2025 read #37: Children of the Whales: Volume 8 by Abi Umeda.

Children of the Whales: Volume 8 by Abi Umeda

Translated by JN Productions

194 pages

Published 2016 (English translation 2019)

Read from April 14 to April 15

Rating: 3 out of 5

Here we are at my library’s last volume of Children of the Whales. Mostly I’ve read this series to shamelessly bulk up my book numbers, which is something I had said I would avoid doing this year. Ah well. At least it’s been enjoyable, even if it didn’t grab me the way Delicious in Dungeon or Witch Hat Atelier did.

When Umeda’s writing hits, it’s stunning. Emotional vulnerability, the importance of community, sacrifice to preserve said community, guilt and absolution, all powerful themes.

But a lot of that graceful mood of grief gets lost under the weight of Umeda’s worldbuilding. I’m just not invested enough for flashbacks to two or three generations previously. And every volume introduces new terms and concepts. It gets to feel like noise after a while. (Though I’m sure a lot of my attitude is modern day anhedonia. I mean, just look outside. The monsters are winning.)

2025 read #36: Children of the Whales: Volume 7 by Abi Umeda.

Children of the Whales: Volume 7 by Abi Umeda

Translated by JN Productions

194 pages

Published 2016 (English translation 2018)

Read from April 12 to April 14

Rating: 3 out of 5

It’s difficult to write reviews of long-running manga when I read them back to back like this. I’m still interested enough to read through this series (or at least what my library has of it), but it’s starting to feel like background noise. (Most of that feeling is due to the state of my country, though, to be fair.)

This volume has a grab-bag quality. Each chapter is its own little standalone story, all of them contributing to an ever more elaborate tower of worldbuilding and backstory. Which is fine, I suppose, but it’s a lot of worldbuilding and backstory, so very much. The last chapter is a short story, published by itself years before, that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Children of the Whales aside from commentary on authoritarianism and Umeda’s fixation on jesters and large women.

In case you had any doubts about the series’ overarching point of view, we hop back to the original generation of exiles on Fálaina, who prove to be rebels against the totalitarian control of a government that sucks away its people’s emotions. Said government is the ancestor of the Apátheia pursuing the Mud Whale in the story’s present day.

Maybe that’s why I keep reading this series: it serves as a gentle, emotional refutation of the sociopathy of authoritarianism.

2025 read #35: Children of the Whales: Volume 6 by Abi Umeda.

Children of the Whales: Volume 6 by Abi Umeda

Translated by JN Productions

192 pages

Published 2015 (English translation 2018)

Read April 12

Rating: 3 out of 5

After it is revealed that the nous of the Mud Whale consumes the lifespans of the marked in order to sustain itself on the sand sea, the unmarked decide to maintain the secret and steer the island toward a distant land, where perhaps they can abandon the Whale and extend the lives of those touched by magic. Along the way, this volume proceeds as a series of self-contained chapters, exploring strange locales and incidents of the voyage. But discontent brews among other factions on the island.

I should take a moment to praise the sumptuously detailed artwork Umeda uses to portray the use of magic or the empathic visions her characters experience. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

2025 read #34: Children of the Whales: Volume 5 by Abi Umeda.

Children of the Whales: Volume 5 by Abi Umeda

Translated by JN Productions

194 pages

Published 2015 (English translation 2018)

Read from April 11 to April 12

Rating: 3 out of 5

After the bloodshed, grief, and pathos of Volume 4, Volume 5 opens with a wacky episode of comic relief, as Sir Rochalízo, the first non-hostile outsider the people of the Mud Whale have ever seen, happens to arrive at bath time, and the mayor greets him in the buff. It’s giving beach episode.

Rochalízo ends up being a colonial-minded dickhead. But his presence inadvertently creates a significant change for the inhabitants of Fálaina, as the Mud Whale reveals the ability to steer itself. We also learn why the Whale’s marked — the people able to use the magic called thymia— die so young.

After the chaotic action of the last installment, it was nice to have more of a low-stakes hangout vibe. I still don’t know how deep I will read into the series, but for now, it’s an enjoyable way to pad out my book numbers.

2025 read #33: Children of the Whales: Volume 4 by Abi Umeda.

Children of the Whales: Volume 4 by Abi Umeda

Translated by JN Productions

193 pages

Published 2015 (English translation 2018)

Read April 11

Rating: 3 out of 5

It’s been about a month since I read Volume 3. Clearly that was enough time to leave me almost entirely lost when I picked up this installment. Umeda swerves between perspectives in a bloody action sequence as the apátheia, or harlequin soldiers, continue to raid the Mud Whale. Exposition gets doled out mid-battle. It’s difficult to make sense of it all.

The main vibe is one of intense, sometimes melodramatic emotion. Pretty much every character either dies in horrific, pointless violence, or survives to weep about them in the aftermath. It makes sense thematically. The central conflict is between the residents of the Mud Whale, who are free to feel their emotions, and the emotionally-drained apátheia, who view them with mingled disdain and disgust. The heightened emotional stakes are thus central to the story being told.

One could read any number of allegorical interpretations into this; in the contemporary world, it’s tempting to see it as empathetic, compassionate people hounded to the ends of the earth by the sociopathic adherents of patriarchal capitalism.

I think I’ll enjoy this series more if I read them closer together, and can keep better track of who any of these people are. I have four more volumes checked out from the library that I’ll likely use to pad out my reading numbers for this month. After that, our library doesn’t stock any of them, and I’m not sure if I’ll continue the series. It’s long, much longer than any other manga I’ve read.

2025 read #32: Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce.

Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce

363 pages

Published 1988

Read from March 31 to April 11

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

After habitually taking three or more years between installments, I decided to switch it up and read the last volume of the Lioness Quartet immediately after I finished The Woman Who Rides Like a Man.

Perhaps I should have waited at least a little bit longer. This is the bulkiest book in the quartet, stuffed with a couple books’ worth of plotlines, the convenient return of more than one previously defeated enemy, and a lot of introducing one friend group to another friend group. Focused on my own writing this month, for the first time since 2022, I found I didn’t have much attention to spare, especially for the chapters away from Alanna. In particular, a forty page chapter cramming together all the political scheming that’s been happening in the capital in Alanna’s absence took me days to get through.

Rampant suffers, I think, from the need to give everyone and everything resolution. The result is an unevenly paced finale that’s less satisfying than it should have been.