Carciphona Volume 1

I discovered this story through the amazing art posted on Shilin Huang's deviantart account and once I found out the art was part of a manga of hers I followed the link she posted and read volume 1 in one sitting. Carciphona is a high fantasy set in an alternate universe where demon magic or common magic that used to be practiced freely and without fear of persecution became outlawed after the appearance of an assassin who basically wreaked havoc on the world. And the reason this assassin's appearance led to the banning of all demon magic was because it was believed that she was a carciphona or the result of demon magic infecting humans. And although never proven as fact, after magic was banned the assassin known as Blackbird coincidentally disappeared and this quickly became to be known as true leading to all living sorcerers to be met with disdain and fear. Veloce who is our heroine is a sorceress and through the “kindness” of the king was allowed to live in his kingdom as long as she never used magic again, this didn't exactly equal a happy life and thus the story ensues.

Now, I really enjoy high fantasy stories and have in fact never read a manga that falls under this genre, only novels. It was certainly a different experience because when I read a high fantasy its usually quite slow in the beginning because the world has to be established and set up. Certain things have to be explained before the reader can be fully pulled into the story and that does sort of happen here but not extensively. There is a scene where the history behind the banning of magic or establishment of the Prohibition is explained and we get an implied sense that the world inside the story, Maelstrom, is divided into different kingdoms but besides this and the two different kinds of magic shown in this first volume there is still a lot to learn about the world of Carciphona. That is perfectly understandable of course, no one enjoys info dumps and if the world building can unfold gradually by being woven naturally throughout the story then I look forward to reading more. Another reason there couldn't be much world building in this particular volume was because there was a lot of action and some character development.

Thanks to the gorgeous artwork the action scenes were pretty top notch, hard to follow at times yes but I have that problem with all action scenes I read which is why I prefer my shounen-like stories to be animated, still it can't be helped, there was a lot of action sequences in this first volume and mostly between two more than capable female characters I might add. Which was very refreshing, usually in the action-centric stories you tend to have the guys taking centre stage while the ladies provided assistance or are just nuisances who get in the way. Not so here. Along with the action was character development for our main character but development that felt a little rushed. I love a well rounded character but it seemed too much happened in this one volume for me to feel satisfied with the whole piece. In the beginning Veloce is basically a recluse who just lets people treat her the way they want but at the end of the first volume she does a sort of one eighty after a specific event. It felt like I knew too little about her to fully understand her yet or even like her so when she grew in such a short time I couldn't fully appreciate the growth in her. This, like world building, should have been woven into the story more naturally I think though I won't lose faith yet there are still some parts of Veloce that require growth and I will be reading the next volume to see it happen.

Certainly a more serious story than I usually read I wouldn't have minded a little more humour to add levity to this first volume. The few sprigs of comedy that were shown were nice but not enough to actually lighten the mood and keep Carciphona volume 1 from being a little dull in some places. Still it was definitely worth the read and I recommend this to all who enjoy high quality art, action and fantasy.