This is a wonderfully fuzzy story, and an excellently-constructed one as well. The panelling is so good- diagonal segments mirror hand movements, lines of sight set up new directions and errant locks of hair parallel cut-ins, weaving between speech bubbles to create an incredible reading experience. My eyes felt like they were moving down a waterslide the whole time, and I've rarely come across a manga that's so gratifying to just stare at.
The soft, blush-like touches on the faces combine with the uniform shading on interiors to perfectly convey the dim, windy atmosphere of a winter evening, to the point where you might almost forget what the weather's like outside your own home. Every inch of every page just pulls you in, and not with overt, splashy images, but with this gentle, sleepy pace that's got you breathlessly invested before you even realize what's going on, like scattered chatter on a radio that somehow turns into a fascinating story.
This page in particular is one of my favourites- the dash of darkness up top gives way to the shadows of a furrowed brow, before cutting away to a wide view of the mansion, tilted to convey how magical it looks through a child's whimsical eyes, and then back to our protagonists to drive in how tiny they seem. I really love details like this- under moving, emotional stories lie the skill of artists to foster connections, to draw us into the worlds of these black-and-white characters and make us care about them as if they were breathing beside us, and in that regard, this story is a technical masterpiece.
