My (100% honest) Otoyomegatari review aka why I have a bone to pick with Kaoru Mori (Rant)
(English is not my first language, so sorry for any grammatical errors)
*Sigh* I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but the thing is, I don't care.
First the good before the bad:
1). I really love the art style. It's clear that Mori put a lot of care into her work and it shows, especially in all the little intricate details and specifics of the fabrics and contours. It breathes life into the world and makes it feel like it's a place you can go and visit, especially when capturing the clothing, food and artistry of the period/culture.
2). Speaking of culture, I really liked how Mori brought love and attention to central Asian cultures and the silk road, which is often ignored and/or given a white narrative. Here, we have a view of the people of the steppe from their own pov, which is quite intereting.
3) I really loved how badass the grandma was. Chef's kiss 👌
1) This might seem like a nitpick, but it seemed a little weird to me that everyone in Karluk's family was so nice and welcoming towards Amira considering she came from a different culture. I understand that she's a part of their family now and they are being hospitable but still. It would've been interesting to have at least one or two members of the Einhorn clan that didn't like Amira initially. It would've been an interesting conflict.
2) I'm sorry but there is no context, fictional or historical or otherwise, where a "romance" between a twenty year old woman and a twelve year old boy is ever remotely appropriate and/or healthy. To put that into perspective, that's someone in their second year of college and a sixth grader. And it's not like this is even historically accurate either since the information in the afterward of the book clearly states that the minimum marriage age at the time was around 15-16 for both girls and boys. I feel that if Mori had aged Karluk up to be at least sixteen, it would've been a whole lot less icky and she still would've been able to keep the plot point about Amira being 'too old.' But no. He had to be a literal middle schooler. And also, isn't it a bit foolish for the Einhorns to wed their precious heir to a woman they believe to be too old to bear lots of children? Wouldn't it have been much more advantageous to marry Karluk to someone much closer to his age or to wait until he is more mature if they're so desperate for children? What makes it so much worse is that the main male lead is visibly a child compared to his bride. I admit, when I first saw the cover to volume 10 I thought Amira was either Karluk's mother or his older sister. Imagine my shock when I learnt that she was actually his wife.
Don't even get me started on the *shudder* yurt scene, I bet my prized cow that that people wouldn't be nearly as lenient nor accepting if the genders were reversed and it was a twenty year old man demanding a (drunken) twelve year old girl for a kiss then undressing her and lying naked with her under the covers. People would be grabbing their pitchforks and baying for Kaoru Mori's blood.
And no, this work being based on history doesn't excuse this relationship at all since Mori goes out of her way to romanticise said relationship and treat it with the same brush as other, much more appropriate relationships in the story. Yes, there's nothing wrong with depicting problematic subjects in your work, I mean one of my top ten manga is Berserk for crying out loud, but there's a big difference between simply depicting something and actively endorsing it, and Mori slides dangerously close to endorsing child marriage in her media.
As a male victim of SA and someone who comes from a culture where child marriages aren't uncommon, seeing people actively defend, downplay and even praise the main couple is jarring to me. No, their relationship is not equal and Karluk has little if any power over her even if he is technically the "man" in the relationship. He's twelve, she's twenty; she is bigger, stronger, smarter and more mature and wiser than him due to the simple virtue of having lived longer. To adults, eight years may seem like nothing, but when one of the parties in the couple is a minor, eight years is substantial. Just because it's a younger boy and an older girl rather than the other way round doesn't make it anymore palatable or justifiable in my book. In fact, it's a little bit worse in my opinion since men tend to enter puberty later than women do on average.
Speaking of child marriage, you know what this reminds me of? Khal Drogo and Daenerys Targaryen, particularly in the books since Danny is just thirteen and Drogo is almost thirty. It gives me the ick that people treat this couple as an ideal romance on par with Romeo and Juliet considering 1) Daenerys was forced into this situation with no fault nor agency of her own 2) Drogo comes from a culture that treats women as brood mares at best and furniture at worst, and this reflects in his treatment of his child bride 3) Drogo is a grown-ass man who chose to wed and sleep with a little girl. I don't care what anyone says or supposedly how "special" Dany is. As a great khal, he had the cream of the crop but decided to wed and bed a literal child. And for those who are claiming "HiStorIcAL AcCuracY," A) this is a fictional universe based on medieval Europe that Martin created, he could've written anything he wanted but decided to write this. B) marriage between adults and children as young as Dany was exceedingly rare even among nobles and in such cases they were usually married to other children who did not consummate the marriage until both were older, because even then people recognised how dangerous young pregnancies were (see Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry vii).
Child marriage is still a big problem that occurs in many countries today, including the US, and depicting it in this picturesque, idyllic fashion doesn't help anyone.