Sora no Kakera (“Sky Shards”) by Fujimoto Yuuki

I have been a faithful reader of manga for years. As an immmature brat and novice in vast world of manga I started reading shoujo and I still stick to it till now. Though, to be honest, I occasionally betray this genre and wander in shounen or josei grounds hunting for something new, different, unique. As an impatient reader I hate long, draggy, seemingly never-ending series and rarely stick to it. But, of course, there are some exceptions. For this reason alone I LOVE oneshots or short series. But there is also another reason. Sometimes manga simply doesn’t need extension and serialization can unnecessary cause dropping of quality in plot, slow pace or bombing of clichés. So it’s not surprising my first review will be about 62-pages long oneshot.

Protagonists of this story are two ten years old boys, Nico and Jean. Both of them are orphans who grew up together in church.

Nico, with his rather gentle appearance and air around him, reminds me of an angel. He appears to be somehow clumsy and slow paced, easily distracted by other things. On the other hand, Jean is the one who is likely to “finish” given task on time and although he seems to be more tricksy of twosome, both of them bring great share of worry to Father who is taking care of them (let me tell you, this two are truly playful rascals(!) who dream of adventures and treasures).

What stood out throughout the story was not the plot. It was a friendship of these two boys who, despite being orphans, never felt lonely thanks to each other’s presence and are not affected by bullying from other kids.

One day they run into legendary winged person running away from humans, Ibis. Both of them decide to help this mysterious woman to get into her planned destination without harm and thus, start a dangerous journey. What will happen to these two on their very first adventure?

What I love the most about this story is the deep bound between Jean and Nico that wasn’t shattered by any means as well as the fact these boys obviously had 10 years old history behind them creating headaches for poor Father and some other mischiefs  

I feet like a lot of love was put into creating these two characters and I really felt with them. Thanks to this, reading Sora no Kakera left lasting impression in me and I shall rereading adventures of Jean and Nico again and again.

“Someday, let’s go on another journey and travel around the world. It´ll be fun no matter what if I’m with you.” (Sora no Kakera, page 57, translated by Kokoro no Oasis)

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My goal in writting this review was to make you curious about Sky Shards. So I tried to write it in a way that would make you click on link to read it since I love this story. What do you think? Did I archieve my purpose? If not, what should I change/add/remove next time? For those who read it, what’s your impression about it?

~~~By Karra