Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 14, 2022
*I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher. This has not influenced my review.*
This was really sweet and cute!
Shirato was such a quiet, gentle character. Komazu was rash and enthusiastic. Both were sweethearts. And their romance was very cute. A bit fast perhaps, but still very cute. A bit angsty too, because of the difficulties of a sparrow and a snake being together. Speaking of which…
This was an interesting fantasy world. It seemed to be full of animal people who were also shifters, essentially, since they had humans forms and animal forms but they thought of themselves as just the animal, and there were no regular animals. So they, well, ate each other, as animals do (but you don’t see any of that, it’s just talked about). And that’s where the premise comes in. I felt so bad for poor Shirato. A snake who didn’t want to kill, who felt terrible any time he did, who planted flowers for all the lives he took, but had to do it in order to survive. Anyway, they also had characteristics of their animals, both physical and mental, while in human form (e.g. the sparrows had wings, the snakes had fangs). [Hidden spoiler can be found in my review on my blog or Goodreads.] Also, the sparrows lived in giant bird houses with circle window openings and perches, which was adorable!
There is explicit sex in here, and if you like, ah, let’s say… interesting anatomy? Then you’re gonna enjoy this, because there is indeed some interesting non-human anatomy. But don’t worry, all the sex was in their human forms. And it wasn’t all about that, there was more to their relationship.
Trigger/content warning for sort of accidental sexual assault. (Komazu didn’t know what a certain body part on Shirato was because he didn’t have the same kind, so he didn’t know it was weird to touch it. But Shirato liked it, and it eventually turned into a sexy thing.)
The art was black and white, and the human drawings and scenery were lovely, but the animal drawings were especially adorable. Truly the epitome of a birb and a snek <3
Overall, this was a cute and sexy graphic novel about lovable characters with adorable little animal forms and a sweet romance!