In a hidden tiny village lived some sweet little mushroom fairys.
Singing, dancing, collecting, and eating little nutricious berries.
Living happily in the depths of a dark, mysterious forest.
As you stumble across them, you might feel the chorus.
.
Yet not every mushroom is so friendly; some might be poisonous!
Besides the fireflies, at night, you may see one so luminous.
Living happily in the depths of a dark, mysterious forest.
Do you feel the pain or the feeling of your body being the sorest?
๐~๐~๐~๐
~๐ Story:
In the deep deep forest a little mushroom fairy, Tamago, lived happily ever after with her family and friends. Until one day the poisonous mushroom, Tsukiyotake, was captured by her folk. In just a blink of an eye, her whole village was wiped out... leaving her alone. Trailing the mass murderer, who did this all, she learns that she might not be the good edible mushroom, she thought she is?
(Small warning on this point, like you can see...this series deals with topics like suicide and genocide, so please take care of yourself and do not read it if you have any problems with these topics)
From the 10 chapters we got by now, the story can easily be divided into "mini" arcs and i would devide them like this (spoiler free):
[ 1/2 - Prologue ๐๐ผ๐ 3/4/5 - First village ๐๐ผ๐ 6/7 - Small break ๐๐ผ๐ 8/9/10 - First encounter/Second Village ]
In this review i will only briefly touch upon the Prologue, since it just covered the ground for the world youre about to explore!
~๐ Characters:
โง Tamago:
She is a little optimistic girl, wearing a dress and a big ribbon, she might be a cover girl for a fantasy story! Her red/white scheme isnt seen often in the manga, as it is in black/white. Her naive and friendly nature is, as a child (coded) character, understandable, she is our protagonist and helps us to understand the world, following her journey... Yet you cant forget the grudge she holds against her partner for the genocide of her village...
โง Tsukiyotake:
He is the first poisinous mushroom we meet in the story, he is an adult (coded) character, he has a more brownish (?) color scheme and he has a drastically different clothing style from our protagonist. Wearing a long coat, under which he hides weaponory, and a hat. In the early chapters, it becomes clear that he has skills in assassination and survival. He has a unique side effect of glowing in the dark, as it is the mushrooms property. He is actively searching for something, before he can rest in peace. Yet he teams up with Tamago due to a certain event...
โง Fly
An interestingly curious fly, which accompanies Tamago (no dialogue is needed).
โงDokusasako (Sasako)
#TBA
โงKaentake
#TBA
*The reason i wrote "coded" is because the difference between the ages of characters isnt very clear, the height is very similar and besides the fact they call them out as such i cant confirm theyre age.
~๐ Art:
Only one cover was revealed for now and i like it, the contrast between the red tones of the fly agaric, in the centre, and the flat turquoise background, it feels very simple, but it works efficiently to capture the main theme of this manga.
The first thing which i noticed is that the paneling is done in a good way. The story reads really nicely and even in action heavy moments it is easily understandable who is doing what. Some of the panels have a unique border nd i really appreachiate it as it fits in the storybook theme. Noboru Segawa really uses all the space they have, the backgrounds are often used, not only for generic white/textures, but you often spot some trees or other background elements of the forest, It never feels to crowded and always is balanced by some gradience/ outline.
~๐ My two cents:
Just to start of, yes i love it so far... it might be biased to say it as
a) i love mushrooms as a unique lifeform and
b) good dark fantasy stories
Ive spottet this manga while i was searching for some new reads from this year, sadly no official translation is avaible as of this point in time (only a certain fan-translation is avaible on some parts of the web *caugh*)
~๐ Should you read?
Short answer... Yes! At least give it a try, as a dark fantasy it does great work setting up a intriguing world, questions for the reader are set up in a suddle way and most of them arent resolved as this manga is still ongoing...
... BUT! you might not enjoy this (or dont want to read it) due to it darker themes and the "mushroom gore" you will see, as some characters are twisted in a physical and psychological way...
๐ But remember, my taste is mine and yours is yours! With that... Peace out!
