Volumes: 2/2 (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Fantasy, Mythical Creatures
Summary: This is a collection of short stories about Ferry, a young girl who is a Mythical Beast Investigator in training. She travels with her protector, a beast named Kushuna, who looks like a rabbit gentleman in a top hat. They are tasked with keeping the peace between humans and magical beasts, and she also tries to educate the populace to understand these creatures instead of fearing them or trying to kill them.
Review: I really wanted to like this manga because it deals with mythical creatures, but unfortunately it has several glaring issues with it.
First of all, this manga has an annoying inconsistent art style. It has about three different art styles, one a more typical cute manga style, mostly for the girl. Then there is a jagged, dark, shadowy exaggerated style used for some of the creatures, including Kushuna. Lastly a more generic fantasy manga style for the various villagers and etc. in the manga. I would have greatly preferred they had picked one style and stuck with it. The different art styles clash terribly and it looks even worse when they’re all in the same story, and sometimes even on the same page.
Secondly, the other major thing that bothered me was the lack of chemistry between Ferry and Kushuna. They are supposed to be the main characters, and I think the writer was trying to shoot for like a sort of princess and her knight relationship, or maybe more like a priestess and a bodyguard sort of relationship. Instead Ferry comes across as kind of friendly but also impersonal to Kushuna, and meanwhile Kushuna considers her to be absolute perfection and his reason for living. To me, it came across as more creepy and stalker than a protector.
The Mythical Beasts stories overall were good, but only make up volume one and ⅓ of volume 2. The remainder of the volume 2 deals with Ferry and Kushuna and how they met. The Mythical Beasts stories cover a Wyvern, a very short story about a Basilisk egg, a Mermaid, the Water Horse Eachuisage (aka. Kelpie), and lastly the Cait Sith. I enjoyed these stories but wish they had been more of these and less of the focus on Ferry and Kushuna.
Recommended: TLDR; Overall there are still some good stories here of the mythical beasts stories, but I did feel like they were drowned out by the manga’s insistent focus on Ferry and Kushuna. I would really recommend something else like Ancient Magus’ Bride for more magic and more mythical creatures over this.
Age Rating: PG
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