I took a sleep but I’m back!
I read the first five chapters, so if this has been fixed up in more recent chapters I apologize. I feel bad critiquing comics because my feedback is less actionable than with novels
From the description I thought this would just be a “I’m remembering my past life and now I’m struggling to keep my interpersonal relationships normal!” story but I was pleasantly surprised to see some supernatural high stakes. The character designs are very cute, and I especially like the goddess forms. The foreign script used for signs and other text is a nice touch. Dialogue feels natural. The different shading for sunset/night/rain is also a good touch. My main issues are the pacing of the first two chapters and Akina’s characterization in them.
The end on Chapter 1 feels very abrupt. We don’t get to see the fight, so it feels like a side detail. You introduce the “Find Tamani” goal but we don’t get the payoff. It feels more like a commercial break, rather than a chapter break? Combining chapters 1 and 2 would make it feel like something is achieved in chapter 1, or extending the part with the shadows. Up the danger! Give us a scared Akina face in the darkness, or the no-eye-shine dull look if the darkness is sapping her energy.
At the beginning, Akina feels just like an audience avatar. Some more opinions at the beginning could help – she doesn’t get to talk to anyone else until Chapter 2, and then she’s just very distracted. We never got to see how she acts normally. More things like “I can’t believe I’m moving into my dream school!” or “Finally, I won’t have my Dad nagging me every five minutes,” would set up Akina as a character that exists before the audience starts watching.
And specific notes:
Pages with text that was too tiny and I had to manually zoom in to read: 1.11, 2.6 ( as bad as the other times), 2.7, 2.10, 2.12.
1.10 – I didn’t understand the “map” panel and read it as a storefront the first two times I looked at it.
1.11 a little blue magic on the last panel would help this blend better with 1.12. It feels like we skipped a panel.
The way Akina doesn’t notice the first darkness tendril but then comments that she’s been seeing them often feels a little inconsistent. At first, it looks like she can’t perceive them like everyone else. Dialogue indicating she’s in denial might help here – something like “No! I thought I left you back home!” if she had been seeing them before moving to college (which I assume, as this is day 1 on campus and she says she’s been seeing them in the past). You do this well with 3.2.
2.1 – This is the only time I read panels in the wrong order, going vertically down from the “Really?!” Which may just be a me-problem because I’m not sure why I did? Maybe a bubble tail connecting the “Really?!“ to Tamani would make it clearer who’s speaking?
2.2 Tamani says “Same here, but stress out too much.” which I hope should be “Don’t stress out too much.” Otherwise, Tamani, why are you being mean Typical rabbit activity…
The two pages of Akina going to class early slows down the narrative compared to the rest of the chapter. May a row of panels to show she’s falling asleep while waiting, rather than a whole page? It’s a lot of page real estate for very little happening.
I found purple-yellow girl saying “DROP THIS CLASS” very relatable because an upperclassman I knew in high school did that to me my first week. But I never dropped the program out of spite >:3 RIP to your GPA but I’m different.
2.16 – “They’ve been done away with that rule” is very awkward phrasing. Should be “They’ve done away with that rule”
2.17 – I really like how you show the way normal people can’t perceive what’s happening with this conversation.
3.22- No idea what the second to last panel is supposed to be showing. What’s special about a tear in the comforter?
4.2 – “I don’t think I’m supposed to be human” looks like a flashback but we didn’t see it in 3? When was she looking a mirror? How does she know she looked human? Also this makes me want to know why these kemonomimi people know what humans are, so I hope that comes up in future chapters.
4.15-4.16 – feels like we’re missing part here. Way too fast compared to the rest of the comic. Show Tamani telling Akina she’s a goddess! That’s a really big moment for her!
4.17 – The Earth connection here is really confusing. It seems from the second panel that they were only reborn once, but this is clearly the second time for Tamani. I really like that there's a reason why everyone has animal tails and ears - it's another world! Normal human
5.10 – While we can get a little bit about Isalia from context clues, I’d prefer if there was some more background. A map in a scene in an earlier chapter, or a geography review Akina sleeps through in like, primary school social studies. Alternatively, will this location name be important? You could just have Tamani say “Why’d I have to be stuck so far north/south (depending on hemisphere).” It’s the first time something like this has come up, so as a reader my thought was “Wait, am I supposed to know what this means?”
@Pony_wearing_a_hat - You're up next!