Previews and Spoilers - Second Moon Saga

Okay, so I wasn’t sure what I would be doing for today’s post, but with circumstances I have decided to spoil another of my stories. This is a spoiler for the Book of the Shadows, Second Moon Saga.

Many of my stories wind up taking on the feel of a harem. That’s not usually my intention. It is a byproduct of my general dislike of many male leads in anime. To write a fan-fiction, you must first be a fan. To be a writer you must like the subject you’re writing about. So, in the absence of good, likeable, or otherwise useable male characters to base my story around, I end up either limiting the number of male characters in my story, or creating more to use.

For example, I like Luffy and Zoro of One Piece. However, they are very specific sorts of characters whose utility in any story not very, very similar to their own is pretty much non-existent. You put them in a school setting and he’d be the troublemaker, even if not necessarily the bully. And quite obviously you can’t put them in a military or really any organized setting that doesn’t have Luffy at lead, or bluntly fight to gain that position.

Many other male characters tend to be very generic in their motivations and actions, making it difficult to have successive stories with male leads who all work the same. However, their post in their stories require you to pull in a lot of their background, supporting cast, and much more if you aren’t hoping to completely ignore their persona and story. How much, for instance, can you tell a story with Ichigo as a major character without it involving all of Soul Society and everything of his struggles against Aizen? At that point you’re simply retelling the story of Bleach. On the other hand you can use Aizen because he can be set against any hero. That hero does not need to be much like Ichigo himself at all.

I say all of that because when I started forming the Second Moon Saga that was the frame of mind I was in; how do I bring in more male characters to my story. Eventually… I gave up. Too bothersome to try to find useable male characters for many more roles than I already had planned.

The Second Moon Saga follows lead character Kouhei Lutelu. At the start of the story it has been about two months since he returned to his home, the island of Artemis. An island distanced from the rest of the world not only by the journey across its sea, but by its traditions and secrets, it is home to only a few hundred people.

Artemis has long held that it was taboo to leave the island for any reason or any length of time. Those who do are shunned and ostracized should they return to the island. Furthermore, the island has a tradition by which every generation four women are named as the spiritual heads of four shrines on the island. Known as the Four Moon Maidens, they are venerated by the island’s populous, held up like goddesses. Speaking poorly of them, or even not speaking to them with appropriate reverence, is said to be a crime subject to strict punishment. In the past some Moon Maidens were said to have even had people executed on the mere claim that they were secretly thinking bad things of them.

Kouhei was away from the island for several years, though he doesn’t remember any of it. That is because the entire time he was asleep, a victim of a severe form of narcolepsy. Beginning when he was around six he would suddenly and inexplicably fall asleep, sometimes even while in the middle of doing something, and stay asleep for a long time. It would sometimes strike him in groups, where over the course of a month he’d spend only a few days actually awake, only to not suffer the condition for another month or two.

When he was eight, he suffered a particularly severe event. When hours turned into days and days started to turn to weeks, his parents broke the island’s taboo; they left. They took Kouhei to the mainland to be treated by doctors there. He was hospitalized for several years. During that time his parents wound up dying in a car accident on their way to see him in the hospital one day, leaving the nanny his parents hired back before even leaving the island to continue looking after him, his aunt financially supporting Kouhei’s care.

Kouhei finally awakens after seven long years in that narcoleptic sleep. No cause is known for his narcolepsy. Strangely, though he showed only sleeping brain function, he awakes with much basic knowledge, as though he were a genius before this all began. However, that was not known to be the case.

Nevertheless, after he awakes, Kouhei is kept in the hospital for several more months as there is great concern that his narcolepsy would strike again, given they never found the trigger. He spends several months more on the mainland for rehab and education.

When he returns to the island Kouhei tries to reconnect with his friends, though it is difficult since as far as he is concerned it’s only been a year since he last saw them, but for them it's been 8 years. What’s more he has a hard time reconnecting with the Moon Maidens, whom were his friends when he was a kid, but now are mostly expected to shun him as an example of the island’s ideals.

The Second Moon Saga is retold in five parts. Each one focusses on Kouhei’s trying to return to a normal life on the island after finally returning, and the troubles he has due to the difference in times he’s missed, the isolation he is supposed to face as a violator of the island’s taboo, and the lengths he goes to so he might repair his friendship with the Moon Maidens. Each telling will feature a lengthy story arc involving one of the maidens. Each telling will also culminate on the Moon Viewing Festival near the end of summer, a sacred festival for the island that features a dance performed by the Four Moon Maidens.

However, as is learned in the fourth telling, each prior telling has been a time-loop. Time has been looping back on itself, each time small differences occurring leading to Kouhei having different encounters and interactions with the Moon Maidens.

At each telling there is a disaster at the Moon Viewing Festival; the discovery of murders of people close to Kouhei. The looping, as Kouhei concludes, is a means by which he is given another chance at reaching a “happy” ending where he doesn’t lose anyone.

Ultimately Kouhei discovers that his narcolepsy is tied not only to the island itself, but the time loops and the Moon Maiden tradition. Artemis is the center of a seal. The seal was created long ago by the inhabitants of the island in an effort to subdue an evil creature that was ravaging the world. A young girl was sacrificed to 

form the seal. However, she has lived on inside that seal, alongside the demon that was meant to be sealed.

For hundreds of years the young girl has been calling out to be let free of the seal and the torture she has suffered at the hands of the demon. However, Kouhei was the first person to be able to connect to her at all. In doing so, she has been draining his powers, which led to his narcoleptic state. She did so with such power when he was eight that he took so many years to recover. When he returns to the island and the disaster at the festival occurs the first time, Kouhei prays at the center shrine – the seals anchor – to be given the chance to go back and save everyone. The girl in the seal reverses time to allow Kouhei to try to save his friends. Unfortunately she cannot properly control the power so she cannot shield him from the effects of the time reversal, meaning he forgets most of what happened from the prior cycle. It isn’t until he is able to reawaken all his past loop memories in time that he ultimately is able to break the cycle and reach that best end.

There’s a lot of other stuff that goes on in this story, but I can’t spoil it all. I manage to mix a unique set of stories together to get this one here, including Heartcatch PreCure, Kobato, Shiki, Another, and Yu-gi-oh 5ds. I have done some formal writing – enough for two chapters – but it’s not very notable considering I started on this one around mid-2010. I got on a bunch of other tangents and haven’t worked on this one consistently, but I have worked out a lot of the broader parts from a planning perspective.

Alright, so that ends this week. Here is my Halloween music month pick for the week. Next weeks will be on Thursday since that is actually the big night. See you around.