I'm feeling devastated.

I remember you said earlier you might just quit if this gets cancelled. :'( I was probably more worried about this for your sake than for the story itself.

I always appreciate every translator; they let me experience endless excellent fiction for free, and having done similar work for technical texts, I'm very directly aware of the effort that goes into it. Even then, you have been a favourite of mine for a long time. You approach everything you work on with such love and care, really going above and beyond. Plus, you have fantastic taste in which series you pick. You are the best of the best.

Since I can't exactly offer to buy you a beer and have a good bitching session about manga getting axed, this seemed like a good opportunity to say how grateful I am for all your time and energy spent here.

FUCK

This and Aizawa-san are the two running series I am wholeheartedly invested in. I know I'm only on record here as being very critical of it, but I wouldn't have written an essay if I didn't care. Based on the pattern, I was expecting volume 3 to release soon with chapter 15, and I was preparing my next post on the new material, but now I guess I'll just wait until it ends. The story hasn't even started yet - it cannot be closed - but I do wonder if the author will make an effort to finish it in a way that is at least somewhat reasonable for those who don't want to follow online.

I had enough issues with this version that I'm not surprised about the news; in fact, I was terrified that this will happen since early volume 2, but I hate it. Absolutely hate it. We didn't even manage to get to the point where the actual plot begins. It also retroactively makes me more annoyed at some of the choices: we wasted page time on things that slowed down the progress, but at least they were also bad on their own (lack of) merits, so there was no benefit.

On the plus side, it finally made me register on fanbox. The highest tier is not even three euros a month. I know nothing about the author's background, but I sincerely hope the loss of the publication won't affect them severely and they will find enough support to be able to continue their work.

I did wonder if any of my problems have to do with some kind of editorial interference, but I have zero knowledge of the industry or the publishing process; I cannot begin to guess how likely it is. It also goes both ways: if they are not responsible for the changes, and if it was picked up thanks to the twitter version's quality, even if all changes are coming from the author, I'd perhaps except somebody to go 'hang on, this isn't what we signed up for'.

Incidentally, for my first wall of text I treated both works as monolithic, but it's notable that the humour I object to so much is completely absent in volume one, and starts up going strong in volume two. V1 has other tonal problems, issues with characterisation, and writing choices I consider inferior to the TV, but this change between the volumes is very noticeable, now that I think about it in those terms. No idea what it means, though.

I briefly mentioned it, but I do think making Sara the main viewpoint here makes a lot of sense on paper, I just think it wasn't executed well. I do absolutely see a tonal shift coming as the plot ramps up - there is foreshadowing for it already. However, the tone is not separate from other elements; it affects how we understand the characters and the story. Simply changing it to be more serious, without taking time to adjust the other aspects, is not going to be successful. Just as an example, if there are action scenes in the future where Natalia is suddenly depicted as a capable combatant, even if the scenes are played straight with no humour, it will not feel authentic without first giving her a training arc or something.

I have been reading manga for many years, but I'm a habitual lurker who has never felt any need to join the discussions. This one got stuck in my brain, however. I'm going crazy thinking about it to the point where I am losing sleep - literally. Unfortunately, none of my friends care for the medium and talking to myself feels silly. In the spirit of honesty, I wanted to be explicitly clear that I'm posting this to get it out of my system.

Everything here is entirely subjective, and the result of my personal biases, preferences, tastes, values, etc. Qualifying every statement with 'in my opinion' is tedious to write and read; I will use a declarative style, but please keep this disclaimer in mind.

Erring on the side of caution, spoiler warning for the Serialized Version (SV) up to chapter 12 and all of the Twitter Version (TV). If you are only reading the SV, the TV details will likely spoil future plot points.

The reason I'm hung up on this is that it's a very unique situation. We have two implementations of the same story by the same author, and I adore one and hate the other. Worse, any rational person would expect the SV to be the superior product, and it's really not. The SV fails with its characters, tone, and themes. To its credit, the art and the worldbuilding have improved. However, that improvement is a matter of consistency, not peaks. It's better in the sense that the quality is more even and has a higher average, but the best parts of the TV match anything in the SV, and the occasional wobble in the earlier work is more charming than bothersome. The TV never had bad art or an internally inconsistent setting.

1. Characters
a) Natalia
- Natalia's connection to the sword
In the TV, she knows that she will need to use it to protect her people from monsters, and sooner rather than later. Her failure to utilise the sword's magic is a major source of stress, and a significant hit to her self-esteem and confidence. The possibility of accessing memories from the sword is seemingly unknown to her, and once it is revealed, it isn't given any weight.
In the SV, the setting is changed; the sword's practical functionality is barely mentioned and not a consideration for the characters. Her focus is fully on the memories, and generally treating it as a sentimental bond to her family. This is not bad in and of itself, but it's a massive downgrade. Emphasizing 'I'm grieving loved ones' may be more emotionally resonant for some, but it's a less engaging conflict than 'the single thing standing between my country and death is broken'. Importantly, the grief and loneliness are present in the TV, they are just not pinned on the sword as a totem. This change cuts out an entire facet of her character and replaces it with nothing. It's a straight loss.
- Natalia as a working adult
The TV makes clear from the start that the way she is pushing herself to poor health is primarily through overwork. Again, the grief and loneliness are there, and contribute to her overall bad mental state, which in turn causes her to stop properly taking care of herself, but there is more to it. Even before the action starts and she gets physically wounded and exhausted, she is presented as taking her role as lord seriously and doing her very best to excel at it.
In the SV, there is no indication that she ever does anything. On the contrary, the few times her duty comes up, she is depicted as shirking it. Even for the blooming ceremony and the coronation, the minister has to berate her into doing it. There is even a comedy bit where she is caught ignoring him while he is trying to get her to stop acting negligent. This change transforms her from a struggling but functional person to a child. This is another straight loss.
- Natalia's competence
In the TV, she generally excels at most practical things. The first time she has to fight, she wins without issue. She maintains her composure under various trying circumstances. The conflicts for her are either external challenges where the bar is set sufficiently high that even with her fantastic performance, there is the potential for failure; or they are internal issues with how she thinks and sees the world, and the ways in which she needs to still grow to fully inhabit the title of lord or overcome mental blocks for a healthier mindset. The tension never comes from 'what idiotic mistake will she make today'.
In the SV, she is useless. She cannot walk down a corridor without falling down, never mind trying to fly around. She pathetically fails her first combat encounter and would have died without Sara. She apparently sleepwalks through life - the nun who wiped up her blood with a piece of their ceremonial dress and healed her injury on the day of her coronation was not worth remembering; she needed a reminder. All external challenges are removed, and her emotional struggle is simplified to focus almost exclusively on her grief. There are continuous examples of her worthlessness, but there is one specific scene which utterly ruins her. For the first few chapters, it was possible to assume that her current state is the result of her loss. That would still be unappealing - falling apart to this extent is not normal, but it would leave the story with the potential for improvement. She may have regained the use of her brain at some point. However, in chapter 9, Sara confronts the minister, and trying to make him see sense, she mentions that Natalia fainted. This is dismissed on the grounds that such things are normal for the princess. I understand that the intention here is to make a point about how people see Natalia as a child of spirits, but the author fails catastrophically. She couldn't possibly have been in mourning long enough to develop a reputation like this on that basis, therefore, this is a long-standing, intrinsic trait. She isn't flying into trees and failing to act as a reasonable human being because she is currently overwhelmed, she is this awful by default. This isn't a simple loss; this annihilates her character. Making people say 'we wouldn't usually allow her to handle sharp objects, but fortunately she is invincible so it's fine' is not a good look for your protagonist.

I said I love the TV, and I really do. It's easily among my favourite manga. As much as I like it and its various building blocks, Natalia is truly wonderful. She stands out as one of my favourite protagonists, ever. This is counting all forms of fiction, which is high praise indeed. I chose to forgo writing up a full character analysis, since this is and will be long enough as is, but TV Natalia is a delightful mix of strength and weakness. Her core story there is about trying to replace literal divine intervention with hard work and sheer will. That version of the story is very grounded and serious, which means she fails. However, she comes somewhat close to almost being in the neighbourhood of nearly succeeding, and that's astonishing. The scene where she loses her legs is impactful because of who she is. The SV could have her body thrown into a blender and end up as a head in a jar, and I would feel nothing - except perhaps relief, since then she is less likely to accidentally injure herself through her brainless bumbling. SV Natalia is a non-entity; the next D&D monster manual could use her face for the gelatinous cube.

b) Sara
Unlike Natalia, she doesn't get rewritten to be a completely different character. The way she is changed affects her position and function in the story. In principle, making her the primary viewpoint for the second run through of the same plot makes a lot of sense. Sadly, it is executed horribly.

In the TV, the plot exists because Sara has the sword. Everything we see of Natalia indicates that if she had the sword, she could use it. If she could use it, the monsters would not rampage, people would not lose their faith, and everything would be all right. More, it would save her all the stress the fake sword causes, and it would let her process her grief better via the memories - which are canon there as well, just glossed over in favour of more pressing matters. She would still be lonely and sad, but given the inner strength she demonstrates, I have no doubt that she would eventually figure out how to have a happy life - maybe with Sara, maybe not. As such, from a storytelling perspective, Sara getting the sword is fantastic. It causes all sorts of drama and angst and exciting things to happen. If not for this, it would probably be a fluffy slice of life with no stakes. It justifies Sara feeling immense grief, regret, and responsibility. The contrast is that SV Natalia isn't the same person and giving her the sword would accomplish nothing. I don't buy that she could use it in the first place, even if she somehow managed to avoid knocking herself out on a chimney on her way to the monster attack site; and I don't buy that it would help enough with her mourning to make a difference. In fact, it's very possible that in the long run, useless Natalia having the sword would be a net negative compared to Sara taking it. This cuts a massive source of drama and conflict for Sara's character. From an in-universe perspective, she may still end up feeling guilty, but it is not a compelling story, because we know that this is actually the best outcome.

Stories are like magic tricks. Tricks rely on a combination of sleight of hand, clever props, distractions, etc. If you know what to look for, you can try to catch the performer in the act. For stories, an attentive reader familiar with genre conventions and actively engaging with the material will practically always know what's going to happen next. Surprising them without pulling a deus ex machina or relying on a non sequitur is a fine achievement even for an adept author. The trick to writing is to make reading worthwhile even when you know what is coming. The hero confronts the evil overlord and they have a duel - of course the hero will win. The difference between good writing and bad writing is whether the fight has tension regardless. Another way to look at it is to appreciate the seemingly trivial but crucial difference between 'I see two options for how this scene will play out, but I'm certain beyond doubt that option one is what will actually happen' and 'there is only one option in the first place'.

In the TV, Sara is the agent of chaos, the character with the highest narrative potential and the largest degree of freedom to act. This is achieved primarily through keeping her opaque to the audience by omitting her viewpoint, but also by how she is drawn, and her occasional slightly off behaviour. The most prominent example is near the end, when she does the mass petrify and starts to act unhinged. The analytical side of my brain - which is trying to catch the magician in the act - instantly went 'she failed to use the sword, mass stone form was the fallback, and now she is going for suicide by cop to return the sword'. That she had some long-term evil plan was nonsense; however, the delicious part is that there was room for the zero per cent chance second option. Throughout the story, she had the kind of manic energy that left the door open for the possibility that she got overwhelmed, snapped, and the intrusive thoughts won.

In the SV, she is one-dimensional. I'm aware that she has a sad backstory which was hinted at already, but it's inconsequential. Being inside her mind has made it unambiguous that she is the sweetest cinnamon roll, and how she will act and what choices she will make are locked down. She is the 'only one option exists' character. She lost all the dynamic edge she had, and since she was the central source of tension before, this makes the story feel flat. SV Sara is a lot blander than TV Natalia as a viewpoint and cannot be compared to TV Sara as a tool for creating friction.

c) Sara and Natalia's relationship
I'm listing it under characters; in these stories, the principal relationship is functionally a character of its own.
Having Sara start the first chapter of the SV with explicitly stated ulterior motives for trying to befriend Natalia profoundly affects how their interactions are read. Even if the TV is canonically the same, how and when information is revealed is essential. The TV approach follows Natalia's perspective, since she is our viewpoint character. When she finds out that Sara was arguably playing her the entire time, her judgement to trust her is similar to what the audience has to decide. In the SV, we are knowingly watching a manipulative person be manipulative from the word go. That might even be fun, but we get the unequivocal exposition of Sara's kindness, which robs the setup of any bite.
An in-universe example of information sharing is the sword reveal. The TV has Sara come clean on her own, partially forced by Natalia's very reasonable paranoia. In the SV, the snake lady tells Natalia what's going on before Sara can confess. This is a substantial change, and it should affect their dynamic. This makes Natalia less sharp and Sara less sympathetic to no benefit.
The pacing and structure of the reveal in the SV are also poor. This is something you can only tell with hindsight; when you are reading page by page and chapter by chapter, you assume things will pay off and serve a purpose. All the material between the start of chapter 6 when Natalia decides to talk to Sara about the sword after snake lady explains the situation, to the end of chapter 8 where they actually sit down to chat, is filler. This is effectively three chapters where nothing of value happens. We learn nothing about the characters (with the exception that snake lade is scum), we learn nothing about the plot or the setting, and the events taking place are not entertaining as a standalone vignette. The subplot of Natalia and Sara trying to meet up and snake lady interfering - contrary to her own goals - is just a detour, and a boring one. I'll argue in a bit that it's worse than boring, it is offensive.
Another bad call is snake lady showing up in the bath. Sara and Natalia are clearly working towards the conversation that needs to happen and bonding a bit. Letting the scene play out without outside interference would make for stronger material. Having her join the scene to force the issue is pointless, and outright ruins what could be a sweet and serious moment. It's hardly likely the goal is to improve the pacing since this section is filler in the first place. We could have simply skipped the kidnapping.
Finally, having snake lady be present for the talk is counterproductive. It makes it less intimate and personal, the gags they use her for clash with the mood, and it further undermines their connection. Snake lady accidentally admitting that she was observing the blooming ritual and Sara's account is accurate is terrible. It's of no meaning to the readers - the story is clearly signalling that Sara is telling the truth. On the other hand, it means that Natalia doesn't have any room for a decision on whether to believe Sara's tale.
The SV dedicates a lot more page time with slower pacing to the relationship, but due to a series of writing choices, I have almost no buy-in for this iteration. I don't see them even as friends, never mind anything more. In the TV, they had better chemistry after the first ten pages.

d) Snake princess
In the TV, she was clearly an ally from the start. For lack of a better word, she was just tsundere about it. Her grumpy advice was amoral but pragmatic, and it was advice, not interference. Once she started acting, she was unquestionably a positive character.
In the SV, she is a villain. I don't care about laws in various countries or dictionary definitions - by my standards, she sexually assaulted Sara. It is not categorically impossible for a talented author to have that plot point and redeem the offender, but it requires a redemption, which is earned through meaningful work, both in-universe and in terms of page count. There is no indication that such an arc will ever take place, which leaves her in the position of villain. This isn't necessarily bad; stories have villains. The problem is whether the plot will follow the TV; if she teams up with the protagonists, that will be rather strange. More important than that, however, is the tone, which ends the characters section.

2. Tone
Villain snake princess doesn't work because it doesn't feel intended. Starting from when Sara is kidnapped at the end of chapter 6, the panel of the snake-ninjas carrying her off is drawn in the style of a comedy bit. The cutesy-comedy style is repeated for the panel in chapter 7 which depicts the ninjas undressing Sara and throwing her into the pool, and the 'humour' escalates with snake princess making a fart joke, then getting stuck in the cave after she turns into her kaiju form. Further increasing the tonal dissonance is that concurrently, we get another display of Natalia's utter ineptitude as she hits her head on trees, and then we close with the brilliant panty gag about the girl who is getting raped at the time. The superficial complaint I have is that ignoring all context, still absolutely none of this is even slightly funny. The real point is this: I'm certain the jarring juxtaposition of rape and jokes is not by design, and the part I'm misreading is the assault. Obviously, that should be taken as merely light-hearted fooling around, nothing serious at all, just comedic fun between friends. This is reinforced in the following chapters. When Sara and Natalia are in the bath the snake princess showing up is again treated as a joke, with Natalia pouring her into the flowers. Once the discussion begins, snake princess playing around in the teapot and getting shoved down repeatedly is yet another slapstick bit. Even during, but especially after the kidnapping and assault, snake princess is treated like the whacky comic relief mascot of the party - aren't her silly antics charming? The SV generally has a lot more jokes which are invariably aggressively unfunny and don't fit the tone of the story. The story I'm assuming is being told based on the TV, anyway.

There are other issues with the tone. For example, the first fight against a monster in the SV is not good. I understand that it is a trash mob, but Sara going into melee with it using her bag undercuts the tension. The monsters were scarier and more serious in the TV. If a tiny nun can hold her own one on one, even briefly, without magic, armour, or a weapon, then it's hard to see how these things would be a threat to armoured knights or proficient magic users. They can still rely on overwhelming numbers, but that is less satisfying. Natalia having to eat the ant covered cookies is lovely, and in a different scenario it would be my favourite scene. However, its placement mid-combat harms it. Whatever drama or character building could be extracted from it is lost, because the alternative is not to not eat the cookies; rather, it's to watch Sara die, then die, then presumably have a bunch of civilians die. Incidentally, those must be magic cookies, because real food doesn't hit you in a few seconds for a boost of strength. This is not a complaint, just something I hope the author will keep in mind for future use: video game-like stat boost food exists.

3. Themes
I've indirectly touched on most of the character-related themes. One thing left for the end.
The fact that the royals are children of the spirits, and its implications are present in both versions. In the TV, this includes strength and endurance, certainly, and those aspects are seen as very important. However, the TV additionally lists dignity and grace, and strength there means strength of character as well as of body. The overall impression of the TV is that this faith is comprehensive and complex. It involves magic, but it also correlates to similar real-world beliefs. While it is not overly complicated, the execution gives it a degree of depth.
The SV focuses almost solely on the view that they are of divine flesh in a more literal sense. The SV maid saying 'she hasn't eaten anything for a week, but surely she is fine' is a good scene, and a good showcase of the mindset. However, more sophisticated concepts like dignity and royal bearing are largely absent. This matches the trend of simplifying things for the retelling. The nuance is lost.
This affects Natalia's character. In the TV, right after her legs are amputated and she is bleeding out, one of her knights offers assistance. Natalia calmly tells him that she is fine, and he should take care of the nearby child first. This is the most striking example, but for the entirety of the story, that incarnation of Natalia is an active participant in the ruse. In fact, that's the primary reason why Sara is special, because she sees through it and chooses to help her as a fellow human. The belief exists among the people, and you can blame them to some extent for not understanding the truth, but Natalia putting significant effort into it is just as important as the culture, if not more so. This fantastically turns worldbuilding into a character trait and arc.
In the SV, this is absent. Natalia is a useless waste of space constantly making mistakes, to the point where she has an established reputation for being worthless; consequently, the whole child of spirits thing doesn't work. Natalia is overtly and obviously having issues; anybody who dismisses her suffering is at best wilfully ignorant, at worst callously cruel. By diminishing Natalia and removing her effective preservation of the masquerade, every person who nonetheless ignores her plight becomes unsympathetic. The SV kingdom of wind is not a wholesome place I'm invested in seeing prosper, it's full of idiots and reprobates.
This connects to the humour. If Natalia bonking her head on trees while flying around was an amusing little joke, it wouldn't matter as much. But it is strictly canon to the world; unlike many similar sketches in other stories, it isn't happening in the alternate reader-only fun dimension. Initially, I considered writing off her abysmal performance while trying to rescue Sara as the type of comedy we are supposed to ignore in deference to the true plot. This is not possible, because her knocking herself out is a crucial, keystone element which leads to Sara having the sword. Narratively, her idiocy at the convent is foreshadowing for the real importance of her aerial incompetence.

This mesh of characters - tone - themes acting on each other ultimately destroys the story. Individual changes which might be tolerable interact to make the whole lesser than the sum of its parts.

I was very impressed with the TV. It was a thoughtful, interesting story about compelling, three-dimensional characters. It was grounded and striving for verisimilitude, with a strong throughline of actions having consequences.
The SV flips it on its head basically point by point. It's juvenile nonsense, full of the worst kind of manga humour, the characters are dull, one-dimensional, and due to their low narrative potential energy, feel lifeless. Trying to engage with it punishes you by getting worse the more you think about it.

Anyway, I felt bad about hating on this unprovoked and at length - while loving the TV - so I bought both volumes. I hope that's an acceptable trade.