Sora wa Akai Kawa no Hotori

Description

From Viz:
Yuri, a pretty Japanese girl, is ecstatic after passing her college entrance exam and having her first kiss with her childhood friend-turned-boyfriend. However, her luck soon changes. She starts to notice that water becomes agitated whenever she goes near it. One night, hands appear out of a puddle on the street and drag her into the water. Transported to an ancient village in the Middle East, she is then captured by armed troops and taken to the Queen's palace for a human sacrifice.

Contains the side story Orontes Renka published in the 28th volume, set in the same historic period.

Note: Won the Shogakukan Manga Award for Shoujo in 2001.

Type

Manga

Related Series

N/A

Associated Names

Anatolia Story

Dòng Sông Huyền Bí

Heaven Is Beside the Red River

Il Cielo Vicino al Fiume Rosso

Orontes Renka

Pulang Ilog

Red River

The Sky Is at the Banks of the Red River

The Sky Is Near the Red River

The Sky Is the Red River

Красная река (история Анатолии)

السماء على ضفة النهر الأحمر

ตะวันรักที่ปลายฟ้า

天(そら)は赤い河のほとり

天は赤い河のほとり

天是紅河岸

赤河戀影

赤色天使

闇河魅影

하늘은 붉은 강가

Groups Scanlating

Latest Release(s)

c.Shokan by Decadence 1 year ago

c.Rival by Decadence 2 years ago

v.28 c.Sidestory 1 by Friendship Scans 13 years ago

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Status in Country of Origin

28 Volumes (Complete)
16 Volumes (Bunkoban)

Completely Scanlated?

Yes

Anime Start/End Chapter

N/A

User Reviews

Anatolia Story by XileDragon

Sora wa Akai Kawa no Hotori by Kamelot

Forum

7 topics, 28 posts

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User Rating

Average: 8.6 / 10.0 (1402 votes)

Bayesian Average: 8.55 / 10.0

44%

18%

15%

Last Updated

May 2nd, 2025 5:49am PDT - 2 hours ago

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Genre

Adventure Drama Historical Mature Romance Shoujo Smut Supernatural
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Categories

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Category Recommendations

Return of the Female Knight (Novel)

Pharaoh's Concubine

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (Novel)

Lodoss Tousenki: Seiyaku no Houkan (Novel)

Feng Yu Jiu Tian (Novel)

Recommendations

Author(s)

Artist(s)

Year

Original Publisher

Shogakukan

Serialized In (magazine)

Sho-Comi (Shogakukan)

Licensed (in English)

Yes

English Publisher

Viz (28 Volumes - Complete | 3-in-1 Edition - Fall 2024)

Activity Stats (vs. other series)

Weekly Pos #454

(-235)

Monthly Pos #1191

(-28)

3 Month Pos #1613

(-35)

6 Month Pos #1701

(+277)

Year Pos #1490

(+310)

List Stats

On 1586 reading lists

On 1532 wish lists

On 3101 completed lists

On 218 unfinished lists

On 793 custom lists

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Forum Posts Click to view the forum

Chapter 42 - Magic? (spoilers)

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User Comments [ Order by time added ]

Sometimes great, sometimes not so great...

by smashinginred
17 years ago

Rating: N/A

There are many pluses to this story. An intelligent heroine, interesting characters, an exotic setting, lovely art and what was at first a great storyline. However, there are way too many problems for me to adore this manga as much as other people do. While, yes, it's wonderful to have a strong female lead who doesn't wait for a prince to save her, Yuri's character ends up being too improbable and "perfect," for lack of a better word.

She learns excellent swordfighting in a couple of months because she's done gymnastics before? She's able to lead armies into battle after two years (most of which was NOT spent at war) because...um, she's naturally gifted, I guess? Guys (especially princes) keep falling for her because she's so capable and perfect...? (And it seems like each one of them aaaalmost rapes her but she always gets rescued right before it happens.) In the end, she turns out to be a very one-dimensional character--righteous, loyal, not an evil thought in her head, kind, generous, blah blah blah... and that's really very boring.

But what probably annoys me the most (more than the modern day peace sign the Hittite girls made in 14TH CENTURY ANATOLIA, sheesh) is how the political plot gets incredibly stale after a few volumes. If you don't like reading about political machinations, this might not be the story for you, since they end up dominating the series after a few volumes.

From the story summary and the very first chapter, you know the villain is the Queen. She tries over and over again to seize power from Kail and to kill Yuri. It's NOT a secret! The main characters all know she's trying to kill them!

And what do they do? Foil her plots at the last minute, then almost kinda sorta try to prove she's behind the evil plans, then fail to convince other people of it (because the Queen denies all accusations and then walks out of the room in a temper and that, like, totally somehow proves she didn't do it), then they just sit around and do nothing while she comes up with more schemes to kill them!

Where are the attempts at bringing her down before she kills them all? Ugh! But I understand why the mangaka keeps the Queen going--it strings along the plot, even though the series could deeefinitely have been chopped in half without missing any new plot developments. I just eventually got tired of the continual "Ah hah! Yet another twisted scheme for me to set into motion!" plot pusher from the Queen. She also became incredibly one-dimensional, when every bit of her energy is set to making her own son king. 18 volumes later and there's STILL no character development.

That being said, I did cry during some really sad moments (you'll know them when you read 'em!), I did cheer when Yuri kicked ass (no matter how improbable it was) and I did enjoy Kail's character. Though I can't get myself to like the series (or even get past volume 18), it's worth trying out.

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Predictable and Repetitive.

by hxoxolalala
13 years ago

Rating: N/A

This manga was a little on the annoying side. I say this because Yuri always made stupid mistakes. When someone told her not to do something because it will cause problems, she did it anyway and some times got people killed. This manga was good i liked the fact that as the manga developed she became stronger and stronger and not so helpless. Another problem I had with this manga is how it became repetitive. Yes some mangas are repetitive and we can look past it, but this manga drew on for soooo long I found myself skimming the pages because i knew how they would end. All in all I did not favor this manga but i know some people will like the way the story develops. This wouldnt be my first choice to recomend but i would recomend it none the less. I say give it a shot but if you get bored half way through, I say skip to the end because the story wont change. You really wont miss much and you can put it together easily.

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by SinD
16 years ago

Rating: N/A

i only read chapter one and its a nicely drawn manga but the girl....she pisses me right off. her character is just so freaking dumb! she doesnt do what anyone tells her even if its to save her own life she just gets other people into trouble!! if anyone can tell me a good reason why i should keep reading tel me now. if her personality doesnt change much then i am through with it.

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There's something addicting about it...

by saphiric
16 years ago

Rating: N/A

I personally am not a fan of old style art-work manga (except Inuyasha, Doraemon, and a few other classics). So I was particularly hesitant in starting this. Once I finish the first 3 volumes though, I couldn't wait to get the next one. I am now almost finish with the series and my views on it still haven't changed.

The positives:

The story plot is highly developed and entertaining to a fault. The main plot (modern Japanese teen stuck in ancient Hittite empire) is interwoven with intricate side plots about the supporting characters and interesting historical details about the time period. This makes it refreshing because you're not just given a mere narrow scope on only 2 main characters and the problems they face throughout the storyline. Chie Shinohara does a wonderful job of creating a sweeping scope of the ancient world, not only of the Hittite empire, but also of Ancient Egypt and small kingdoms often overlooked in history texts. (This is great if you're interested in history, but even if you're not, the fiction Shinohara employs to make her storyline flows is very creative and enjoyable.)

The negatives:

The cliche, soap-opera moments and redudant battle plots did turn me off at times.
It also seems that many people bash about the whole mary-sue heroine thing, but understand that this is a fantasy/historical fiction manga. If you're looking for a story with a more realistic, relatable main character, then you should look in the slice-of-life category (hana yori dango and the likes).

Despite its flaws, this manga is a must-read.

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Lo solía amar

by Shimma
4 years ago

Rating: 9.0 / 10.0

I remember hay I use to love this as a teenager. Fantasy, great characters, strong female lead, time travel to ancient times, romance. But boy, this does not age well. Too rapey. Spoiler; And I always hate that we dont know what happend to her family.

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Story is passable, but all the rest is bad

by AndelMartina
5 years ago

Rating: 3.0 / 10.0

This manga could have been good, if it didn't have so many bad points. The main ones include:

repeated attempted rape by several men
actual rape
the MC, despite being from the modern age and knowing that rape is not ok, never does anything about it. She never properly fights back or tries to prevent it
whiny and weak MC; the "strong female character" tag is a laugh, she's oh so weak one minute, then suddenly she's courageous and strong and the next second she's weak again and needs to be rescued
stupid MC - a lot of the bad stuff that happens to the MC wouldn't have happened if she just had a single brain cell her head and listened to the people around her; she puts herself in those bad situations herself
"goddess" MC - even before being named a goddess, people (even those who don't know who she is) seem unnaturally attracted to her, to the point where it became ridiculous. The whole nation celebrates her, everyone who meets her falls in love with her or worships her for no reason.
never ending story - The story is the only good thing about this manga, but it got very repetitive and boring quickly. A guy sees MC, kidnaps her, attempts to rape her, she is rescued, queen schemes, MC attempts to thwart the scheme, is kidnapped again and so on... The political power struggle was interesting at the beginning, but after volume 10 or so it got boring. The story was stretched unnecessarily.
Plot holes - I can't comment much without spoiling, but the ending just didn't make sense. The author established the rules of things at the beginning, then broke her own rules at the end... Tragic.

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Why haven't I read this before????

by mythcom
13 years ago

Rating: 10.0 / 10.0

It was incredible from the start I loved it and I loved everything about it
Don't be disappointed by the art you will get used to it after the second chapter
I didn't get bored for a second

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GOOOODD!!!

by jnatsumi
13 years ago

Rating: 10.0 / 10.0

Spoilers ahead!!

At first I was...sort of skeptical about reading this since I am very particular about what manga I read based on (for the most part) the part of the manga. Just based on the art itself, I could already tell that this is an old manga (older than what i usually go for, lol). But I know I shouldn't discriminate based on that--it's just that I have such a hard time reading a manga if the art is sucky. The style is quite apparent. However, based on very good reviews and recommendation (searched for recommendation manga similar to "Shirayuki" manga), I started reading it. It's...very long. So be warned. Haha. I started reading this while I was supposed to be studying for midterm and got absolutely sucked into it that I couldn't stop. I lost sleep reading this. Tis' absurd. Anyway, as I read it, the art is actually very, very well done. It's in a different style than I am used to. This kind of art is so much more detailed and proportional that I know it must have taken considerable more effort and skill to draw it. It's very stylized--however you wanna take that comment.
The story is quite well done. There's so many twists and turns that I couldn't get tired of it. Things never really turned out the way you want it to. Though,...I do agree to some extent that the evil queen plot may be a bit repetitive. Personally, i don't really mind that much .Yeah, sure it's cliche, but I'm more into the romance and military advances than the queen's attempts to kill Yuri.

People you don't want to die, died. It's kind of sad, but I guess that's what makes the manga sort of realistic in that it doesn't discriminate characters. Umm... I was a bit put out for a while that the main character (Yuri) seems to be relying too much on the Prince (Kail), but then later on in the manga, she started to develop reason and good judgement. She matured a lot as the story goes on--not as fast as I would have liked. (Also it seemed that sometimes everything just sort of...fall in to the lap without her doing anything significantly brilliant). But she did, and that's why I classified this as a coming of age manga among many.

-First love.
-First time (sex)
-playboy turned one-woman-man
-coming of age = growing up
-leadership (as a prince, princess, queen, king, and the "Istar" which is a religious/ideological figure--the Goddess of Love n War)
-royal family vs. commoner
-feuds between countries and between the peoplr of the royal family (the rights to the throne)
-love triangle (between the king, the commander of Egypt, and the girl-Istar)
-historical biography (middle east => Egypt, Anatolia, Babylonian, etc. = situate historical figures like Pharaoh Ramses of Egypt in a different and more intimate context).
-hot guys who are half naked most of the time. and....of course "hot" girls who usually wear revealing clothes --not for prudes!! (lol). Like, seriously, even though this manga doesn't have any explicit sex scenes, you'd be surprised as I was how many nipples were shown. I just keep wondering how they shave their legs (tmi?).
-military (campaigns, war, training, fistfights, sword fights, etc.)
-lots of deaths

Highly recommended.

... Last updated 13 years ago

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addictive like a drug

by christine357123
17 years ago

Rating: 10.0 / 10.0

this manga is soooo addictive it is like honestly like a drug
not that you know ive consumed it
but to evryone out there, it is one of the must reads
im literally dieing to know what happens in vol. 21-25.
they seem to be missing but the last three volumes arent but its really a manga to die for.
fantastic plot characters drawings i love the hint of history in it as well.
THE BEST.=)
and also you get really attached to the characters.

... Last updated 17 years ago

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Smutty one...

by Helaine
16 years ago

Rating: 8.0 / 10.0

Good one for shoujo lovers and there are many soft porn scenes in this comic too.... To me the best thing is that some part of this manga is from reality. You know, "based on true story" will always attract customers although 70% of it is actually fiction. XD

But it's good, really. Worth reading for shoujo lovers <3

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