Yona of the Dawn

Episode 4

Now that Yona and Hak have reached the capital city of the Wind Tribe, it looks as if they're going to get a bit of a rest. The Wind Tribe is thrilled to have their General Hak, the tribal leader, home again, and they're pretty sure that Yona – who takes the name of Rina for disguise purposes – is his unrequited love, resulting in much teasing and good-natured ribbing. Yona's slowly starting to relax and forms a bond with Hak's much younger adopted brother Tae-yon. But we know that this respite is only temporary: one of the first things Hak and Yona learn when they reach the village is that Elder Mun-deok, Hak's adoptive grandfather, has been called to the palace.

As you can probably guess, that's not a good thing. Luckily for us, Mun-deok's no idiot. The scene where he and the other tribal leaders (who do have current positions in the palace; remember Mun-deok gave his to Hak) meet with Soo-won and his “advisor,” Kye-Sook. It is very clear that Kye-Sook wears the metaphorical pants in this relationship, as most of the lines in the scene belong to him, with Soo-Won chiming in only when strictly necessary. It is Kye-Sook who makes it clear that a vote against Soo-Won as king is a spectacularly bad idea and Kye-Sook who has the contained rage and power to carry out those threats. Soo-Won still seems only three-quarters on board with the revolution that he himself started, and the look on his face when Mun-deok says that the only way he'll give his approval to Soo-Won's reign is if he marries Yona is very telling – a mixture of frustration and yearning. The anger radiating off of virtually everyone else in the room when Mun-deok refuses his approval and walks out of the conference is also very telling; clearly, they were banking on Mun-deok being some sort of doddering old man who would just go with it.

The repercussions are immediate as the Fire Clan takes matters into its own hands, motivated, I suspect, much more by their leader's lust for Yona's hand in marriage (AKA “the crown”) than any real upset at Mun-deok's refusal to play nice. The Wind Clan is soon in real danger, not by violence, but by that tried-and-true medieval tactic known as siege. Hak's decision at the end of the episode isn't really all that surprising – and it's certainly necessary to move the plot along expediently. What at first seems more of a surprise is that he thinks he can just leave Yona where she is. If you think about it, however, our disbelief as viewers stems more from our knowledge of the basic fantasy plot than Yona's previous behavior; in fact, given her apparently weak (pampered) constitution and lack of common sense, it would make sense that Hak would assume that she'd take the easy way out. That she's clearly not going to (thanks, preview!) is much more important to her character development than we might at first assume.

This episode really balances its action and calmer moments much better than its predecessors, mingling political machinations with physical danger and character development. It also gives us a scene-stealing performance by Nobuhiko Okamoto as Heang-dea, a goofy member of the Wind Clan, which perhaps shouldn't be surprising given his credentials. On the less good front, it also abruptly (on Crunchyroll) changes the spelling of Soo-won's name to Su-won, which is definitely distracting.

Yona of the Dawn is becoming what shoujo fantasy fans suspected it would be from the start: a really fascinating story with characters who grow with each episode. Now that it's moving at a better clip, it looks like it can only get better from here.

Rating: B+

Yona of the Dawn is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.com.

Rebecca Silverman teaches English at the university level and writes ANN's manga review column RTO.