From Far Away

Manga completed at 14 Volumes

Brief Summary: A girl gets drawn into another world where she is the key to awakening a monster.

This topic isn’t new, just think of Escaflowne, Anatolia, Queen’s Knight, Kyo Kara Meoh and even Amatsuki (I’m sure you could name many others), where someone is sucked into another realm/world and, somehow despite being rather plain and nondescript in the normal world, is now a special person of some consequence there.

And then there is the romance, though this isn’t exactly your typical hearts and flowers shojo. In fact, I was wondering all the time whether this was written for males or females. There is a deep romance element but a large part of the story is centered on the royal politics. The fight scenes are also spectacular, going on for quite a few pages a time. So it did seem more for guys, but then again, I know some girls like their fight scenes too, and the romance part didn’t seem like something the guys would be that interested in (I could be wrong).

The characters have good chemistry, especially the two protagonists. Of course the guy’s got issues (and the girl is sweet and nice) but they are settled later on. The drawing isn’t bad but the characterization seems more towards the older 90s style, which you can see from the girl’s hairstyle. The guy also isn’t your typical bishonen, though he seems cool enough.

The story is rather typical with bad guys galore, but there wasn’t really adequate explanation on the whole concept of how she became so special - some similar stories would have had her ancestor or something coming from this world into ours sometime in the past, and having a lineage in the fantasy world to begin with (e.g. Meripuri). With this one, it wasn’t really touched on at all (or did I miss it?).

My Rating:
Story: B
Art: B
Recommended? There are so many titles with the same topic so if you’ve read a few you may be weary already, but if you haven’t this isn’t a bad start I guess.