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(4.69/5)Interesting story
I’ve rarely fallen in love with a story as easily as I did with this. It is completely different from what I usually read so I was a bit skeptical at first but that vanished after the first few pages. It is a cute slice of life story with elements of mystery, comedy and maybe even horror? Definitely an interesting mix. From a language learning perspective it was really helpful that there is no furigana. It made looking up unknown words more difficult but it also made me realize just how often my eyes subconsciously look at the furigana and not at the Kanji in other books. The grammar and vocabulary was mostly easy to understand for me.
I'm not sure I've ever fallen in love with a manga quite as fast as this. I have certainly never read through any manga in Japanese quite this fast.
Before you read on: I think it's best to go into this manga blindly, without even reading the MyAnimeList synopsis! Read the first chapter and see if you like it. If you think "That was fun, but is there more to this than just a surreal comedy?", the answer is "yes!", and I think you should continue and discover it for yourself. But if you need more information - here's my review. Mostly spoiler-free, but building expectations.
Going into it, I expected a surreal comedy. Something absurd and funny, with adventure and wondrous moments, but little more. And while there are certainly chapters like that, there are two things that I didn't expect to be quite as prominent: Wholesomeness and darkness.
Neither of these things are obvious from the beginning. They feel more like spices hidden in the dish, but when they hit, they hit hard. Especially the darkness - there was more than one time where I got that creeping feeling of dread that makes you murmur "Oh no..." when you realize what is going on. But the manga never dwells on it, and soon you'll have fun moments and wholesome developments again.
That mix of elements, combined with interesting characters and a cute art style, makes this a really fun read with quite a few very emotional and memorable moments for me. It's easily the best thing I read in Japanese so far, and definitely one of my favourite mangas in any language. I hope you'll enjoy it too!
This was probably the easiest thing I've read in Japanese aside from dedicated learning materials, and even then it was probably easier than some of those. I got through the first two chapters on my e-reader without looking anything up and while the lookups do get a bit more frequent as it goes (and the final chapter introduces a lot of new vocab), it was great to get into flow and just enjoy the ride. But just because the verbiage was easy and everything is cute, doesn't mean the story issimple. The manga certainly looks unassuming at first glance, but it has a surprising hidden depth to it and true beauty as a work of art.
On the surface, it's about a girl and her weird cartoony friends having fun adventures, but there's always kind of a hint that something bigger is going on and as you dig into each of the characters you see the complexities each individual carries. I never had the chance to get too far into Adventure Time but it kind of feels like that but a bit less sardonic.
It's also a fine example of something where reading it in the original language reveals hidden depths that might not be apparent in a translated version, even though I really wish this was available to a wider audience. I won't give anything away, but there are a couple bits near the end where finally reading a particular word or phase in kanji reveals what it really means, after only seeing that particular word in Kana the whole time. It's one of those really great "aha" moments where you truly appreciate the nuance of another language.
This was phenominal and I would love to see an anime version (by the people who did D.I.Y, just imagine!) but I think even that would lose some of the nuance since character readings are part of certain reveals (though I guess they could show them on screen). Reading in Japanese can be exhausting at times, but this had me eagerly wanting to read the next chapter and learn just a little more about this world and its inhabitants.