The Girl from the Other Side

The Girl from the Other Side

Story and Art by Nagabe

Page Count: I don’t know it’s a magna

Rating: 5 Stars

Hello readers!

For today’s post I want to review the first book “The Girl from the Other Side”, a magna series. For those of you who are not familiar with Magna they are similar to comic books except they come from and are translated from Japan. A lot of Magna ends up becoming anime series such as Sailor Moon or Attack on Titan.

So what’s so great about the girl from the other side? In short everything. The series follows a young girl named Shiva who lives in an abandoned village with her demon guardian whom she calls teacher. In the first book we learn that some kind of sickness took over the village and Shiva was left in Teacher’s care. However for some reason Shiva cannot touch teacher or she will catch the curse and turn into some ugly creature…Forever. I know right so crazy.

Anyways Shiva is so sassy! And maybe part of that is because she is so young and kids don’t really have a filter but I found Shiva’s personality refreshing. I also loved that Shiva just rolls with the fact she lives with a demon now as if that is normal. Shiva does not ever show that she’s scared of teacher and I loved that.

The reason I loved this book and this is what originally drew me to purchasing the first story was that the whole series gave me this Hades and Persephone vibe and as I read the magna that vibe was further validated. I mean Shiva may live with a creature of darkness but that doesn’t stop her from napping out in the woods or collecting flowers to make a cute little crown for Teacher. In addition, Shiva not being easily spooked by Teacher’s otherness reminded me of the duality of Persephone as she is both the Princess of Spring as well as the Queen of darkness.

I’m not sure how the rest of this series will go but I do remember reading a summary of the series that Shiva at some point was going to travel away from the other side, which is where she lives with Teacher, in order to find her grandmother and ask her just why Teacher came to be her guardian. And with the way the first edition to this series left me feeling and left me hanging you bet I’m going to purchase the next installments.