#okitsune

Story:

Genre: Japanese Mythology, M/F Spirit/Human romance, made for girls

Yukio is a human girl who was spirited away at a young age. She was picked up by the owner of a shop dealing with medicines and herbs and has lived in the spirit world since. She has no memories of the human world. Since her guardian is about to leave her, he sets up a miai with the great fox diety Shiratsuki so that she won’t be on her own. To her surprise, Shiratsuki accepts the proposal.

I found this volume really boring. I didn’t really understand the characters motivations or why things were happening. I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews for this series and there isn’t anything that really stuck out to me as bad, story-wise, so I’m willing to chalk it up to personal preference at the moment.

As far as Yukio’s and Shiratsuki’s romance is concerned, their relationship is kind of skeevy but it’s not the worst I’ve seen. He invades her privacy and personal space a few too many times, at one point transforming himself into another person in order to get her to honestly talk about her feelings for him. But, again, it wasn’t the most unhealthy romantic relationship I’ve seen in fiction and, when they’re both just talking to each other honestly, they’re almost cute. I couldn’t really get past the invasions of privacy enough to enjoy them as a couple but, as always, your mileage may vary.

I did like the prose though and I admit that I may have enjoyed this more if I was more into m/f romance. There were some scenes that I did enjoy and I do think that someone who likes shoujo would have a good time with this.

Character:

I didn’t care much for the characters here. They felt really inconsistent and I didn’t understand their motivations or why Yukio and Shiratsuki loved each other in the first place. Yukio’s narration was occasionally amusing but there are times when she feels too much like a self-insert character. Shiratsuki, as well, feels like he was designed primarily to be appealing to the reader to fantasize about rather than being a proper character. The only other female character other than Yukio is the villain whose name I can’t remember. She’s Shiratsuki’s little sister and wants to marry him, causing her to go to extremes to do so. So she’s pretty much every poorly-written female villain ever.

Recommended for:

People who enjoy romance series and shoujo manga would probably really enjoy this, especially people who like series with fox deities like Kamisama Hajimemashita.

I do have the second volume already so I will be reading that soon and I’m hoping that it’ll be on the fluffier side of things as this volume felt like it tried to hard to be plot-focused.