I enjoy a narrative when it doesn’t feel compelled to proclaim itself. I feel sort of molly coddled at best and annoyed at worst when a story lays out the plot like some kind of Lego instructional manual. Just let me put the pieces together on my own, all right? I can make the pirate ship without you holding my hand.

It is for this very reason that I’m particularly excited about Kurenai. Right from the get-go the characters are in motion and the wheels are turning. Other than the fact that main character, Kurenai, is a dispute mediator and works for Juusawa Benika, you don’t know much. You feel almost thrown into the world, yet at the same time the narrative remains cohesive and slowly fills in the details piece by piece. Read the rest of this entry »