After her no-good father abandons Nanami, she loses the little she had left. So, of course when a strange man at a park offers her a place to stay she takes him up on it—where else would she go? She doesn’t know it at the time, but her accepting his offer is the catalyst for the biggest adventure of her life.
Check out my review of another Shojo Beat manga, Kakuriyo (2) here!
Before we start the review…
Who wrote this manga?
This manga was written by Julietta Suzuki.
Info about the series
- This manga is complete in English, published in VIZ Media’s Shojo Beat imprint.
- This manga is complete in Japanese, published through Hakusensha’s Hana to Yume imprint.
You can check out Volume One of this series for yourself below.
What’s this series about?
After Nanami’s father runs away and her house is repossessed by the bank, she’s left with absolutely nothing. At the young age of 16 she now has nowhere to go, so she finds herself setting up at a nearby park. At this park she runs across a somewhat eccentric man being chased by a dog. After saving him, he expresses his gratitude, and offers her a place to stay. He gives her a kiss on the forehead, and sends her off to her new house. Where does he go? No one knows…
Upon arrival at her new residence, Nanami is shocked—it’s a shrine! Having no other options, she enters the shrine where she is quickly met with several supernatural beings: Tomoe, the fox familiar, and Onikiri and Kotetsu, the onibi-warashi. While Onikiri and Kotetsu quickly welcome the shocked Nanami as the new master of the shrine—surprising her even further—Tomoe is too angry at the previous owners abandonment to recognize her.
From here, Onikiri and Kotetsu explain what is expected of Nanami now that she’s the “god” of the shrine. While there’s a lot of upkeep that needs to be done, the most important task is having Tomoe recognize her as the master of the house, and convincing him to enter a contract with her. But Tomoe is incredibly upset at being abandoned by the previous master—the man who Nanami met at the park. Even if he wasn’t all that bothered, he has a rather terrible personality. Will Nanami really be able to convince him to work with her?
My thoughts on these volumes (spoilers!)
Kamisama Kiss has been one of my favourite anime series for a very long time, but I never read the manga—until now, that is! It’s been quite a while since I watched it, so while I remember the fondness I feel for the series, the exact sequence of events lay hazy in my mind. This makes the reading experience very exciting, as it almost feels like I’m experiencing the story for the first time.
I enjoyed volumes one and two almost equally, however, I do have to say that volume two caused me quite a bit of frustration. While volume one did a fantastic job of setting up the overall premise of the series, as well as foreshadowing some potential dangers that we would see later on, volume two did a fantastic job of solidifying Nanami and Tomoe’s relationship.
Why did volume two cause me such frustration? That female god! She absolutely stole the show, and not in a good way. She caused such a ruckus, and in the end, there were absolutely no consequences for her! She literally stole Nanami’s god mark, her place of residence, her familiar, and caused her familiar to become incredibly sick! Shouldn’t there be some rule somewhere that gods aren’t allowed to steal other god’s powers? No? I really hope we get to see a little bit of revenge against her in the future, as I was left very dissatisfied by how her arc ended.
This isn’t to say that I disliked volume two by any means—all of this strife worked to really bring Nanami and Tomoe together, and I loved seeing the two of them finally show that they care for one another. This was a stark difference from their relationship in volume one! I just hate seeing villainess characters get away with doing evil deeds. Nanami is well above the god in just about every aspect, so perhaps she’ll just let things go. If I were Nanami though, I would be plotting for the next time I saw her. Perhaps I would try to use that hammer on her…
My favourite parts of this volume (spoilers)
💛 The tengu character actually turning out to be not a bad guy!—He very well have been scared straight by Tomoe, but it was really touching to see him help Nanami out later on.
💚 The difference between Nanami and Tomoe’s first and second contract kisses—it really shows how much their relationship has improved in just one volume!
💙 Nanami being surprisingly brave—even in the spirit world, she has no problem slapping and walking away from Tomoe, the only one that would protect her. Honestly, I love her for that.
❤️ Onikiri and Kotetsu clearly loving Nanami—even when she couldn’t see them, they stuck by her! How sweet are they…
💙 The fish god!! Oh my goodness she is by far my favourite god character so far (after Nanami, of course.) Her whole scene with the human boy was the cutest, I wish we could see more of them…
💚 Nanami’s little cat hat that Tomoe made for her! It was actually really cute? I would have worn it without complaint, but I can understand why she didn’t want to—it really is a statement piece.
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