Hiromu Arakawa, creator of the excellent Silver Spoon series, the pretty good Full Metal Alchemist series, and the very dumb Hero Tales series, is back with a new fantasy tale with lots of action and demons.

Yuru is a teenager living a fairly decent life in his ancient mountain village, hunting to feed everyone and looking for things to amuse his confined twin sister. But then the village is attacked by outsiders and Yuru learns how little he truly knows of the place where he lives and the world beyond it.

This aims for that same balance of drama, humor, and action as Full Metal Alchemist and does a good job of hitting the target. I feel pretty good about continuing with this for a while, but I do hope the cast size stays about where it is right now so the main characters stay in focus instead of getting lost in the crowd as Edward and Alphonse did in the ever-expanding epic sprawl of Full Metal Alchemist.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Chapter 1. Asa and Yuru -- Chapter 2. Right and Left -- Chapter 3. Dera and Hana -- Chapter 4. Ai and Makoto -- A Great Pair -- Cowshed Diaries 1. The Tale of Makoto -- Cowshed Diaries 2. The Tale of Ai -- Right and Left (with Base) -- Dera's Pendant -- Translation Notes -- Author Commentary -- Next Volume -- [Epilogue] ( )

Rounded from 2.5 - this didn't immediately catch me like Fullmetal Alchemist did in the first few chapters. Maybe because a large scale massacre of a village felt less personal than Ed crying that things went wrong and then flashing to him older.

It could also be that like for Yuru the sudden clashing of modern day into the village stuck in some kind of not-quite-medieval time detracted from the plot. Instead of unfolding mysteries we're goven at least four, with the only clear throughline Yuru.

Unlike in FMA where you can sense there's something sinister on the fringes, at first the main concern is what's going on with Ed and Al. Their relationship is what glues the investment together. I... don't care what's happening with Yuru and Asa. Or why she ran away. Or what's up with Dera. The Divine Left and Right, Yuru's guardians, are pretty cool but I feel bad they're tied to Yuru.

I'll keep going, as I trust Arakwa (more than I do Takahashi, who left me feeling cold after Rin-ne, to such that I'm concerned about getting invested in Mao) but for now this isn't a "need this second" series yet. ( )

So I might be a little biased, seeing as Hiromu Arakawa is my favorite manga artist of all time. I'm pretty sure I've read everything she's ever put out. So I was so hyped to find out she was making a new series, and it was a fantasy adventure like FullMetal Alchemist! This first volume met my expectations, and more! The first chapter is absolutely insane; the bait and switch completely threw me off. Also, Ms. Arakawa is back at it again with absolutely amazing sibling dynamics. She has always written excellent siblings, and this series is no expectation. After the first chapter, the action slows down a bit and gets more into the meat of the plot. There is still a good balance of action and exposition. It never feels like information is being thrown at you, it feels like you're slowly learning it as the characters do. This volume sets up so many questions that hopefully will be answered in the next volumes. An amazing start to what I hope is a long series! ( )