My review, as posted in Tintin Books

After a polite request was made that Hergé be sensitive in his portrayal of the Chinese, the artist went to great pains to accurately render the culture of China (although his portrayal of the Japanese may still have warranted some chastisement). This cultural investigation led the author to a personal ideology of freedom and cultural acceptance which would inform his later works.

China's leader ended up inviting Herge to a state visit due to his pleasure with the album, and the public were also captivated. "The Blue Lotus" was crucial in ushering in a Golden Age for Herge, and for "Tintin". Herge's perfected artistic style, and the open-minded attitudes of both his comics and their leading character, combined of course with the carefree globetrotting atmosphere, meant that the albums were fascinating to young and old alike. Already, Herge was writing far above the standard required for children's works. He was creating a legacy that would be alive and thriving eighty years later.

All in all, this is a beautiful album which clearly paves the way for Tintin's future adventures. It probably only deserves three-and-a-half stars, but I'm bumping it up to four due to the clear indication of what was to come. ( )

In 1931 Tintin and his dog Snowy embark from India to Shanghai in search of the international drug gang he’d last encountered in Egypt and an antidote to their dreadful Rajaijah juice, the dreadful hallucinogenic “poison of madness” But as soon as Tintin disembarks in China, the gang is after him, and he must evade and outsmart them as they try to eliminate him. This leads him to numerous false trails, close encounters, and jurisdictional hurdles and he raced back and forth between Shanghai, the International Settlement policed by Occidental nations, and Japanese occupied China. ( )

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This is really good.

Well, for starters, not only is the stereotyping that tarnished the previous books no longer present, but Hergé himself goes out of his way to make Tintin a stand-up kind of guy. There's one scene where Tintin saves a boy from a river, and the boy looks at him confused, saying he doesn't understand why a white European would save him. His father calls them "white devils", and his grandparents were killed by whites. He was told that all white people are wicked, so he thought just as much. Tintin then replies that "different people don't know enough about each other," and lists the things that white people still believed about Chinese people. This felt rather nice, like Hergé's atoning for his previous entries (even if it's a little rough of an apology, it was still the 30's.) But besides that, there's an actual story to come with it, and wow it's good!

One thing worth noting is the sudden degree of seriousness that appears. The story is based on real events between China and Japan in the early '30s, which lead to military incursions between each state, until finally, Japan withdraws its troops and resigns from the League of Nations. That's some pretty heavy stuff, and what's more is that it's not even the focal point of the story. No, the story is that an opium gang threatens to kill Tintin after his triflings in the previous book, so Tintin tries to stop them and their operations.

Where is this all coming from? I literally said that Tintin was a fun children's series for my reviews of the 3rd and 4th books. I still think that this entry a wonderful read for children, even if a child may not entirely understand such heavy concepts, the basic premise is still digestible: Evil gang hates Tintin, Tintin must stop evil gang. I love it, it's like a blend of kid-detective and historical-fiction, and I can't say that I've seen anything like it. This is the best in a series of ever-improving books, and I can't wait to see what's in store for me next. ( )

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