Kinofhera's series reviews

TL;DR: The setting is quite similar to the manga series xxxHOLiC. But while using "granting people wishes" as a pretence, the true purpose of this "shop" is to investigate and locate sinners who have committed heinous crimes and cast them to hell. A mystery + legal drama series with a supernatural and horror twist.

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To be honest I don't think this series might appeal to a lot of people. It features a super weak protagonist and he is wussy, actually sissy. He screams like a little kid, whines like a loser, runs away whenever there is danger, and throws up when he sees blood and bodies. Probably people who prefer reading novels with OP protagonists with various superpowers and abilities might find it hard to relate to this protagonist.

However, this protagonist isn't the main character here. He is just the pet/assistant of the main character, the runaway son of a demon king, who is an agent representing the Lord of the Underworld. The MC (dressed in white funeral attire on the covers above) works as an investigator locating sinners who have committed heinous crimes, captures them and makes them confess, and cast them straight to hell afterwards. Just a warning though, the "making them confess" part could get a little graphic with body horror and gore, especially when torture is involved.

You may say this series is like a Japanese version of the Seven Deadly Sins. A lot of Western novels employ this Christianity teaching to represent crimes and characters traits. There is actually an American movie about this too. Instead of the seven sins, a variety of Youkai from Japanese folklore is used. Let's take dragons as an example. In Western mythology dragons are known for their greed for treasure and valuable items. If a person commits grand larceny, they will eventually be possessed by the ghost of a dragon, and this is the premise of this series. Interestingly, our good for nothing, wussy and sissy protagonist has an ability to see if a person is possessed by a Youkai, and thus revealing the sin they have committed. In such a way, he is like a scout. His boss is the investigator, the prosecutor, and the judge who does all the dirty work.

About this boss, he is the well-loved character model that has an IQ of like 200, super smart and always have some dirty tricks up his sleeve. He is morally grey especially when it comes to intimidating and torturing his subjects. However, he looks like a middle school boy who has some serious and chronic illness that everyone thinks he is quite a harmless guy. Man, he loves playing mind games. Some of them are so elaborated and mind-blowing that they will definitely surprise the readers a lot. Funny though he never explains his strategies in advance to the protagonist, as he is simply too dense to understand anything. It's hilarious to see the protagonist get worried sick many times as his boss gets into some dangerous situations, but it turns out they are just well orchestrated manoeuvres, meticulously carried out by his boss.

However, his boss pulling off so many mind games actually pose a problem. There are way too many plot twists in the story! There are twists after turns after twists and at some point the readers might feel numb to them. I remember there was a big twist reveal and I couldn't help but think to myself, "Oh, that's it?" It definitely felt like indigestion.

Besides the mystery, mind games, horror, and gore, this series actually has quite a hauntingly beautiful undertone which is quite the opposite to its title. Could hell be bright and full of flowers? This series also explores if humans and demons can walk hand in hand and live in peace. The bro-ship between the protagonist and his boss is quite heartwarming, regardless of whether the other person is super dense or morally messed up.

Highly recommended if you enjoy some mindfucks, and if you don't mind a dense and good for nothing protagonist. Well, at least he is complemented by a super smart and powerful MC. Their banter is quite enjoyable too, when it could get hilarious as well as philosophical. Also, you will learn a lot of things about Japanese folklore and the Youkai from Hyakki Yakou, or commonly known as Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.

Official synopsis: Van, a former soldier made slave, toils away endlessly in a salt mine. An expected chance at liberation drops in his lap when a pack of infected dogs pass through, killing everyone but him and a young girl called Yuna. Van hopes to make a peaceful life for himself now that he’s escaped. However, the disease that cleared out the mine is rapidly spreading, placing him and his ward at the center of a conflict greater than any the world has ever seen.

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There are actually two intertwining stories with two protagonists in this novel. The synopsis above tells one of them and the other is told from the POV of a doctor/medical researcher who investigates this pandemic, or plague if you prefer a more fantasy-themed word. He is also responsible to locate patient zero and ultimately develop a vaccine to end this catastrophe once and for all.

Ah yes, everyone hates vaccines, just like our real world... But it shows this fantasy world is actually quite advanced in medical science especially when it comes to microbiology, virology, and toxicology. However, magic does not exist in this world which is quite a huge bummer. Instead, we got a lot of intriguing religions in this world ranges from those hardcore "Don't question. Just believe!" religious fanatics, to ancient and indigenous ones like mysticism and shamanism.

World building is the best feature of this novel. The author took it very seriously to set up everything about the lore and history of this world, and those (pseudoscience) facts on healthcare and medical science knowledge. It's magical and mesmerising. It has a very nice exotic feel like Avatar (American movie) or Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Japanese anime), and I enjoyed it so much! The world really feels magical even without the presence of magic!

Though this story is about a pandemic/plague, it isn't like any zombie apocalypse story that is full of screaming and running and dying. It explores more on the philosophical and social issues of this catastrophe. I particularly like those heated discussions on the two opposing medical practices which resemble our world's "Western Medicine vs Chinese Medicine" debate. Like, pharmaceutical drugs or herbal medicine? The surgical table or a yoga mat? It is quite thought provoking really!

So we have two protagonists, and they are like a polar opposite to each other. Van, the slave, is physically strong and a great fighter but also a very compassionate and caring person when he takes care of animals and children. Hossal, the medical researcher, is well-educated, accomplished, and smart but he is also very arrogant, insensitive, and cold towards people. This has a very balancing effect while reading, since their POVs are told in alternate chapters. But you could also lose track of the flow because their stories are told in alternate chapters.

My biggest complaint is this novel is notoriously slow-paced! It's so slow that I kept spacing out quite a lot of times. It's true the author did an amazing job in world building but there are also times it felt like reading a thesis. But no, I didn't mean plain "info dump". The author is actually very clever to do her world building in an interesting and captivating way. It's just obscenely L--O--N--G...

I did enjoy the whole novel despite constantly spacing out... It's worth checking if being slow burn isn't an issue to you.