REVIEW: Sorry for My Familiar (manga, vol. 1) by Tekka Yaguraba, translated by Andrew Cunningham

Sorry for My Familiar is fantasy comedy. It's licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment. I purchased my copy of volume 1.

Review:

Patty, a young devil girl, is too weak to summon a proper animal familiar, so she chooses a human named Norman instead. Norman is a daemon researcher who's absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to do field research in the devil world, so this arrangement works well for him. Unfortunately for Patty, Norman sometimes gets overexcited about all of these fascinating beings he encounters. He also has a somewhat creepy habit of wanting to intensely observe, sketch, and measure everything.

Patty's father is a deadbeat who recently left town in order to escape loan sharks. She's now on a quest to find him, which gives Norman lots of opportunities for research. In this volume, Norman enters a contest for familiars (lots of different familiars to observe, plus the possibility of winning free tickets for the devil world cross-continental railroad), and Norman and Patty attempt to cross the devil world desert.

I picked this up on a whim, because it was on sale and I vaguely recalled hearing good things about it. My first surprise was the Norman was the familiar - I had thought this was a series about a human and his adorable-but-useless little devil girl familiar. My second surprise was how quickly I came to love it. Norman initially looked like the solid and dependable bodyguard type, but he quickly revealed himself to be an enormous nerd who just wanted to watch everybody, take notes, and make sketches. I loved his enthusiasm for his work, even as familiars were literally trying to kill him - as far as he was concerned, everything was just another opportunity to observe and learn about daemons.

The artwork was nice and added to the humor. I loved Patty and Norman's expressions, and the familiars were generally interesting-looking. And although I have several 4-koma manga series I love, it was nice to read a comedy that wasn't 4-koma for once.

Patty and Norman make a great pair, and I look forward to reading more volumes in this series. Crossing my fingers that the characters' relationship actually evolves over time and that Yaguraba gradually works in found family elements - I could see that possibility in some of Patty and Norman's initial interactions.

Extras:

The first few pages are in color. Also, there are three 4-koma strips at the end featuring Patty, Norman, and a few of Patty's friends.