Yona of the Dawn

After having a decent amount of people tell me over and over again about how good Yona of the Dawn is, I finally decided to take a read to see what all the hype is about, and I can say that they knew what they were talking about. For the most part.

Yona of the Dawn is a story about a sheltered princess who has her entire life shattered when her childhood friend and romantic love interest kills her father to ascend to the throne. She runs away with her bodyguard Hak and they have to find a way to survive off the radar to avoid being captured and killed by the new emperor. Now, as a basic premise this isn't that uncommon, but it serves its purpose well to set up the story. After this, there are essentially two major arcs, with one being really lackluster and the other one being pretty decent. The first major arc follows Yona as she finds out that she is the reincarnation of some important guy who had four dragons to protect him, so she goes off to find these four dragons. This is by far the weakest part of the story, which is unfortunate since it comes so early on. I was really contemplating dropping Yona of the Dawn because of it, but trust me when I say that it gets much better. The next major arc actually contains quite a few small ones, but it basically involves Yona and her crew going around to help the poor and forgotten people of her land. It does much better than the dragon arc since we actually get to see the characters, especially Yona and Hak, grow and become more fleshed out. Along the way there is some political drama, a few action scenes and romantic development between characters.

If I were to describe the mood and pacing of Yona of the Dawn, I'd say that it's a mix between shoujo and shounen. It has the conflict instigation/resolution speed of a shounen while having the romantic and comedic pacing of a shoujo. It makes for an interesting, although a little weird experience. Thematically it also falls really neatly into these two demographic groups, with nothing being too difficult to understand or hard to swallow.

If we take a look at the characters in this manga, I'd say that they are probably some of the weakest parts of it. Besides Yona and Hak, and maybe like a third of the other cast, no one really does anything or grows. They are essentially the same from when they first are introduced to the latest chapter. This isn't necessarily the worst, but there's just a lot of wasted potential with it. Other than that though, Yona, Hak and the new emperor have a really interesting chemistry throughout the series which is probably the best part. Yona also serves as a good, headstrong female protagonist, which was refreshing to read.

Personally when I read Yona of the Dawn, I didn't find it to be all that spectacular. I really disliked the first arc, I found Yona to be a little too headstrong without getting any consequences for it, I thought the dragons were really bland and boring as characters, the dragon's interest in Yona felt really undeserved for the most part, Yona's romantic feelings never really felt resolved well and maybe a few more things I found to detract from the story. But those are pretty minor overall, so I don't think that detracts from the story being overall decent.

Yona of the Dawn is a shounen feeling shoujo that explores the great dynamics between a princess and her people as well as childhood friends and betrayal. It's not the best story in my opinion, but it is overall solid all around.