Soara and the House of Monsters Vol. 1
Author: Hidenori Yamaji
Illustrator: Hidenori Yamaji
Publishers: Seven Seas Entertainment
Age Group: Teen
Genre: Fantasy
Type: Manga
Content Warnings: Prejudice, verbal abuse, trauma
Spoilers ahead
Plot
Soara is a young orphan girl who was raised by knights and trained to fight against marauding monsters. By the time Soara is old enough to join the fray, her blade is no longer needed, as peace has been declared with monsters. Searching for a new calling, Soara stumbles upon Kirik the dwarf, Architect of the Monster World. Suddenly, instead of fighting monsters, Soara finds herself working alongside Kirik to build comfortable homes for Monsterkind! In the course of her new career, will Soara find a home for herself?
Character Development
Soara, our young orphan girl, has been verbally abused and told she’s worthless which is why the soldiers have taken her in. They made her a weapon of war…but there is no longer a war. With her only purpose now taken away, she leaves human society to find her place. She just didn’t know it would be with Demi-humans and monsters. In unfamiliar territory, she tries to cling to her training. She goes through some quick growth from prejudice against monsters to seeing them in a different light. Having never had a home to call her own, she can understand monsters wanting their own.
Kirik, the great architect of the monster world, is cocky, creative, a good listener, and wise. From the little interaction he and Soara first have he pegs her as prejudiced, without a home of her own, and needing a different viewpoint to heal. He invites her to join them in making houses for monsters because he can see she’d be good at it. This conclusion comes after she one shots the ice to bring a volcano back to life so the goblins can have heated floors.
The other two main characters Gansho and Niko are hard-working, anticipate Kirik’s needs, and are comedy relief. They’re banter and wit are what makes this series light hearted and fun.
World-building
The world-building in this is really awesome. We get to see the before and after for the different houses. The artist breaks them down so we can see what changes there are. There’s a lot of lore that goes into building each house. With the goblin house, Kirik chooses a type of wood called spring wood that makes it impossible to fall and get hurt. On top of that, it also has moss that grows on it that’ll eat all the bones and stuff the goblins don’t eat. No more bone piles!
There are many other things that like this during the home construction of various monsters that make the world-building in this series awesome.
Themes
Finding your tribe/home may just be where you least expect it. I say this is the overarching theme of this series. Everyone deserves a home that’s comfortable for them. Soara has never had a home and helps build monster homes. She starts to overcome her prejudice and all the brainwashing she experienced growing up.
Observations & Predictions
One of the biggest things I dislike about this series is it claims it’s for teenagers but it reiterates things that can easily be inferred. I’m not talking about things that would improve the storytelling but distract from it because it’s things that are very obvious such as Soara going with Kirik and the other dwarves to help build houses. We don’t need narration about that. In fact, I’d argue that by having the narration in this series it drops the age range to pre-teen.
Another thing that I dislike about the first installment of this series is that after the goblin house, all the construction projects go by a lot faster. There’s not enough emotional development for Soara. I say this because we do get some but it seems like she’s making greater strides overcoming everything without the audience having the payoff of watching her grow. This is a problem if the storyline focuses around Soara and finding her own version of home.
Watch for a special edition on the second installment!
Recommendations
Other feel-good series to try:
In the Name of the Mermaid Princess
By: Yoshino Fumikawa
Coral’s Reef
By: David Lumsdon
One Piece
By: Eiichiro Oda
