Tale of Genji: Dream at Dawn Volume 1 by Waki Yamato

[spindizzy]

First published in the 1980s and 90s, Waki Yamato’s renowned adaptation of Murasaki Shikibu’s 11th-century literary masterpiece is still gorgeous to behold and is considered one of the greatest novel-to-manga adaptations of all time. Prince Genji falls in love with his stepmother, and so begins a forbidden love that will make him suffer his whole life. Genji's love story involves him falling for many women and begins with his love for Princess Fujitsubo — his father's wife, and his stepmother. And Genji will cross that line which he should never cross.

I'm going to be upfront with you: I don't recommend Tale of Genji: Dreams at Dawn. It's a manga adaptation of Murasaki Shibiku's Tale of Genji, following the son of an emperor who falls in love with his stepmother (who is apparently the spitting image of his dead birth mother), and pursues several other women in an attempt to find a replacement for her. Including the ten-year-old cousin of his stepmother, who he takes in as his ward, who will – according to character summary at
the back of the book – become his wife when she's older.

Yeah, that was the face that I made too.

( Read more... )

As an introduction to one of the world's oldest works of fiction, it's fairly interesting, but I don't think I would read this for its own merits.

[Caution warnings: incest, mentions of grooming in future volumes, dubious consent, death of parents] [This review was based on an ARC from Netgalley.]