Soara and the House of Monsters 03 Manga Review
Soara to Mamono no Ie 03
ソアラと魔物の家

NOTICE!!! In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I am the adapter for the official English translation of the True Tenchi Muyo! novels, which are also published by Seven Seas.

–> Buy Soara and the House of Monsters 03 from Amazon.com!

* * * S P O I L E R S * * *

The Story, in Brief

The dwarves and Soara set out on their quest to find Kirik’s former master, Kahyo. After getting lost in the woods, the group encounters a rundown restaurant/canteen run by Cat-Sith (giant cats). What they learn is that their customers end up causing a ton of damage due to the smallness of the establishment. The Cat-Sith feed Soara and the dwarves, so the dwarves decide to improve the restaurant.

First is creating 30,000 monster bricks to reduce the fire risks for the new kitchen. Seating is put on the giant, multi-story mushrooms around the kitchen. This allows the Cat-Sith to use their leaping abilities to quickly bring food to people. Soara decides she wants to learn to cook. The Cat-Sith teach her to cook. As such, she secretly makes breakfast for the dwarves one morning. It looks nasty and tastes worse, but the dwarves pretend it is good.

Continuing their journey, they encounter a wandering, giant golem. A little later, they discover a group of Korpokkur (tiny, gnome-like beings) getting attacked in their tree house from large, night owls. Soara drives them off, so the Korpokkur elder invites them in. A young tribe-woman named Koruru that Kahyo-sama not only built the tree houses the tribe live in, but also made them clothing.

Koruru notices Soara staring at a small statue of a golem. She says it is Gou-chan (Goh), whom she found when it was small. Gou-chan stayed with them, but eventually grew so large, they had to make the hard decision to part company. She wants them to build a home for Gou-chan. As such, Kirik and the others find the golem. After talking with him, they turn his insides into the new home for the Korpokkur. In return, the Korpokkur plant seeds on the golem that grow, helping to preserve it.

No sooner than Soara and party leave the Korpokkur, they are attacked by the entity that came for the goblins.

The Korpokkur Got Me!

As I mentioned in my review of volume 1, someone reposting a thread from Yamaji-sensei on X is what got me hooked into this manga series. The thread contained certain pages from chapters 17 and 18 in Soara and the House of Monsters 03. The one Koruru gets most of the lines and is so adorable. (Well, they all are.)

Even though I could only get bits and pieces from the original Japanese, the art and what I could get from the story reached across the language divide. As such, even though I hate that Seven Seas removed the Japanese honorifics (everyone pretty much acts like Japanese people), I had to support the manga. (It seems to otherwise be translated okay from the spot checks I’ve done against the Japanese.)

Since we are talking about the Korpokkur, I love their 2-chapter story so much. It is a shame that they can’t properly communicate with Gou-chan, but at least now, the giant golem can be with the Korpokkur. And the Korpokkur can be protected from the larger monsters that would eat them due to their small size. I love it!

Giant Cats

The first four chapters in Soara and the House of Monsters 03 dealt with the giant cats known as Cat-Sith. The story is fine for what it is, though it doesn’t hit me the way the Korpokkur story did. The amusing part is how Soara got bribed to wear the maid-waitress outfit with the promise to fluff the giant cats. Then she got her reward and went to cat heaven. 😂

The aftermath story is insanely cliched. It would have been nice for Soara’s training with the Cat-Sith to actually have paid off. Oh well. The point is to show how Soara is bonding with the dwarves, which is cool. She continues to grow as a character. That continues in the Korpokkur story with the concept of family, something she’s been denied.

Omake

There’s not a lot of extras in Soara and the House of Monsters 03. We get a page where all of the Cat-Sith get named. The next page names the Korpokkur characters. Following that is a page advertising the next volume. Then there are two pages showing the black-and-white artwork for both covers.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Soara and the House of Monsters 03 is a fun volume. The end has the monster that tracked them show up. So things are getting real with what seems to be the first, legitimate foe for them to face.