Just as Hotaru Morino is spending her time on a school trip, with her friends in toe, life seems perfect.Â
A blackout... as she comes back to her senses, she realizes that she is in her room. On the windowsill sits a mysterious figure, clothed in a black suit, as he declares: "Hotaru Morino... you are dead" With only 49 days left to save her soul from corrupting into a ghost, she must get over 3 attachements, which hold her in this world.
Everything is NOT fine...
🌸~🌸~🌸~🌸
~🌸 Story:
As you can in the synopsis, it is a rather interesting concept. Some elemets would need futher explaination, i will not go into spoiler territory (only the early part of volume 1/Chapters 1&2) but outline the ground of the worldbuilding:
‧ We can devide the world into the "real world" - "ghost world" (the plain our characters are, where normal humans cant see them, as they have no physical body) - "Afterlife"
‧ The soul has 49 days to get rid of the attachements, which prevent them from passing on
→ if they cant do this they turn into a ghost and remain in the "ghost world" where they would slowly turn into phantoms/mosters, which are a threat to the souls ( as they feed on them)
These are the rules layed down to you, the reader, yet many questions remain, but they are resolved with the flow of the story. Who are these "soul-guides" and where do they come from? What is "Kuro's" motivation to keep her alive and steady to the end? Well you gotta read it to find it out.
As this is my first Manga, which was written by Inujun, i am pretty suprised of the writing, since for a more underground Manga it has great story structure. The writing itself was easy to follow and it didnt sidelined many plots, only focusing on Hotaru Morino and some chapters to the soul-guide "Kuro" to tie them up in the middle of the story. On the way we learn the stories of some side characters, which are serving to bring the story futher and build emotional tension.
~🌸 Characters:
‧ Hotaru Morino
She is the Main Character or this Manga and is a second year high school student. She is a more naive friendly girl, which has a good heart. She has a crush on her classmate Ren Otaka and has good ties with her friends and family. As she died she wanderes around and causes some problems, which help the worldbuilding to widen and introduce aspects/rules in a rather organic way. As she travels around with her soul-guide and fullfills his demands .
‧ "Kuro" the soul-guide
This is the "grim reaper" who guides our protagonist through her 49 days, to send her off to the afterlife. He is introduced as a cold and reckless *caugh* young looking man. As a supernatural entity, we do not know not much besides his job. As we go on we learn another sides of his and some information about him.
‧ Ren Otaka
The sport loving, romance interest for our main protagonist Hotaru Morino. He also expresses romatic feelings towards her...
‧ Shiori Yamamoto
She is the 3rd in the friendgroup and she is very close to our main protagonist, she gets some time to shine in volume 2
~🌸 Art:
The artstyle of this series is suprisingly good, Saho Tanamachi encaptures the thematic greatly in the covers ( which we only have 2 of) which just look phenominal, although you can see that the rendering on the 2nd cover was a great improvement over the first one.
The Style in the story is consistant and has clean linework with enough shading in some scenes, but it most of the time the characters are minimaly shadered and falls in line with most manga created in this timeframe. Especially the full page artworks are worth looking at, since they have rather simple shapes and are easy to read. The ratio of static backgrounds and detailed backgrounds is pretty balanced, as most close up shots use no backgrounds (only some texture at most) which helps to read the movement/actions of characters. Coloring work was only done in the beginning of the 1st chapter, which includes the 1 page prolouge and a spread.
~🌸 My two cents:
Ive read this series in the german language, as it was published late 2022/early 2023 from the publishing house "Hayabusa" so it might be that (if there will be) a english translation, it might not be 100% the same, as you could expect with any translation. I personally loved the dynamic between the 2 main characters, as the story progressed theyre chemesty build up more and more (i wont say more as psst! But *mwah* i like it)
~🌸 Should you read?
With a lengh of only 2 volumes, you can binge read it in a couple of hours or even less. Well it is to note that this work is touching upon waters of death and the afterlife, aswell as some elements of grief and love (romantic & platonic). The romance is a big aspect and the Manga will try to rip your heart open and let your emotions run wild. Yes the ending was bitter-sweet and gives a more or less sufficient ending to a story like this... so i come to the verdict...
For a average manga reader this might be skip, yet it would be a refreshing story for any school romance lover. The emotional under you might drop a tear or two from the development between the MC and theyre bonds they build. At least give this manga a try (2-3 chapters and you know if its something for you.
🌸 Have a good day and peace out!
