Guardians of the Far Frontier Review
“To the soldiers I abandoned, and to their families and loved ones, I’m nothing but a coward and a murderer.” Ashath to Durant.
Ashath Fornerux is the sole survivor of a devastating attack on his unit in the borderlands. The young aristocrat, in disgrace, is assigned to be a ‘Guardian of the far frontier’ (or in other words, the back of beyond). Travelling into the wilds, he encounters the other Guardians on his way to their castle base: three women, Ishne, Lara and Shishiha, and the prickly, plain-speaking mage Durant. To Durant’s surprise, Ashath is genuinely impressed by the wildness of the desolate countryside – but when he tries to sleep, he suffers from terrible nightmares. And he doesn’t hide from the other Guardians that he is bitterly ashamed of what happened to his men. “If only… they had punished me severely… perhaps I could have had some peace of mind.”
On one of their patrols, the Guardians go to the rescue of a girl who’s been abducted by bandits – only to encounter a terrifying monstrous creature that the bandits set loose on them. Durant uses his magic to defeat the beast but not before Ashath has been injured. The rescue breaks the ice between them; Ashath tells Durant about his past and Durant cures his nightmares. Ashath also learns about the extraordinary secrets of the three female Guardians and how Durant’s mentor rescued him as a child from the gutters. He gradually relaxes around his new comrades… to the extent that he confesses one day too Durant, “I think I’ve fallen for you.” Durant brushes this off as an aristocratic whim – but then an invitation arrives for them from Lady Gitelle Royle, the girl they rescued, to a ball. Durant is horrified. “I can’t dance!” he tells Ashath who (with a little prompting from Ishne, Lara and Shishiha) offers to teach him!
After being tutored by Ashath, Durant and Ashath go to Gitelle’s ball – but as Ashath doesn’t conceal his true identity, word soon spreads among the aristocratic guests that he is the officer responsible for his men’s deaths. Gitelle is obviously attracted to Durant and they dance together – but when she mentions Ashath’s guilt, Durant defends Ashath. Later, the two men meet up on the balcony and Ashath tells Durant, “More than anything, I want to be where you are,” then kisses him.
But both men are concealing secrets from each other: Durant has never told Ashath the sad truth behind his banishment to the frontier. And only now can Ashath bring himself to reveal the true reason he was sent by his family on that disastrous mission. He’s living on borrowed time – and it may already be too late to save him.
Mangaka Lily Hoshino is probably best known for her distinctive character designs for Penguindrum and her Boys’ Love and fantasy shojo titles. After quite a long hiatus (starting a family) she’s back and Guardians of the Far Frontier is her first BL manga to be published in many years. She’s also about to pick up the pieces of Otome Yokai Zakuro, her Meiji era shojo fantasy manga (made into an anime). So (as a long-time fan) I was looking forward to reading this new title very much!
Guardians of the Far Frontier has many of Lily Hoshino’s trademarks: good-looking men and cute young women (there’s also a very cute mouse-like creature to look out for). The men in their early nineteenth century-inspired uniforms are especially dashing! The mangaka’s experience is evident in the way the story unfolds and the characters are introduced; everything flows in a readable and page-turning manner. Why am I highlighting this? Because several fantasy works by other less experienced mangaka I’ve read recently don’t yet have this flow or show this skill at knowing just how much information needs to be inserted at certain points and how much can be left out. Lily Hoshino’s art style is also a major plus-point for me (she recently did the original character designs for the anime series The Stories of Girls Who Couldn’t Be Magicians, Crunchyroll Autumn 2024) as it seems ideal for fantasy settings. Ashath and Durant make a sympathetic potential couple to root for, each weighed down by their own emotional baggage and scarred by their pasts. It shows that in the right creative hands, what could be merely standard fantasy fare can become fresh and involving.
The downside? The story wraps up quite swiftly and would have benefited from extra chapters. That said, everything is resolved in a satisfactory way; it would just have been nice to spend more time with all the Guardians. It’s a Boys’ Love but the Older Teen rating seems unnecessarily cautious.
Guardians of the Far Frontier is another addition to KUMA’s growing Boys’ Love list and KUMA (Denpa) are to be applauded for bringing such a wide range of titles and mangaka to the West. I imagine their best-selling titles are the definitely Mature-rated Harada ones such as YataMomo, Happy Crappy Life and The Song of Yoru and Asa alongside Wolf Pack by Billy Ballibaly (Fangs) and Qualia under the Snow by Kanna Kii (Seaside Stranger) – although there are plenty of other good BL titles to choose from. The other plus with Kuma’s manga editions is the very lovely dust jackets (the one for Guardians of the Far Frontier is matte), good-quality paper and the addition of a colour image inside. The translation for KUMA is by Mike Wolfe and the lettering is by Andrea Donohue; both make this a good reading experience. This is definitely a title to read if you are looking for an engaging fantasy spiced with a dash of Boys’ Love!
