邪神の弁当屋さん(1)

A cute fantasy slice-of-life about a supposedly evil goddess (of death and agriculture) who's punished for allegedly causing a war (though it seems it was humans fear of her more than her fault) and has to live out life as a bento seller doing good deeds to get back power. This feels a bit like a fantasy version of ロジカとラッカセイ in the sense that it's mostly the cartoony and humorous daily life of the character in a low-fantasy medieval kingdom, but as with ロジカとラッカセイ, it's implied that whatever the backstory of the gods and their world is was a lot darker than what's going on now.

The language is approachable but it had enough words and terms that I hadn't seen to be a good source of new vocab. It uses a particular use of 埋める in the sense of "to fill" which is a form I haven't really seen much of, I'm used to it meaning "to bury", so the sheer amount they repeat this particular usage was good for drilling home that secondary meaning. There are a lot of familial, religious, and food words I wasn't familiar with but they're all used frequently enough that they stick. I'd say it's a good "next thing" if you got on nicely with ロジカとラッカセイ.

I love the characters, story, and artwork. There's enough backstory doled out that I feel like we've gotten a good glimpse into what's up while leaving broader mysteries to unfold later. The goofy smiley-face, almost Playmobil deformed look the characters revert to when punctuating a joke is very charming and the more detailed versions of everyone are also well-done. It has almost the sort of flat, 2D look of a medieval tapestry and it's a bit different from the typical manga style which is refreshing. This will definitely be a good one to keep an eye on.