Took a while for me to get hooked, story and art wise, but once it was rolling it was amazing.

(Read 1 volume)

It can't even get to its own premise in a natural flowing fashion. It conveniently provides the Tanuki with information they shouldn't know since it's a rip-off of an actual story in a setting where it shouldn't work. As such Tanukis are given human information and human assumptions (emotions) they would never come up with on their own if they've never seen humans before. Not a good children's manga.

Not even 5 chapters in I started to cry. It is such a great manga! I cried at the most heart warming parts and it was just wonderful! This became one of my top favourite manga.

Being a wildlife and nature lover as far as I can remember, I have to say that this manga has been the most fun and enjoyable playground I ever had the pleasure to immerse myself. And I can also assure those reading that you don't need to be a complete nature and wildlife nuts to thoroughly enjoy this wonderful work as well.

Although I don't remember many other series in this medium that tried the "raised by wolves/nature" trope present in classics such as Tarzan and the Jungle Book, Doubutsu No Kuni's execution of it is up to par. The main plot and its premises are very simple, yet as stated it is the overall execution and how well all the details and questions were handled that made all the ride both extremely enjoyable and compelling. During the story, some hard questions and issues that add interesting layers of complexity are raised, to be eventually dealt with and be satisfactorily resolved.

Needless to say, the art is fantastic overall and breathtaking at times. It has some of the most packed and fabulous double page spreads you could ever wish to find. Being the author from the well known Konjiki no Gash series, Raiku-sensei's art-style is very enjoyable and gives a life of its own to all the animals and characters drawn. Some animals and characters are very stylized, being drawn with peculiar clothes and sometimes taking anthropomorphic stances and features, which adds to the uniqueness and identity of some individuals.

Fights may look simplistic at the start but as the series progresses, and specially in the later volumes, power ups that feel fitting to the series universe and its developments will appear. Also adhering to the shonen genre where it belongs, things do scale impressively towards the end.

This is a story where I found myself quite often reading it with a big smile on my face, but sometimes it would also make me feel teary eyed due to some of the developments. It's certainly a work with its spectrum of emotions to be felt. It's a great story and even if the message the author tries to deliver may look inherently childish, we can't deny how sympathizing it is at its root.

Doubutsu no Kuni is a series that deserves all the praise it has gotten, and plenty more.

I was in the library and was searching for some good manga to read. I picked up this book out of curiosity and saw the cover for the first volume. It looked pretty cute so I started reading it, thinking that the whole series would be just cute, funny and pointless. It got more serious and interesting a little bit in and I got hooked. I just finished the book and cried silently with snot and tears everywhere. It was extremely intense and depressing, funny and cheerful at times. It was more violent, depressing, and intense than I ever thought possible when I picked up this book. It deserves all ten points and more.

... Last updated on November 29th, 2014, 12:42am

This is one of the best series ever. It's such a pity that it's so underrated though.

The plot and characters easily beat down Naruto and (Sad to say) One Piece.
You just feel so much for the characters, and maybe because I really love animals this series meant so much to me.

But then again it highlights the issue of human and technology as well as how humans drove many many animals/plants to extinction and makes us reflect on it. This is one of my favorite topic since years ago, too. So I really like how the manga touches on this topic.

All in all, it's a masterpiece that replaced the number 1 seat of Hunter x Hunter in my heart, and I have to say that's a feat because I've always thought that Hunter x Hunter was the most interesting shounen manga out there since I was a teen, and I've grew out of that stage, too.

If you ask me, Raiku Makoto made another masterpiece that's even better than his previous work, Gash Bell.

... Last updated on August 20th, 2014, 10:02pm

Question, so anyone knows why a manga that was SUPPOSED to be rated a 4.0 is so good? I have no idea. Granted I'm only on my first chapter (I think it's a oneshot though), but I can see that art isn't bad enough to be rated 4.0. That picture does it NO justice.

I read it out of curiosity since I've never seen a manga that has such bad art (from cover), and on some pointless animals (well... manga's animals are generally so right?), got rated so high. I'm glad I tried. We'll see how it goes, but so far, it's not the best manga around that's for sure. But it was much higher than my expectations (which were next to nothing).

... Last updated on December 28th, 2013, 4:38pm

The story is heart wrenching, at least in my eyes. Doubutsu no Kuni goes from a "tarzan story" to a story about a boy who is trying to change the world. The story really picks up after a few volumes. I would also just like to thank Hi Wa Mata Noboru for releasing their scans in a huge bundle after the 3 year wait. Seriously, thank you!

why hasn't anyone thought that scanlators and the translators from mangahelpers should get together and tackle this freaking good manga because apparently Japan is already on its 12th volume and I'm stuck on chapter 7...from the first two volumes..not three or four but. The first two. I think we all see the problem with this picture

Well it took me about 2 hours to read the entire manga...He hasn't gotten that far into it. And it has a Tarzan feel to it, except the baby can talk to Any animal...so one more step up from Tarzan I suppose. The bummer is that when I looked at the cover I seen a girl that looked like a mamodo with the lines going down her face and she was holding a orange book with symbols on it...So of course I thought "YES he made another story like Zatch Bell!" I read it...It has a totally different feel then Zatch Bell...well except for the beginning, the two pretty similar sort of in the beginning.