64 pages • 2 hours read
Brandon SandersonYumi and the Nightmare Painter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Series Context: The Cosmere and Sanderson’s “Secret Projects”
The Cosmere is an interconnected universe created by Brandon Sanderson. It is the setting for most of his fantasy and science fiction, including the Mistborn, Skyward, and Stormlight Archive series and the novels Elantris (2005) and Warbreaker (2009). Most of these works feature standalone plots and can be read without any knowledge of how the Cosmere works; however, there is an overlap between some characters and concepts in many of these books. Hoid, the narrator of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, is one such character. He makes an appearance in most of the Cosmere books and is often depicted as a storyteller, especially in the Stormlight Archive series. His role as the narrator of this book fits into this pattern.
While the magic systems of each world within the Cosmere differ, most have similar fundamental concepts. One of these is the idea of three realms: the physical realm (a planetary system), the cognitive realm (the world of thought and imagination), and the spiritual realm (the world of concepts or ideas in which everything exists as essence). The Cosmere universe is composed of matter, energy, and Investiture, with Investiture acting as a form of spiritual energy. Most of the magic systems work by accessing Investiture, although their specific rules and features vary.
In 2022, Sanderson started a Kickstarter campaign to fund the publishing of four books that he wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic. This campaign set the record for the most money ever raised on Kickstarter: over $41 million. These four books are all standalone novels, but they are grouped together as Sanderson’s “Secret Projects.” Tress of the Emerald Sea (2023) is one of the four. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is the third of these releases, and Sanderson declares in the book’s postscript that it is his personal favorite.
Cultural Context: Japanese and Korean Culture and Media
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is set in worlds that are inspired by Japan and Korea as well as by several contemporary pieces of Japanese media, combining these with fantasy concepts. In the novel’s postscript, Sanderson says that he based Yumi’s world on historical Korea while Painter’s urban setting of Kilahito draws on the neon advertisement-lit streets of Tokyo. The presence of ghostly creatures haunting the city can be compared to mythological Japanese yūrei, which are believed to be the ghosts of deceased people—usually women—that remain behind in the human world due to unfinished business or unresolved emotions. These details are woven into the fantastical narrative, using recognizable ideas to build the characters’ worlds while celebrating these traditions.
In the novel’s postscript, Sanderson also mentions that he was inspired by certain Japanese media. Yumi’s name and some of her character traits come from the character Yuna, a character in the video game Final Fantasy X, as well as the manga artist Yumi Hotta, the creator of Hikaru no Go. This manga series is about a young man who finds that his grandfather’s Go board is possessed; a ghost teaches him how to play Go. This storyline inspired Sanderson, too, and he uses a similar plot in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, with Painter and Yumi teaching each other their art. Finally, Sanderson also says that the animated movie Your Name was an inspiration. In it, two characters (one of whom lives in Tokyo and the other in a rural area where she performs ritual tasks) begin to swap bodies and fall in love.
Sanderson drew on a wide array of media, myth, and cultural traditions to create Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. He reinterprets and reimagines concepts and storylines and plays with the tropes he uses.
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