’s anything but what he is.) Then again, AU Shuri’s were never branded a slave as an infant by their fathers, had the fathers spend their lives trying to publicly get them killed and/or humiliated (preferably both) or sold into slavery by their brothers.
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