First things first.........Visitors are supposed to come in through the front door!!
For a certain reason, a handsome, young calligrapher by the name of Seishuu Handa uproots himself and moves to an island on the westernmost edge of Japan. "Sensei," as he comes to be known, is a city boy through and through, and has never experienced rural life until now. And by the looks of it, he has much to learn! Luckily(?), he has a willing teacher in Naru, the energetic expert islander, to help show him th...
Good vibes, tricky dialect
I watched the live action last year, and even though it was cute, I didn’t find it mind blowing. Actually, I had the feeling that that the manga was way funnier and more cozy. That’s why I decided to try reading the first volume, even though I’m still somewhere in between N4 and N3.
The story itself is simple: a young and quite arrogant calligrapher arrives to a remote island in Nagasaki, where he expects to live a quiet life and have time to practice and improve his shodo skills. There, he finds himself surrounded by the different villagers and their different ways of life, especially those of Naru, an overly extroverted and hyperactive 6-year-old girl and her friends, who are all using sensei’s home as their base. The vibes are similar to Yotsubato! because of Naru and how her way of seeing life contrasts with that of the adults surrounding her. So far the manga is nice and funny, and I love the sensei’s reactions.
About the language itself, I found it to be similar to later volumes of Flying Witch. I found myself searching for at least a word or two in almost every page because of my lack of vocabulary. The grammar itself was tricky at some points, but nothing really troublesome. Some villagers speak with an accent but it’s easily understandable if you’ve been exposed to different dialects in media (TV shows, dramas and/or anime), but sometimes I just couldn’t get the joke (this happened a few times only). Anyway, I find this manga interesting enough for me to read it in small batches and stick to it, because the good vibes are just what I need right now.