The story jumps here and there, and is somewhat difficult to follow or care about, not least because there are a ton of characters that are virtually indistinguishable from each other. It doesn't help that the lines are wavery and uncertain, and the Disney-like animal and human characters are kind of difficult to read. They also change form a lot. But that's normal for a lot of his early work.
The setting is a fairytale-like and, as Tezuka admits at the beginning, it is strongly influenced by classic tales from Western and Northern Europe. It is not a retelling or reimagining of a single one of them, but more of an amalgamation of beats and themes from different fairytales. But mixing many tales in one leads to an overcrowded, underdeveloped story in which nothing has real consequences. Though the same is true for a lot of his early manga, it is never as big as here. Major plot points are dropped like nothing all the time. This might be acceptable in a manga broken down in chapters, here it is presented as a single continuous story.
