f you've seen the Twelve Kingdoms anime series and wondered what in the world was going on in the last story arc, then you should read this book. Beyond that, I don't have much to say. This was an enjoyable piece of fiction. The editing of the Tokyo Pop translation left some things to be desired (e.g., sometimes characters went by multiple names and the wrong name was used given the context), but not so much to significantly impact my enjoyment of the story. ( )

The world Ono describes and writes about continues to grow in our minds. A well written story, even as it covers up its morality play" underpinnings.

A worthy continuation of the series." ( )

I have now finished all of the books in this series that were licensed and translated into English. If I could ask for one Tokyopop license rescue that hasn't already been announced, I'd ask for this. Ono created a fascinating world, and I'd happily read more about it.

Skies of Dawn is probably the most complex book in the series so far, because it doesn't just deal with one main character, but rather three: Yoko, Suzu, and Shoukei. Readers who've read the first book should be familiar with Yoko. Skies of Dawn picks up almost where Sea of Shadow left off - Ono chose to skip Yoko's defeat of the false king and the death of the King of Kou, and began instead with Yoko's coronation. Yoko quickly learns that her problems aren't over – her new kingdom, Kei, is a mess. As King, she has the power to make things better, but she doesn't even know where to start.

The two new characters, Suzu and Shoukei, are located in completely different kingdoms. Suzu is a Japanese girl who was transported to the Twelve Kingdoms one hundred years ago. After a few years, she became the servant of a flying sage in the Kingdom of Sai, which granted her immortality and the ability to understand all languages. Although her mistress is cruel, she doesn't dare leave, out of fear that she'd lose her new linguistic skills. Shoukei also had a painful history. Thirty years ago, her father was King of Hou. He was so unyielding and brutal that he, his wife, and his kirin were eventually killed by his own people. Shoukei was spared but forced to live the life of an ordinary villager.

One thing Ono does really well is character growth. Many of her characters start off deeply flawed and are then forced to come face-to-face with those flaws until they finally recognize and overcome them. Yoko spent most of Sea of Shadow doing that, and it paid off. In Skies of Dawn, it didn't take her long to realize she'd fallen into her old behavioral patterns, break free of them, and start doing something more productive. Suzu and Shoukei were another story. They still had a lot of growing to do, and it was sometimes painful to read.

Shoukei was the worst. Yes, it was horrible that she'd been forced to watch her parents get killed. She had loved them, and hearing people rejoice over their deaths had to have been horrifying. However, she was so lacking in empathy that my sympathy for her soon dried up. Her father had had one fifth of Hou's population executed, and yet she couldn't even begin to understand why people hated him so much, and why they hated her for turning a blind eye to all of it.

I tolerated Suzu fairly well, at first. I knew from Sea of Shadow how bad things could get for a kaikyaku (a person from Japan brought to the Twelve Kingdoms). Without the magical linguistic skills she got from being the servant of a flying sage, she likely had a lifetime of loneliness to look forward to. Still, there's only so much I can stand. After a certain point, Suzu actually had things pretty good compared to other kaikyaku and even some Twelve Kingdoms natives, and yet she continued to wallow in self-pity.

When Shoukei and Suzu learned that the new King of Kei was a 16-year-old girl just like them (physically, anyway), the both assumed things about her. Shoukei immediately hated Yoko, convincing herself that she was unfairly given the life of luxury that should have been hers. Suzu put Yoko on a pedestal. Surely Yoko, who was also from Japan, would be just as lonely and in need of a friend?

While I applaud Ono's decision to write really flawed characters, they could be tough to handle for long periods of time. It took about 300 pages for Shoukei and Suzu to become more tolerable, and I'd have to say that I enjoyed the second half of the book, which focused on a rebellion in Kei, more than the first. The best parts about the first half of the book were getting to see more of the Twelve Kingdoms and learning more about how life in the Twelve Kingdoms worked. I loved how Ono started with the idea of eggfruits and built an entire society around that. People being born from eggfruits had an effect on everything from property inheritance to gender roles. Ono could have carried things a bit further, but it was an ambitious undertaking nevertheless. I just wish more of the details had been conveyed in a less info-dumpy way.

The second half of the book, with its strategic maneuverings and battles, reminded me a bit of Book 3, The Vast Spread of the Seas, and I admit that I wasn't always able to follow things very well. Even so, it was nice to be able to see Yoko, Shoukei, and Suzu in the same general physical area, dealing with a common enemy. I especially loved seeing Yoko finally coming into her own as King of Kei.

I enjoyed this book, although, to be honest, I probably enjoyed the world it was set in more than the story itself. The world-building is incredibly rich and detailed, and I love how Ono tied bits and pieces of the previous three books into Skies of Dawn. I want more epic fantasy like this.

Additional Comments:

I read the paperback edition of this book. It's an absolute brick, with a spine that's almost two inches thick. I bought a hardcover edition with the intention of replacing my paperback, only to later read a review indicating that the hardcover had major issues.

So that others won't make the same mistake I did, here's a link to the review. I haven't looked for the hyphenation and pronoun errors the reviewer mentioned, but I can confirm that the last 8 pages of chapter 16 were omitted. Tokyopop's hardcover release of this book is an embarrassment. In this case, I'd definitely advise getting the paperback edition. I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to do with my hardcover copy.

Rating Note:

Deciding whether to give this 3.5 or 4 stars was tough. In the end, I opted for 3.5 stars because that felt more appropriate than 4. I sometimes had the feeling I only managed to make it through the whole book because I knew how it would all turn out (I had already seen the anime) and because I'm such a big fan of the overall world.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

Skies of Dawn is the fourth and sadly final volume of Fuyumi Ono's eight-volume fantasy novel series The Twelve Kingdoms, illustrated by Akihiro Yamada, to have been released in English. Published in Japan in two volumes in 1994, the novel was released in its entirety in 2010 by Tokyopop under its Pop Fiction imprint, first as a hardcover and then later in a paperback edition. As with the previous volumes of The Twelve Kingdoms, Skies of Dawn was translated by Alexander O. Smith. Interestingly enough, Elye J. Alexander, who frequently collaborates with Smith on translations and who worked with him on the first three volumes of The Twelve Kingdoms, does not appear to have been involved with Skies of Dawn. Though I discovered the series relatively late, I have been thoroughly enjoying The Twelve Kingdoms and Ono's exceptionally well-developed world and characters. Skies of Dawn is easily the longest of the translated volumes, but that didn't at all diminish my enthusiasm.

Yoko has become the king of Kei after being chosen by Keiki, the kingdom's kirin. It's still early in Yoko's reign, but it hasn't been easy for her. Many of the ministers of her court are corrupt and the others have very little trust in Yoko--Kei has had a bad history with lady-kings. Yoko lacks confidence in her rule as well. Having grown up in Japan before being suddenly swept away to the Twelve Kingdoms, her understanding of the world in which she now finds herself is limited and her knowledge of what it means to be king is even more so. Yoko isn't the only young woman who is struggling with great changes in her life. Like Kei, the kingdom of Hou has also recently lost its ruler and those circumstances have forced its princess Shoukei into exile. Suzu, another girl who was originally from Japan, is unhappy with her lot in life in the Twelve Kingdoms. Though they don't know each other, the destinies of these three young women will become closely intertwined, changing the direction and fate of Kei, a kingdom still struggling to restore itself after years of turmoil and calamity.

Although Skies of Dawn is technically the fourth volume in The Twelve Kingdoms, chronologically its story follows immediately after the events of the first volume, Sea of Shadow. The two intervening novels--Sea of Wind and The Vast Spread of the Seas--serve as prequels to the series, providing more context as well as back stories for The Twelve Kingdoms as a whole and for its major characters. As with the other volumes in The Twelve Kingdoms, Skies of Dawn actually stands very well on its own as a novel. Though they provide more background, it's not absolutely necessary to have read the previous volumes in the series to understand what's happening in Skies of Dawn. Actually, Skies of Dawn is almost like reading three novels contained in one, especially towards its beginning. It takes quite some time for Yoko, Shoukei, and Suzu's individual stories to come together into a single narrative, but it is very satisfying when they do, especially because it happens in a way that is somewhat unexpected.

Worldbuilding has always been a major component of The Twelve Kingdoms and that hasn't changed with Skies of Dawn. I do appreciate all of the thought and detail that Ono has put into every aspect of the series. Granted, while it is all very interesting, the worldbuilding does slow down the pacing of the plot a great deal. Much of the first half of Skies of Dawn is devoted to things like rules of governance, taxes, and marriage laws as Yoko learns more about her kingdom and the kingdoms surrounding it. It's not until the second half of Skies of Dawn when Yoko, Shoukei, and Suzu's stories begin to converge that events start to quickly escalate as the people of Kei come closer and closer to rebellion. The Twelve Kingdoms is an epic tale of fantasy in which the characters are required to grow and evolve, taking responsibility for themselves and for the changes in the world in which they live. Although it is unlikely that the rest of the series will be translated, Skies of Dawn and the previous volumes are still well worth seeking out.

Experiments in Manga ( )

Tokyopop really lowered the bar for this one. There are numerous blatant grammatical errors and an entire section of a chapter is missing. Needless to say, I was rather furious at Tokyopop for such a gross oversight. Yoko is about to make an attack on someone she perceives to be an enemy who in turn perceives Yoko to be an enemy. In the next chapter, she and her alleged enemy are friends and teaming up together to launch a greater attack on the real enemy. I don't want to give away the details, but I was very confused at that turn around. I eventually found and read the missing section online that explains how Yoko and her "enemy" first meet and realize that they are focusing on the wrong target.

Still, Ono's storytelling remains fascinating and the world is still rich with detail and mystery for the reader to sift through. (Be ready for another onslaught of names, titles, politics, etc.) We finally get to see Yoko come into her new identity as the Red King which is what followers of the series have undoubtedly been waiting for since volumes 2 and 3 centered on other characters and were set centuries before Yoko arrives. Overall, a satisfying addition to the series. ( )