Mar 1, 2018
As expected of Yoshitoki Oima, author of "A Silent Voice", her current work is a moving and emotional story that's quite unlike anything else. It's story full of tragedy but it isn't without its share of laughs and heartwarming moments. If you want to read a fantasy that doesn't feel like something you've already seen before, do give this manga a try!
The story follows the life of Fushi, an immortal that we don't fully understand yet. It tracks its growth and development, and the questions it asks itself the more it learns. What sort of actions will a being that imitates humans take when
...
it isn't being driven by the one things all humans share: survival?
Fumetsu no Anata e is a fascinating, sprawling journey with no clear end in sight. We follow Fushi as he grows from a speechless, barely sentient beast to an almost human boy, and his developments beyond that. He's guided gently along by some sort of phantom who claims to have created him for the sake of combating similar creatures to him: the knockers. But aside from his ongoing conflict with weird bulbous tree things, Fushi is free to explore. He finds companions that teach him and have him tag along as they live their lives. The more people he encounters, the more Fushi grows and changes. The world that Oima creates is wonderfully detailed, foreign, and well populated and she manages to convey a lot of information without needing much narration or exposition dumps. The reader discovers things slowly by watching events unfold. The art is beautiful, detailed, and light on screen tone which lends it a rustic feeling. At times it can feel cluttered, but it's not too distracting and does a lot to describe the world.
The variety of characters in the story is difficult to express. There's such a wide spectrum of characters with varying moralities, backgrounds in life, age, gender, and missions. There are old men and women, young children, girls, boys... No walk of life is excluded from crossing Fushi's path. There is no good and bad in this world. There are only people who want different things, and they clash and fight against the background of futility in a cruel and undeveloped world.
Fumetsu no Anata e is a story that dabbles in a little of everything. It doesn't have as much action as Full Metal Alchemist might, and it might not wax as philosophical as Oyasumi Punpun does, but it weaves in a lot of different elements into its story. It's the journey of an immortal, and his life interacting with and outliving everything.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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