This one-shot manga with a kendo reference was a nice heartwarming read
I recently read Kanna and Her Ghost Guardian and it was such a cute one-shot story about a girl, Kanna, who can see spirits that others can’t. A 62-page short story with a nice twist at the end.
I’ll be talking about the story from here on and won’t be wrapping it around a collapsed section block, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, read it first! 😄
Initially the story reminded me of how Mieruko-chan goes, but now it seems like people around her know that she “sees” things that other’s can’t, and she’s getting bullied because of it.
The dude—Sota Miyazono—initially felt like he was a spirit that has been there since forever, and was just gonna be watching over Kanna like how those pseudo-brother-sister bonds form. But as the story progressed, when it was revealed that he was in a coma after an accident from kendo, I got surprised.
I was happy to see a kendo reference too, since I recently also started learning kendo (just finished the orientation yesterday! I even won a shinai from the games held during the Welcoming Dinner organized by the Metro Kendo Club 😆)
I also found this comment really funny:
because omg… I haven’t read or watched Mieruko-chan after a long while (kinda dropped it after the teacher started becoming more of a character) but that was something I was sometimes annoyed with the character, how Mieruko didn’t think to ask anyone for help 🙈 then again, people might think she’s crazy, plus that’s kinda her whole thing, so I guess it tracks… but yeah. Maybe if she had more guts like Kanna did, or maybe if she learned kendo, she would be a different person altogether 😆
Going back to the one-shot, I was initially afraid Sota was dead and was moving on to the afterlife because he was slowly disappearing… and then Kanna’s mom goes to the rescue by knowing about the other people in her neighborhood! Let’s go Kanna’s mom 😁
Knowing he was in a coma instead gave me hope, but also as we see Kanna’s POV, there was some spirit siphoning Sota’s life force away slowly… and then she goes full MEN!!!1 on the spirit (that some comments on the manga are calling a dream eater, so I shall refer to it as such now) with Sota’s shinai that’s just resting on the side, I loved it 😆 Of course Kanna’s mom got angry at her because if you don’t see the dream eater ghost, you’ll just see a child suddenly wielding a bamboo sword out of nowhere, maybe almost hitting the patient :))
Eventually it’s shown that Kanna continued kendo, and eventually Sota shows up at the last minute to help Kanna fend off a ghost that was gonna pester her more. Seems like it’s implied that because of the accident and him being in a coma, he might be able to see the same spirits Kanna can see. They exchange some banter and Sota goes big-bro mode on Kanna, and they formally exchange greetings since they’re meeting in person for the first time.
It’s nice to see a kendo reference during a time when I’m only now just learning more about kendo 😁
Okay, that’s all. I just wanted to share that bit of news in the form of a post and also share this one-shot somewhere else aside from just making a new entry in my Manga list 😄
Footnotes
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I learned this yesterday, in kendo you have to shout out your actions as a way to harness your ki—your spirit when you hit your opponent. “Men” in this case is when you’re hitting the head of the opponent with both your arms raised and then thrown down to a swing. ↩