Synopsis
For centuries, the Yaseki have fought the corrupted souls who seek to plunge Japan into darkness. But the fragile balance is now shifting toward the forces of evil.
Ren Fudō, a young Soul Hunter blessed with the blood of the kami, receives a mission from Amaterasu Ōmikami. This simple errand is a spirit-given chance to pay off his debt to the Yaseki.
But as he and his new companion, a shrine maiden possessed by a violent land kami, take to the road, Ren remembers that spirits never give for nothing. The mission turns more dangerous and crucial with every step.
The future of Japan now rests on their shoulders, and an army of Yōkai stands on their path.
Review
“If only they knew, Ren thought with a sigh. If only they knew the truth about Ise. If only they knew that without him and a few others, Japan was doomed to slowly fall into darkness, they would forgive his blood-smeared sleeves, his shredded shirt, and the stench.”
I loved this book. I was talking about it with someone and then went to Kindle Unlimited to take a peek and within a few hours, I had slipped into more than a 100 pages in the book. I stopped all my other current reads and relished this one. It has the best map, and bestiary ever. Add to it the gorgeous full cover art, and one can see how much love has been poured on to the book from everyone who worked on it. (Click here for a look) I will never be able to fully capture it in words, so I’m just going to steal from the author’s words. The best way for me to describe the book is to liken it to a kami – inexplicable in nature, yet easy to feel when you are in the presence of it. It is going straight to the top of my book recommendations list and I implore everyone to give this a chance so that they can experience what I felt and what I am incompetent to explain here. I’m not taking the easy route here by any means, it truly is that much mightier than my proficiency with English, and the written word.
Coming to the story, the most apt way to describe this book is Japanese witcher but not as dark. If you’re looking for action, mythology, and grotesque monsters – those are available in plenty. The writing style is also notably different, this one is a lot more accessible, well-composed, and enjoyable. Baptiste has struck the perfect balance- his prose achieves all of the clarity but sacrifices none of the vividness. It is certainly not an embellishment to say that anyone who picks up this book will be transported to a fantastical, historical Japan. His writing comes alive and I want to visit Ise Jingu right now. I daresay this is the perfect drug for readers with aphantasia. It creates that immense of a visual and sensory experience.
One other highlight for me is how much I was able to learn about Japanese mythology. I have consumed a lot of content from books, anime, and tv shows that are inspired from Japanese myth, culture, and folktales and this book helped put so much of it into context. And none of this was done via info dumps, everything was revealed little by little as we go through the story. It is handled with such skill that absolutely no disruptions are ever felt in the story – a fun, fast paced adventure that simply cannot be put down. I recently learnt from a podcast how fast paced books do not mean simply more action per page but is actually how much the action goes up and down per page and how it changes. This was done so very well in this book.
It is the story of a monster hunter and his guardian spirit – a lion dog, in a race across time in a land full of dangerous spirits. It definitely gets bloody and violent but there’s also a lot of heart and a lot of humor. I loved all the main characters and side characters we came across. No way a reader is coming out of the book without loving some of them, and Pon-Pon especially. I also think it is underrated how good of a combat writer Baptiste is. All the conflicts from the introductory one to the climax were excellent and the climactic one certainly is the pièce de résistance.
Overall, it was a beautiful reading experience for me. I loved, learnt, and cried with this book. That’s the second time I’ve cried after reading a Baptiste Pinson Wu book and I cannot wait to read more from him. With Undead Samurai and now Blood of the Kami, Baptiste has written two epic fantasy love letters to Japan and this book will be such a rich treat to fantasy readers everywhere.
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