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It borrows quite a bit in the beginning from the structural frame of Stephe King's "It". That can be a bit distracting if you're familiar with that story. But, by the end of the first volume Urasawa starts pulling. Besides as a device to advance the plot - Urasawa uses the time jumps to the decreasing conviviality of modern life. There are many examples but one that jumped out at me - child care is expensive so Kenji works at the convenience store with the baby - the franchise manager threatens to break the contract. What better sign that we are all trapped in a global capitalist doomsday cult.

I'm digging it, I hope it stays this hot!

The relationship between Guenever and Lancelot carries the book ... loftily. With the exception of perhaps Elaine, most of the other characters feel half-realized. Arthur lacks any dynamism or variation. But these vagaries can be forgiven as the main story is breathtaking. The book lacks the innocent charms of the first book, contains some of the ill-considered dalliances of the second, but by the end it achieves something of a higher missing from all that preceded it.

Second book of The Once and Future King. It almost made me give up on the whole endeavor, glad I didn't since the third book is a home run. It's just tedious and not funny. The pacing is strange, the characterizations uncompelling, and the tone attempts to be varied but comes across as incoherent.

A lot of contemporary fantasy especially of the cinematic variety owes a huge debt to this one it seems to me. Maybe perhaps because it's White's first effort on the Arthurian thing, there's a simple delight to the beautiful language presented here. Clearly intended for younger audiences, but impossible for older readers to not enjoy with equal measure.

Had me reeling and wanting to re-read a lot of American literature.