Manga-ka: Sirial
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: All Ages
Release Date: May 2010

Synopsis: “With No-Ah’s childhood friend/tormenter added to the mix, all sorts of new adventures are brewing at the green-roofed house. Nanai the dog, Guru the cat, and Rang the mouse have cooked up even more fun this time around: visiting the library, searching for treasure—and tailing Rang on her first date?!”

If you think of volume one of One Fine Day as a test pilot, then issue two is the smoothed out first episode. There is more time spent on showing us the world these characters live in than episodic cuteness, which is fantastic. Sirial really got it together in this second instalment starring animal cuteness beyond comprehension.

Each chapter is clearly self contained and defined, no more scribbley half lines into the next story or partial fade outs through scene transitions. The artists has done away with all the scribbles and replaced them with clean lines and a large amount of tone paper. The effect I felt was achieved through rough lines in volume one was a sort of cute softness, but I’m much happier with the same effect being accomplished with tone paper so I can still clearly see what’s going on.

There’s still no real plot in sight but that’s forgiveable as life itself doesn’t really tend to have a plot. These three “children” (as the town folk call them) go from one day to the next taking on the normal adventures of their strange lives without preconception. They’re cute, they’re happy, they love their magician master No-Ah and each other – you can’t really expect more then that from a regular cat, dog, and mouse no matter how adorable they are.

Scribbles weren’t the only thing cleared up in this volume. There was the matter of when exactly these three little guys are human and when they are not. It turns out that all animals and objects have voices, thoughts, and occasionally human forms no one but us readers can see. They are never human, just drawn that way because pictures of cats and dogs and mice aren’t as interesting to look at. Their ability to talk to humans is completely normal in this world as well, so we now know they’re not enchanted or anything either. They just happen to live with a rather poor magic user whose powers are almost completely limited to plants – poor No-Ah.

I’m pretty excited about the little full colour pull out poster which is located in the front of the book, though I’m not sure if I should consider it a gift or a bribe for reading the second volume of this One Fine Day. All my problems with book one were resolved in book two and I got to meet three adorable little characters who were previously hidden behind a mess of sketchy lines. I don’t expect great things from this series but anyone who does is crazy. One Fine Day is cute and that’s enough.

Review written June 13, 2010 by Marsha Reid
Book purchased at Anime North

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About the Author: Marsha Reid

Marsha Reid is a self-proclaimed manhwa nut – "It’s my not so guilty pleasure and my one true love." She has a group called Anime@ Large, which has become much like a full time job to go along with her full time job at a local theater. Marsha likes fluffy animals (even though she's allergic), manga/manhwa, anime, and make Lolita costumes in her spare time.