Soara and the House of Monsters 01 Manga Review
Soara to Mamono no Ie 01
ソアラと魔物の家

As is the norm for me, I came upon Soara and the House of Monsters via Twitter/X. The story I saw is in a future volume, but it spoke to me across the language divide. As such, when I saw Seven Seas had licensed the title, I decided to check it out in official English.

Additional: This post has been edited from the original. For reason’s I can’t explain (I suspect Microsoft rebooting my PC combined with my not saving the work after a certain point), it published without my full review. So I had to try to remember the points I made originally and recreate them.

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 01 from Amazon.com!

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

The Story, in Brief

An orphaned girl named Soara, who trained and studied hard for years, gets denied the role of Monster Hunter since the war between monsters and humans is over. She packs up and leaves, wondering what to do. On her journey, she encounters a trio of “dwarves” talking with a group of goblins outside their lair. She observes the dwarves build a new home for the goblins. Eventually she gets discovered, but events prevent her from attacking them.

After inadvertently helping the dwarves, they insist the goblins thank the human for her assistance. The leader of the dwarves, Kirik, has a chat with Soara. He figures she’s homeless, and since she’s useful, he offers to let her tag along with them. Their goal is to make monsters happy.

As they travel, they build new homes for griffins. Then giant worms attack, leading Soara to fight since dwarves aren’t fighters. Eventually they come upon a slime, who’s home in the bones of a giant monster has deteriorated. They build the slime a home, where the dwarves find their respect for Soara grow. The slime gives Soara a jar, which contains a small slime who joins the party.

The dwarves get request deliveries for more house jobs. However, they also get summoned to see the Demon Lord. Reluctantly, they set off to see him. On the journey, they encounter a mermaid and thunder wolf-man, who are married. Due to their differences, they really cannot be together. As such, the dwarves decide to build them a new home.

All About Prejudice

One of the appeals of Soara and the House of Monsters 01 is that it isn’t a traditional fantasy story. I appreciate that many Japanese manga-ka and writers try to look for some angle to give a unique spin on a genre. (If they succeed, it results in a ton of copycats, some good, some not.) In this case, the unique angle is the orphaned Soara and her understandable prejudice towards the monster races, who attempted to wipe out humanity of years.

Thanks to her dwarf companions, Soara gets to experience life for various monster groups, starting with goblins. With each monster encounter where the dwarves build new homes for said monster(s), Soara begins to question things she’s been taught. Not only does that include her prejudice toward monsters, but the concept of home as well. She’s never had a proper home, so the idea of one is alien to her.

As to Soara’s three “dwarf” companions, they too don’t follow the traditional dwarf trope. Kirik is the smallest of the three, practically child sized. Niko looks like he could pass for a 12 year old human. And Gansho comes across as a mini-giant, though Soara is slightly taller than him. I like that these dwarves acknowledge the wrongs they caused humans. Further, they understand Soara’s prejudice.

Despite this, they still want her as part of their group. To be honest, I rather liked this aspect, more so because in today’s world, it seems that there is no finding common ground. Disagree on one point and you should be cast into the fires of hell!

Girl Boss

Soara runs the risk of being an overpowered girl boss character in Soara and the House of Monsters 01. Yamaji-sensei attempts to mitigate this in his depictions of Soara. We don’t know the circumstances that made her an orphan. Presumably, it was monsters. She was constantly berated as a young child and forced to train and study hard. Add to this the fantasy setting and the fact that Soara is a likable character. As a result, she doesn’t give off the girl boss negative vibes.

Nevertheless, she is a girl boss. I mean, her sword attack caused a volcano to erupt for crying out loud. However, I tend to view her in the same way I view Erza from the Fairy Tail franchise. In that regard, I’m okay with Soara as a character and look forward to her journey.

Omake

There are limited extras in Soara and the House of Monsters 01. We get a couple of pages of rough sketches diagramming the houses portrayed in the volume as well as some words from Sensei. (As an aside, I will say that these were preliminary sketches for the actual diagrams used in the manga itself.)

Following this is a preview page of sorts for volume 2. After that are ads for other Seven Seas works.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Soara and the House of Monsters 01 is not your typical fantasy fare. Instead, it is a story of an orphaned girl turned monster hunter with no war to fight. Add to this a fun, “Let’s build a monster house” element combined with pleasant art and we have a little gem here.