Alrighty, here is the second installment of the 3 part Sang-Sun Park post. Les Bijoux has been fully released by Tokyopop and all 5 volumes are available in the US.Les Bijoux takes place in a world divided into 12 countries called mines. Most character names and places are all named after gems/rocks. Each mine is dominated by the "Habits", a high class that dominates the "Spars" and owns them body and soul. The spars have no way of advancing themselves and have a dim future until Lapis/Lazuli the beautiful child born of a dwarf and a hunchback is prophecized to overthrow the tyrannical habits. Lapis is a young man that occasionally changes into a woman named Lazuli. Rather than being the same person in a different body Lapis and Lazuli actually have different views on the world and feel differently about the habits.
This manga is an interesting study of contrasts and attempts to show the difference in how each gender would perceive and react to each situation. I find myself slightly offended that Lazuli is such a wussy soft-hearted girl who cannot bring herself to kill her parents murderer and instead falls in love with him. Lapis on the other hand is much more brash and headstrong than he should have been. Too much care was taken to prove that Lapis and Lazuli were in fact different people and they became unbelievable characters twisted all out of proportion. The art as always was beautiful and I loved the desert scenes and the lithe way the panther and horses were drawn. The end of this manga was a bit to Bible-y for me with the willing sacrifice and dissolving sin etc-etc-blah-blah.
I loved the gardians. There were 6 characters that were the original humans whose sins of greed and pride ended up creating the spar/habit system. Because of their sins they were forced into servitude and fated to serve Lapis/Lazuli and Diamond (a Habit who played the bad guy). They have the ability to turn into animals and have various magic powers.
This series is recent enough that it is still easily found in bookstores. I recommend it to anyone who likes magic and fated quests.
Luv and Huggs,
Magic
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