Tasogareiro no Uta Tsukai

tasogareiro no uta tsukai, or 黄昏色の詠使い if you read it in japanese, is a light novel series which i am currently reading. well if you ask me, personally i like this book a lot, even though i have not read till the end. currently now i am at book 6, with 4 more books to go to the series end.

Follow up:

when i first looked at the book, i didn't buy it immediately. one reason was that i was still reading zero no tsukaima. and after that for a period of time i totally stopped reading light novels. i had a stack of shakugan no shana at home which i bought, around 10 books, but never got past the very first book. despite its popularity and me seeing the anime, the light novel somehow did not appeal to me, and finally i gave up, therefore officially wasting my money buying 10 books at one go, which so far had no casualties to my wallet since i always managed to read them all.

so when i look at tasogareiro, i thought, would this be a good book? and so, not willing to put my wallet through another round of trauma which it may never recover from, i decided to get only one book. and the result was that from the very first book i know i am doomed to fall in love with this series for as long as i am a fan of light novels.

the first thing any sane person would look when they open up a light novel would of course be the cover art. the art work at the first few pages were simply awesome. the thing that attracts me the most? evhemary! that sad face of hers, smiling at that tiny hope. yes you read the story and you will know what is happening.

insert arts are pretty well done, with some reaching the awesome level, though not all are of my type.

story-wise, starting from the very first book where history of the previous generation was more given more focus, the story basically lay a very good foundation before going on to reach the climax. and as usual, the first book is enough to tell you whether you will like the rest of the story or not.

what captivates me most on the first book is the tragic plight of evhemary. yes i am a big fan of tragic stories, and while the story of this particular girl is not the most tragic of all, the writer certainly knows how to use the correct words to bring out that emotion within us. while not as dark as kara no kyoukai nor as happy as haruhi, this story gives you a certain melancholic feeling which fits it very well. if you are a girl, i can say with great confidence that you probably would shed a tear or two.

as of now this light novel has jumped to my highest-ranked all time favorite light novel, even though i still have not finished reading it.

to prove my point on how awesome this is, this was qualified in the list of 'kono light novel ga sugoi!' or 'this light novel is amazing!' this list, is the top 10 most popular light novels of that year. among all the light novels that came out in a year, to qualify for top 10 is seriously amazing, considering current heavyweight books are still able to compete year after year, like the haruhi series. and it qualified for 2 consecutive years!

so, go buy the book now. currently as far as i know other than the japanese version there is also a translated traditional chinese edition which i am reading. if you have money, go get one. if you have no money, go work and get one set. if you can't read japanese or chinese, go learn. you won't regret ever setting your hand on that book. probably the only regret you will ever get is that you never know about this book earlier. well not too late, get the book, and go cry (only applicable to certain scenes).

oh ya, i do have to note, this book, though contain certain tragic or sad scenes, is not intended to be a story to make you cry like there is no tomorrow as in the case of planetarian (though that is a visual novel), except for probably the first book. even so it is intended to be melancholic and not tragic. don't worry, you won't cry. you will at most shed a tear or two.