| Moribito | |
| Author: | Nahoko Uehashi |
| Translator: | Cathy Hirano |
| Illustrator: | Makiko Futaki Miho Satake Yuko Shimizu |
| Country: | Japan |
| Language: | Japanese |
| Genre: | Fantasy series |
| Publisher: |  Kaiseisha (hardcover, 1996–2012), Shinchosha (bunkobon, 2003–2007) Scholastic Corporation (hardcover and paperback, 2008–2009) |
| Media Type: | Print (hardcover, paperback and bunkobon) |
| Italic Title: | no |
The is a Japanese fantasy novel series written by Nahoko Uehashi. The first novel in the series, , has been adapted into numerous media, including a radio drama, manga series, an anime adaption, and a live-action series.
As of 2018, the series is composed of 10 parts, published in 13 volumes. The series has been translated into several languages. In English, Scholastic released the first two novels in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
Moribito is set in a fantasy analog of historical Asia. The setting includes several nations, such as Kanbal, a rugged, Himalayan-like kingdom, and New Yogo, a fertile kingdom that combines elements of feudal Japan and Southwest China. The supernatural plays very prominently into the world of the series, with the physical world being referred to as Sagu and a parallel spirit world being referred to as Nayug.
The novel series was published in hardback by Kaiseisha as children's literature, though the series has garnered many adult fans. Shinchosha began its publication in of the series in bunko size in March 2007. The Moribito and Tabibito strands of the series split after the first book, Guardian of the Spirit, and merge again in the chronologically final book, Ten to Chi no Moribito.
| Book | Kanji title | Romaji title | Original title, literal translation[1] | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publication date | ISBN | English publication title | ||
| Summary | ||||
| 1 | 精霊の守り人 | Seirei no Moribito | Guardian of the Spirit | 1 volume |
| July 1996 March 2007 (bunko) | (bunko) | |||
| When Balsa saves Prince Chagum of the kingdom of New Yogo, a boy with a mysterious spirit living inside him, she is hired to protect him from the assassins his father has sent after him and the dangers the spirit inside him brings. | ||||
| 2 | 闇の守り人 | Yami no Moribito | Guardian of the Darkness | 1 volume |
| January 1999 June 2007 (bunko) | (bunko) | |||
| Balsa returns to the country where she was born to face her tragic past, but the consequences of that past and the secret that lies buried under the mountains make her task a difficult one. | ||||
| 3 | 夢の守り人 | Yume no Moribito | Guardian of Dreams | 1 volume |
| May 2000 December 2007 (bunko) | ||||
| People start becoming trapped in their dreams. Tanda's niece, Chagum, and the First Queen all dream of a flower with ties to Torogai's past. Only a man with a supernatural singing voice can save them. | ||||
| 4 | 虚空の旅人 | Kokū no Tabibito | Traveler of the Void | 1 volume |
| July 2001 | ||||
| Chagum, now the crown prince of New Yogo, and Shuga are sent bearing greetings to a southern country, Sangal, for the new king's coronation ceremony. However, a black shadow is reaching towards Sangal and the would-be-king of Sangal is fatally wounded. | ||||
| 5 | 神の守り人 | Kami no Moribito | Guardian of the God | 2 volumes |
| January 2003 (both volumes) | | |||
| When Balsa encounters a brother and sister being sold by a slave trader, she impulsively takes the girl, Asla, away when she notices the girl has a strange aura. However, Balsa comes to wonder if the girl is a divinely appointed guardian or a child of disaster as a dark secret of the child begins to emerge. As Asla grows fearful of her power, she draws closer to an awful god while her powers are felt in the Kingdom of Lota, now divided in a civil war between the north and south. Balsa must protect Asla from the forces that threaten the girl while eluding Shihana, an undercover agent from Lota who pursues them. | ||||
| 6 | 蒼路の旅人 | Sōro no Tabibito | Traveler of the Indigo Road | 1 volume |
| April 2005 | ||||
| Following the events of Kokū no Tabibito, Sangal is being engulfed by forces from Talsh, which now draws nearer to New Yogo. In order to protect his country, Chagum must make a perilous journey alone.[2] | ||||
| 7 | 天と地の守り人 | Ten to Chi no Moribito | Guardian of Heaven and Earth | 3 volumes |
| January 2007 (volume 1) January 2007 (volume 2) February 2007 (volume 3) | | |||
| Balsa sets off for the kingdom of Lota to rescue Chagum, the Crown Prince of New Yogo, hitherto believed dead. To protect his homeland from ruin, they undertake a dangerous quest to reach the king of Kanbal to forge an alliance between Lota and Kanbal to end the influence of the neighboring nation of Talsh, which threatens New Yogo. With Balsa's help, Chagum returns to his homeland after a Talsh attack takes many civilian lives. While Chagum leads New Yogo against the Mikado, Balsa finds her old friend Tanda injured by the war. | ||||
| 8 | 流れ行く者 | Nagare Yuku Mono | Wanderers | 1 volume |
| April 2008 | ||||
| A collection of prequel stories to the series:,,, and . Tanda, a sensitive eleven-year-old boy, adores Balsa, who is drifting about with her "father", fleeing from a plot against them. They try to find out about a curse in the village and discover the painful secret of a dead wastrel. | ||||
| 9 | 炎路を行く者 | Enro o Yuku Mono | Treading the Path of Fire | 1 volume |
| January 2012 | ||||
| A collection of two spin-off stories. The first is "The Flame Road Traveller", which tells the story of Talsh empire secret agent Hugo Alayutan as a young man. The second is "My Fifteen Year Old Self", which traces the story of Balsa the spear woman. | ||||
| 10 | 風と行く者 | Kaze to Iku Mono | Traveler of the Wind | 1 volume |
| November 2018 | ||||
The series also includes, a non-fiction volume that includes cooking recipes with photos of the cuisines described in the series; and, an extensive guidebook with background information on the setting and characters and a new short story, by Nahoko Uehashi, about Balsa and Tanda's relationship.
As of 2010, the series sold over 1.5 million copies in Japan and won "a series of literary awards in Japan".[3]
Sharp Point Press and respectively distribute the novels in Taiwan and mainland China.[4]
The English translation of the first book, published by Arthur A. Levine Books, appeared in the summer of 2008; the second book's translation appeared in April 2009.
Both books won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award from the American Library Association, the first volume in 2009, and the second, in 2010.[5] [6]
Due to unsatisfactory sales, publishing of the series in the U.S. has since been indefinitely suspended by Scholastic.[7]
| Title | Publication date | ISBN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 2008 (hardcover) April 2009 (paperback) | (hardcover) (paperback) | ||
| May 2009 (hardcover) | (hardcover) | ||
Some volumes of the series have also been translated to Italian, Korean, Vietnamese, Macedonian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Moribito has since been adapted into numerous media, including radio, manga and anime adaptations.
adapted Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit and Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness into radio drama series, which aired in NHK-FM Broadcast's program . The first series and second series aired from August 7, 2006, to August 18 of the same year and from April 16, 2007, to April 27 of the same year respectively.
See main article: List of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit episodes.
The series has been adapted into a 26 episode anime television series, produced by Production I.G and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, which premiered in Japan on NHK from April 7, 2007. The anime was based entirely on the first novel, Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, and greatly expands the midsection of the novel.
At the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2007 in March, Geneon announced that they have acquired the license to the anime and Scholastic announced they have US distribution rights to the novels.[8] After Geneon discontinued its distribution division, the rights transferred to Media Blasters. The series premiered in the United States at 1:30 a.m. on August 24, 2008, on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block, but was dropped from the schedule without warning or explanation on January 15, 2009, after two runs of the first ten episodes.
On June 13, 2009, the series was back on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block in the United States at 1:30 a.m. Sundays, but was moved to 2:30 a.m. Eastern time, swapping it with Fullmetal Alchemist in November.[9]
A manga adaptation of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Kamui Fujiwara was published in Square Enix's magazine from the April 2007 issue to the August 2008 issue. Its spin-off titled was published in the same company's another magazine from the 9th 2008 issue to the 17th 2008 issue.
A manga adaptation of Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness by Yū was published in ' shōjo magazine from August 12, 2014.[10]
Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit is a 2016 Japanese television drama series produced by Japan's NHK network, consisting of 22 episodes covering three of the novels in the Moribito series.
Four episodes adapting the material in the first novel, Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, were broadcast in 2016, and another nine adapted from the multi-volume novel Kami no Moribito aired in 2017. The remaining nine began in November 2017 and continue into 2018. It appears this third and final season will adapt Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness, which takes place in Balsa's home country of Kambal.[11]
The series is licensed for Northern America by Digital Media Rights and available to watch in the region on AsianCrush[12] and Hoopla.[13]
The series has been called "one of the high points of the genre of fantasy writing for YA and children in Japan". Its themes are relevant to contemporary global society, which also resulted in the series success abroad. Those themes include traditional YA themes such as family and friendship, but also more realistic ones such as romantic love, work, sex, gender, and war.[14] Other themes discussed by scholars include "loyalty to promises made, protection of a child in danger, the commitment to restore balance in the world", as well as "society and borders, respect for living creatures, destiny, politics and power, and the influence of religion".[15]
As Balsa, a female, is the spear wielder, and her romantic partner, Tanda, is a shaman, Yasuko Doi has noted this represents a reversal of "the typical sword hero and mage hero roles common in mid-twentieth-century western fantasy". Traditional gender roles are also challenged by themes such as Tanda's fondness of cooking and prince Chagum's story of "giving birth" to an otherworldly "egg". Similar observation has been made by Helen Kilpatrick who noted that Balsa's character and her relationships with others "casts light on the state of some of Japan's changing attitudes on gender, workforce and family roles".[16]
Helen Kilpatrick and Orie Muta also analyzed the series as a study and critique of "ideologies of a homogenous Japan" and "challenging Nihonjinron", showing "the importance of diversity and collaboration" between different ethnic groups and nation states.[17] Many characters, including Balsa herself, are effectively outsiders (foreigners) or ethnic minorities, and this relates to another serious and controversial theme of the novel - that of colonialism; in particular, Japanese relations with the Ainu people. The theme of deconstructing myths and legends and rediscovering real history, or witnessing how behind-the-scene power plays create false, propaganda-related narratives results in the series questioning "hegemonic power constructions". In the Japanese context, this can be seen as an "unconventional critique of many Japanese ideologies and national institutions", challenging the audience to consider their "dominant understandings of, for instance, Japan's emperor system". They attribute this partially to the author's background as an anthropologist.
The series has been described as popular, receiving an anime, a live action adaptation and numerous translations. The popularity of the Moribito series has resulted in a significant number of fan fiction works inspired by it. While initially marketed for younger audiences, the series has been described as popular among adults as well.