The slow world building and great characters really sells chapters like this.
Greatest SoL Manga I've ever seen. The art, the people everything is so wholesome

That was a beautiful chapter. I loved the adorable little kids swarming them, and the last page made me tear up a bit.

Also, I got these girls in the mail a few days ago!

Furuyu prize machine figures. They're really well made and kind of hefty. There's also a Conju, but they're pretty expensive so I skipped her.
And after getting these two, I kinda see why they might not get Nendoroid figures or similar. Their bulky clothes and tiny limbs would make articulation difficult, unless they went with Nendoroid Dolls and cloth outfits.

This really is quite a sweet little story.

I am hoping none of the mushrooms go to waste. But knowing Mikochi I doubt she'd have any problem. Figures this is why the grocer have had over stocked inventory issue in the past

I like Miki. She's pretty cool.

I know this may be quite a few chapters late, but I really love how birds like the Sunset Hawk and Oroshi are treated like the dragons of this world. The few birds we've met so far are treated as the awe/fear-inspiring, aloof beasts that dragons often represent, but, if Oroshi's gratitude is anything to go by, still capable of intelligent thought and emotional interaction with other species. I feel it adds to the Light fantasy feeling of the story all the more.

I know this may be quite a few chapters late, but I really love how birds like the Sunset Hawk and Oroshi are treated like the dragons of this world. The few birds we've met so far are treated as the awe/fear-inspiring, aloof beasts that dragons often represent, but, if Oroshi's gratitude is anything to go by, still capable of intelligent thought and emotional interaction with other species. I feel it adds to the Light fantasy feeling of the story all the more.

I mean, we've had more than a few birds as shopkeeps and so on. Warblers and finches and so on regularly trade recipes with Mikochi. It's just that the really big predatorial birds seem more animal-like, which is odd since we know Emerald Tail is a big wolf and Hakumei's talked with a herd of cows on her travels.

I know this may be quite a few chapters late, but I really love how birds like the Sunset Hawk and Oroshi are treated like the dragons of this world. The few birds we've met so far are treated as the awe/fear-inspiring, aloof beasts that dragons often represent, but, if Oroshi's gratitude is anything to go by, still capable of intelligent thought and emotional interaction with other species. I feel it adds to the Light fantasy feeling of the story all the more.

I mean, we've had more than a few birds as shopkeeps and so on. Warblers and finches and so on regularly trade recipes with Mikochi. It's just that the really big predatorial birds seem more animal-like, which is odd since we know Emerald Tail is a big wolf and Hakumei's talked with a herd of cows on her travels.

By far my favorite fantasy element to this show is the little necromancer. It's such a unique take on the whole necromancy idea and it doesn't hurt that she is absolutely adorable.

English dub of the anime is coming out March 19! I prefer the original, but now I can share it with more people~

Edit: today my copy of the Hakumei & Mikochi World Guide came in the mail. It's packed with full-color profiles of most of the cast, a small world map and a map of Makinata, tons of world details, photos of animals some of the cast are based on, and even a few pages of micro-sized cooking.

My favorite bit of info:
Hakumei - 23
Mikochi - 24
Conju - 26
Sen - 19

I'd figured that Sen was the oldest of the group, with Conju being the youngest, but it's the opposite :)

last edited at Mar 2, 2019 12:20PM

I don't think I could stand to wait in a line that long, Mikochi has strong will power

Okay, according to the world guide and the official translation of volume 4, Miki the greengrocer is actually a guy, and his short-haired smoking partner is a girl. That's pretty cool.

I can really sympathize with this latest chapter. Sooo many times I've stood in line or just plain waited for something, getting more and more hyped, only to be disappointed at the end.

English dub of the anime is coming out March 19! I prefer the original, but now I can share it with more people~

Edit: today my copy of the Hakumei & Mikochi World Guide came in the mail. It's packed with full-color profiles of most of the cast, a small world map and a map of Makinata, tons of world details, photos of animals some of the cast are based on, and even a few pages of micro-sized cooking.

My favorite bit of info:
Hakumei - 23
Mikochi - 24
Conju - 26
Sen - 19

I'd figured that Sen was the oldest of the group, with Conju being the youngest, but it's the opposite :)

1. I would love to get my hands on a guide like that. I'm assuming its in Japanese, though.

2. The ages make sense to me: Sen always struck me as the young academic type who typically didn't have much interest in social interaction growing up and is just beginning to develop some ties. Conju is the slightly older Diva.

last edited at Mar 15, 2019 2:28AM

It'd be great to have it scanlated, but there is a LOT of text in the thing. It'd be a big job.
(the raw isn't too hard to find, actually. I'd considered taking mine apart and scanning it, glad I don't have to)

Neat thing: I found this girl(?) in the bottom left and thought they were a prototype Jada, but then the character showed up in the line from this latest chapter. Now I'm keeping my eye out for the black-hair-with-stripe girl.

Anyways, I love this guide. I'm starting to think I'm a bit obsessed with this manga (considering about 70% of the posts in this thread are mine :D), and the guide is a nice little addition to my bookshelf.

last edited at Mar 15, 2019 6:22PM

Hmm...is it just me, or has no person shown up in more than one different librarian chapter excluding Hakumei and Mikochi?

I like the librarian chapters. They're a bit dull, but it's nice seeing random characters popping up again.

I got my H&M blurays recently. Unfortunately they seem to use the same quick-n-dirty subs as the simulcast, and some of the inaccuracies have made it into the dubbing. The dub voices are pretty decent, though, and the video quality is excellent.

"You really love books don't you?"

"I could say the same thing about you"

Was that the librarian insinuating that Hakumei loves Mikochi?

English dub of the anime is coming out March 19! I prefer the original, but now I can share it with more people~

Edit: today my copy of the Hakumei & Mikochi World Guide came in the mail. It's packed with full-color profiles of most of the cast, a small world map and a map of Makinata, tons of world details, photos of animals some of the cast are based on, and even a few pages of micro-sized cooking.

My favorite bit of info:
Hakumei - 23
Mikochi - 24
Conju - 26
Sen - 19

I'd figured that Sen was the oldest of the group, with Conju being the youngest, but it's the opposite :)

That's neat. Although, I didn't have any specific ages in mind, I am surprised that Sen is the youngest. I personally would have ranked them from youngest to oldest as follows.

Hakumei, Mukochi, Conju, Sen.

Sen and Conju were a bit of a toss up in my mind, but they both seemed older our titular pair.

Sen looks young, but her no-nonsense focused personality gave me the impression she was older than everyone else other than maybe Conju. I guess when I think back on it, she is quite shy and socially stunted which could in part be seen as a sign of immaturity, but this is often the case with shut in academic types and has little to do with age. I must say she is impressively skilled and knowledgeable for a kid who isn't even old enough to drink a beer.

I wonder if there is a glimmer of hope for a season 2. Sadly, iyashikei are often difficult to market to the public since they don't have any real obvious hooks to grab people with so many never make it past the first season.

last edited at Apr 10, 2019 3:47AM

"You really love books don't you?"

"I could say the same thing about you"

Was that the librarian insinuating that Hakumei loves Mikochi?

Sounds a tiny bit too vague or far a stretch, though honestly it could be treated as a subtle writing hint. This is already a stretch as it is, and I kind of doubt the writer has any sort of romantic relationship between our two mains in mind.

Hmm...is it just me, or has no person shown up in more than one different librarian chapter excluding Hakumei and Mikochi?

I get the impression that this is the intent of these chapters. They've been cycling through members of the extended cast. I'm pretty sure there are still a few members left before the list runs dry or new characters are introduced.

last edited at Apr 17, 2019 2:03AM

That delivery system seems to be both a pain in the ass and kinda abusing people wish to try it out considering they send the "rules" to people after they win the right to make a delivery.
I mean, what kind of delivery system is based on the mood of the one doing the delivery :/ So if you really need to urgently send a message or package but can't afford to sugarcoat the bird because you didn't plan of those extra expenses, you risk having it turn tail and make you waste both time and money spent on trying to please them...

All those effort just for a letter, would have expected them both to make use of that chance to prepare an actual package, but guess that's what happen when you enter such a lottery just to test your chance ^^;

Huh, I thought for sure the rider was a woman

Looking over the pages again, that featherhead has a beard/stubble.

About the delivery itself, it mentions being mostly used for long time delivery contracts, where people absolutely need to have things delivered fast. So they probably can make sure a client and a bird like each other enough to work together, also, close to 100% delivery rate is probably worth the hassle.
Individuals who get the lottery win mostly use it for bragging rights or something they need delivered no matter what, again, making the hassle worth it.

Ok, just a heads up, this is going to be a long one. The mood just struck me, and I apologize, cause I really don't know if there's a word limit on this thing, so I'm just gonna keep on going until I either hit said unknown limit, or I'm out of things to say.

This chapter....its definitely one that leaves you awestruck: the sheer detail and presence depicting the Kite was enough to make me just sit back and stare at the image for a good couple of minutes while rambling to myself (as one of my type does.).

I feel like this goes back to a previous comment of mine and a response it recieved:

I know this may be quite a few chapters late, but I really love how birds like the Sunset Hawk and Oroshi are treated like the dragons of this world. The few birds we've met so far are treated as the awe/fear-inspiring, aloof beasts that dragons often represent, but, if Oroshi's gratitude is anything to go by, still capable of intelligent thought and emotional interaction with other species. I feel it adds to the Light fantasy feeling of the story all the more.

I mean, we've had more than a few birds as shopkeeps and so on. Warblers and finches and so on regularly trade recipes with Mikochi. It's just that the really big predatorial birds seem more animal-like, which is odd since we know Emerald Tail is a big wolf and Hakumei's talked with a herd of cows on her travels.

Larger birds in this work seem to be less like highly intelligent animals, and more like mythical beasts (mostly in scale), though not to the point where they are beyond other races. They have their own language, morals, and personalities, but are still bestial enough to generally keep out of society (note: for all we know, they could have their own society, and likely have a culture or are indeed integrated into the focus society, but I'm just going with what we've seen so far.) and live more distantly and likely by their own rules, save for some exceptions like the Delivery Birds.), so less Guardians of Ga'Hoole in this case and possibly more like slightly more bestial version's of Middle Earth's Eagles. This goes back to when I compared them to dragons, typically those portrayed in modern fantastical settings: sapient, but still dangerous and powerful, with minds and temperaments that make crossing them have rather dangerous and/or unpredictable consequences, like the Oroshi (a number of them are carnivores, after all.).

honestly I'd best compare what I've seen so far with the dragons from How to Train Your Dragon: walking a line between sapient and bestial. Not just recognizing commands but processing displaying language.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if other bigger animals are portrayed somewhat like this in the future as well, though there's probably a scale, seeing as Emerald Tail and the penguin and the other birds are portrayed as mech more integrated than the larger guys.

This manga just makes me calm for some reason

Well damn, yen press is at the same chapter as we are!

Looks like eh scans did one more chapter and then dropped the series. The official release is the place to go for the next chapters

last edited at Oct 31, 2019 12:20AM

Volume 8 is out now, and it's gorgeous! Go get it if you can!