God Bless the Mistaken Volume 1 Review
Mangaka Nakatani Nio is undoubtedly best known for the Girls’ Love series Bloom Into You, which ran between 2015-2019 in Japan and was lucky enough to receive an anime adaptation. Now Nio returns once more to the Western market with a brand new series: God Bless the Mistaken. Will it prove a must-read? Let’s find out!
Our story follows middle schooler Kon, who lives in a fairly ordinary version of Japan except for the fact that “bugs” happen daily. These events are also known as “periodic exceptional phenomena” and cause great changes to the world, including the supergrowth of plants or adding hours into the day. These events may seem harmless at first glance, but they certainly cause plenty of inconvenience!
Kon, like most people, is affected by these strange occurrences, but he lives in a shared house with four other people including our other main character Kasane who is a researcher. For some unknown reason, Kasane is never affected by the bugs which puts her in the perfect position to investigate them and their impact on humanity. To do that properly, she needs a guinea pig which role often falls on Kon who is grateful to be able to do something in return for him living there. No matter what happens, Kon’s daily life is full of adventure as he goes to school and navigates the strange bugs that occur.
Reading through God Bless the Mistaken feels like reading a volume of Flying Witch as they’re both laid-back slice-of-life series with some supernatural or fantasy vibes. I appreciate the episodic nature of the bugs meaning nothing overstays its welcome and each idea has been well developed by Nakatani Nio.
This is a series that isn’t looking to show violence and hardship. The bugs might vary in scale and intensity with some lasting hours, while others days, and not everywhere experiences the same bug at the same time. But even in cases like our opening story where the plants overgrow throughout the town, everything goes back to normal once the bug is done and no one seems to have been hurt or left with lasting damage to their homes. In some ways, it’s easier to appreciate these stories without worrying about any of the negative consequences you’d usually have to consider in these situations.
I have to say that Kon and Kasane go fairly underdeveloped in this first book since the emphasis is on the bugs and there are a lot of other characters popping in and out, but despite that, I still liked their relationship. There’s even a chapter halfway through where Kon realises Kasane is sad to not be able to experience the bug of the day as he and the other residents do.
This later results in him coming up with a way of replicating a different bug for her, which I thought was sweet and showed he cared about her. That’s not to say Kasane can’t experience events like the plant incident, but anything affecting the human body (such as walking on air or suddenly becoming left-handed) she’s completely left out of.
The artwork for this one is also great, showing the skills Nio has been polishing since their debut back in 2015. Character designs are all distinct and attractive, but Nio also puts plenty of focus on drawing backgrounds and emphasising the impact of the bugs through the art. There’s a lot to take in on every page and sometimes even flipping back through a second time reveals things you might not have noticed before, usually once you have more information on how a bug works.
I’m hoping the characters will get more development as the series goes on, but for now, at least, I’m fairly content to continue with it just to find out what’s going to happen next. It’s a charming work that proves if nothing else Nakatani Nio is capable of delivering compelling stories that aren’t just Girls’ Love, which can’t always be said for every popular creator. It’s a welcome change of pace whatever the case.
God Bless the Mistaken Volume 1 comes to the West from Yen Press, who have been releasing simulpub chapters of the series since it began in 2021. This release has been translated by Eleanor Summers with lettering by Rachel J. Pierce and it reads well although I was somewhat confused to find the translation notes included before the final chapter of the book. There’s a colour page included as an extra as well as two four-koma comics printed on the inside of the front and back cover.
The manga is already complete in Japan having concluded with just four volumes, which seems like a reasonable amount for the premise. Here in English, Volume 2 has been released this month with #3 set to follow in September, so a fairly frequent pace which is nice to see.
Overall, God Bless the Mistaken Volume 1 is a charming series that showcases strange everyday occurrences that would be right at home in Flying Witch or similar. The characters could do with more development, but as far as introductory volumes go, this isn’t bad and certainly merits a look if you like the sound of the premise.
Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
