Saturday, September 20, 2014

Kingdom Hearts Light Novels

Someone on Wordpress is working on translating the light novels for Kingdom Hearts. There are more than just the ones for Birth By Sleep too. The KH2 manga hasn't been updated on the scanlation site in a while; after months of nothing suddenly five chapters were posted and then several more months of nothing. At the time of this writing, the last thing I remember was Kairi escaping and letting Demyx catch her because she felt sorry for him, like how Sora did back in the Underworld. I'd given Demyx guard duty in the KH2 fan fic I'd written with similar results. T.T DEMYX-KUN! From what I've glanced over about the light novels, I get what people are saying about Vanitas. He felt he was better than Ven since he could do what Ven couldn't, but Ven got dropped off with a supportive family while Vanitas just got more abuse from Xehanort. Knowing Xehanort, what did he expect? He breaks people for a living. I'm looking forward to reading them, even if I don't learn anything new and everything aside from Vanitas' standpoint is just a rehash of the story from the games. Until we get Kingdom Hearts III (or even 2.5) it will have to do. If the story can't progress just yet, I'm more than happy to read the same parts over and over (though I've written so many of them myself already it's become difficult to keep track of them all). It's too bad Disney won't let the stories get official publication over here. I like reading the FullMetal Alchemist light novels and it's too bad I can't hold the Kingdom Hearts books in my hands as well.

Update: They still haven't been translated completely but I have learned a few things from what I've read. I didn't expect to but it was eye-opening, like with Vanitas (and Replica Riku got the same treatment). Axel's side of KH2 was really compelling. I really liked the extra scenes before the move to Castle Oblivion because they fleshed some of the characters out more. For instance, Marluxia and Larxene were bored with the Organization. No surprise there, but I didn't expect the narration to say that Zexion hated Vexen and always had even when they were people, though he still respected him. It just seemed kind of harsh, especially when a) they don't believe they have emotions, and b) Zexion had wanted them all to get along despite Vexen's hatred for Marluxia. I knew the fan art of Even and Ienzo together was a little bit on the wishful thinking side, but it was still cute and I liked it better than thinking there was some sort of rift between them; one of Even's character boxes even mentioned that Ienzo was important to him. It's not that I blame either of them for any negative emotions (Vexen can be a bit violent when made angry), but hate certainly seems to be a strong word in this case. It didn't mention him hating Xigbar even though body language showed that he was clearly annoyed and didn't want to be around him. Certain scenes were done a bit differently from the games but the same ideas got across; others were word-for-word. I'll be glad when more of it gets translated because there are still some things I don't understand and would like to know more about (Dilan's character box said he manipulates people with words. What? Xaldin did that, but what bearing does that have on this story?).

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