Totsukuni no Shoujo
The Girl From the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún

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Honestly this manga is a work of art.
The art is great, the characters are great, the story / plot is outstanding.
Fantastic worldbuilding, also really great world in general. Very immersive, the characters and world just feel alive. It's probably a bit hit or miss, and i can imagine that it might not appeal to everybody, but it certainly hit me. I can't really think of more to say, it's just great in general with certain very strong points.

TL;DR: This manga achieves what it set out to do splendidly, it's generally strong in basically every aspect, and so deserves at least a 9.

With that said, it ... gets a 10/10 due to bias.

Good and evil. Light and darkness. Soul and body.

These are the themes, readers are exposed to most of the time in this manga. And it takes its time to fully absorb us into the world and into the two main contrasting characters.

I was first skeptical. It may burn out its magic halfway through. It may fall into slice of life stereotype.
No.
It showed that it has a lot to offer, whether a rich story and lore, or interesting characters, which can’t really be categorized as villains or heroes. Motives of all characters feel real.

Yet it was chapter 41 that started overall decline of the story. Why ... do we suddenly need some artificial way of learning about the world? Why to use such a simple plot device, like “there is a secret room which contains solutions to all mysteries” (metaphorically speaking).

Reading further and further, we start to feel like it is not the same story, that something went wrong. And it continues so until the last chapter, which, I dare to say, completely doesn’t fit to the overall storytelling. Not that it is wrong, but it just doesn’t fit with the vibes author tried to induce us at first.

So we have great and unfinished potential here.
The question is:
Is it still worth reading?

Depends on what you want from this manga.
If you are looking for unique experience, dark rural atmosphere and a world with its own philosophy, you may try it.
However, if you want completed story with solid ending and conclusion of the prophecies introduced in the first half, look somewhere else.

Pros:
+ atmosphere
+ world building
+ provides unique experience

Cons:
- unsatisfying ending
- unresolved mysteries
- more lore needed to be uncovered

Double-edged:
+/- slow pace

6/10 (OK)

**there are spoilers, but they are tagged and very avoidable**
Before I explain my issues with the manga, I want to say that I appreciated the unique artstyle and somewhat unique setting. The aesthetic of the manga is certainly novel. However, this is where my praises end. I did not enjoy reading this manga.


For one, this manga suffers from incredibly poor pacing. Not only does it take forever for plot beats to happen, but the manga is extremely repetitive. Parts of the story are shown, narrated, and then reflected on by the characters. This causes the point of some scenes to be explained three times, which ... makes everything an absolute slog to read.


Secondly, I did not find this manga particularly interesting. Its sentiments of family aren’t particularly new, and they’ve been done to death before. And even then, the themes, despite being so common, aren’t particularly well written in this manga. Also, I found its heavy themes of spiritualism rather annoying. The manga tries to tackle many “complex” and “interesting” themes, but it has so little to say that I already forgot. Did you know murder is hard, and bad people usually have been shaped by outside factors? Woahw! Never could’ve guesse!d!!! Honestly, this manga could be a fine kids show if they cut back on all the spiritualism…


Additionally, the story is profoundly dull. This paragraph will briefly mention specific events, so avoid this paragraph if you care about spoilers. I have two main moments I want to complain about. The first is when the King's close advisor tries to murder the King. The King doesn’t die, and I have to wonder how this even happened. If you’re trying to kill a monarch, you don’t stop at a shallow knife wound. You make sure he is buried and dead in the ground. Due to this, I could not suspend my disbelief for this part of the story. It felt too stupid. Secondly, the main tension in the end of the story involves the two protagonists bouncing around one “soul” in an attempt to save each other. I believe it’s meant to be tear-jerking, however, I found the entire routine dry and tedious.The plot twists are tired and obvious, the biggest twist being how long they took to come to fruition. All in all, there were no plot points that made me feel anything more than this itching apathy.


With all that said, the spoiler section is now over. I can’t find anything much in this manga to like. I did not enjoy this manga. I understand that it’s somewhat novel and has some interesting concepts, but this manga is incredibly mediocre. There’s so much better out there.