Blissful Land V1.

 

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Blissful Land volume one is written by Ichimon Izumi and published by Kodansha Comics (2018). From what I can find, Izumi is a new manga artist and author with only two title (Blissful Land volumes one and two) credits. Little is known about the author. 

I was given the opportunity to read a digital copy of Blissful Land volume one (thank you Kodansha Comics! Thank you NetGalley!). The opinions below are my own.

Blissful Land takes place in 18^th century Tibet when Khang Zhipa, a thirteen-year-old doctor in training, arrives home to discover the bride his parents have arranged for him to marry. While the wedding is still a few months away, his bride—Moshi Rati—begins living with him and his family. She is not from their village and has learned their language but is still learning their local culture. The rest of the volume revolves around them getting to know each other, their interests, personalities, and skills. Khang Zhipa loves medicinal herbs and is known to space out a bit while he works, but he is compassionate towards others and wants to do everything he can to help them, despite his own fear of injury and blood. Rati, on the other hand, likes to weave and is excited to start dying fibers to use, as well as learning to cook from Khang Zhipa’s mother. 

This is a historical, romantic slice-of-life, so there doesn’t seem to be much conflict just yet, but volume one often is used to introduce the characters and settings, so this is not surprising. The characters are cute together and I love the family dynamic with Khang, Rati, Khang’s parents, and his little sister Pema. As I said, there doesn’t seem to be much conflict just yet but with most romances, there is some kind of rival or someone’s attention and affections, so I’m assuming something like that will come up later on. 

The art style is great. There’s so much detail in everything from the character’s designs to the scenery. I’m not sure what other manga the facial designs remind me of, but I like it. Everyone is similar enough that you can tell they’re related while also having enough variety that it’s easy to tell everyone apart. The scenery does sometimes look like the art is a little finer, like it’s more of a pencil sketch than inked in images, but I kind of like it. It gives the landscape a softer, more wistful appearance.

I will say Khang has a few facial expressions that I found confusing at first. In my experience, wide eyes with small dots indicates surprise or fear, however it seems to be a fairly common expression for him without any reason for him to be surprised or afraid. It may just be because I’m used to shounen where that is common, but I might be mistaken.

Knowing so little about Tibet’s history and culture, it was great to read something that seems to depict it with such care. I am so thankful for getting the opportunity to read this volume (thank you again NetGalley and Kodansha Comics) and I look forward to seeing what else Ichimon Izumi will create.

If you get a chance to check out this manga, I highly recommend it.

I am an affiliate with Z Publishing House. If you're interested in reading the works of emerging writers, you can find the collected anthologies here:  http://www.zpublishinghouse.com?rfsn=1831564.e6264

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I have also recently joined NetGalley which is a site for book reviewers. I am not paid in any way to read or review the works provided through NetGalley. Any opinions expressed are my own.