Doubutsu no Kuni - Animal Country

[sumowow]

"Welcome to the world of Animal Country. In this world, there exists thousands of animals except for 1; man. That is, until a strange baby was found by the young raccoon Monoko. Now, she has made it her duty to be the child's mother in this world where the strong eat and the weak are eaten!"

"The new series by the genius behind Zatch Bell!"

Think of this as a japanese version of tarzan, except instead of gorillas raising the kid its raccoons instead. The art style is very good and I believe the story to be good so far, but I cant really say anything else unless I see more. I am liking it so far though.

There's currently two chapters out right now but 1 of them is more of an introduction to one of the characters. Chapter 0 is about a black lynx who's name differs for each area he's in. Chapter 1 is the actual story and is the only one that seems to be out and translated so far.

[Kunagisa]

Chapter 4 just came out a couple days ago, but I must agree this is a fun read. The tanuki is hilarious.

Spoiler for somewhat major spoiler:

The kid knows all animal languages, which might turn out pretty epic considering he has the whole kingdom to play with.

I highly suggests reading chapter 0, otherwise you won't really understand why the Black Lynx is the way he is.

[sumowow]

Originally Posted by stuopidget

Chapter 4 just came out a couple days ago, but I must agree this is a fun read. The tanuki is hilarious.

Spoiler for somewhat major spoiler:

The kid knows all animal languages, which might turn out pretty epic considering he has the whole kingdom to play with.

I highly suggests reading chapter 0, otherwise you won't really understand why the Black Lynx is the way he is.

Well i figured it was something like that with the baby

Spoiler:

considering he talked to the bird in the first chapter but you cant really go by that

I really hope they take this nice and slow, it could turn out to be a great adventure if they plan it right. I also hope that they don't just show a time-skip to adulthood or anything like that.

[Kunagisa]

Originally Posted by sumowow

Well i figured it was something like that with the baby

Spoiler:

considering he talked to the bird in the first chapter but you cant really go by that

I really hope they take this nice and slow, it could turn out to be a great adventure if they plan it right. I also hope that they don't just show a time-skip to adulthood or anything like that.

Time skip would be horrible, baby's fine as a baby (lol), anything more than 15 would make me =( as well.

[sumowow]

Originally Posted by stuopidget

Time skip would be horrible, baby's fine as a baby (lol), anything more than 15 would make me =( as well.

Yes, lets hope that the baby stays like that for a while and learns many things from all animals. Im actually looking forward to him learning how to defend himself from the bigger and badder animals. I wonder what his first lesson would be? It's probably going to be the raccoons but im hoping for the monkeys (if there are any) to teach him something.

So from what you've seen in the further chapters does anything interesting happen?

Spoiler:

Besides the ability to talk to other animals

Im looking forward to reading the rest of them when they're out but it seems the translation group has a lot of projects that need to be finished before they start releasing at a regular rate.

[Kunagisa]

Originally Posted by sumowow

So from what you've seen in the further chapters does anything interesting happen?

Im looking forward to reading the rest of them when they're out but it seems the translation group has a lot of projects that need to be finished before they start releasing at a regular rate.

Spoiler for Chapter 4:

The wolves started showing up. Half the chapter is actually told from the wolves' perspective instead of the tanuki's. What is also interesting is that even though the wolf is supposed to be the enemy, but in the end, the little wolf said, "Daddy, even though you lost today (the tanuki made a huge ass snow bear and forced the wolf to retreat), but ... but ..., I still like daddy a lot." This made me feel like the wolf isn't such a bad guy =( despite trying to use the baby as a bait to eat the whole tanuki village.

[sumowow]

Originally Posted by stuopidget

Spoiler for Chapter 4:

The wolves started showing up. Half the chapter is actually told from the wolves' perspective instead of the tanuki's. What is also interesting is that even though the wolf is supposed to be the enemy, but in the end, the little wolf said, "Daddy, even though you lost today (the tanuki made a huge ass snow bear and forced the wolf to retreat), but ... but ..., I still like daddy a lot." This made me feel like the wolf isn't such a bad guy =( despite trying to use the baby as a bait to eat the whole tanuki village.

Wow all of that sounds pretty interesting.

Spoiler:

Im also pretty surprised that instead of keeping to one perspective of the animals we get to see the other perspectives as well.

If this is the way things are going to keep moving along then i have high hopes for this manga.

[Kunagisa]

Oh my, chapter 5's end was really touching like chapter 2 =(. I love this manga more and more.

Spoiler for Chapter 5:

A real bear showed up and killed the entire wolf family, but the papa wolf convinced the kid to take care of the wolf up before he passed away.

Too bad nobody seem to be reading this =(. There are two epic double-pagers in this chapter too.

[DiogaShin01]

Where are you reading the chapters? I don't even know where to find the raws and the scanlations are only to chapter 1
I wanna keep reading this

[sumowow]

The second chapter was just finished being translated and it seems that it's one that involves the black lynx Kurokagi. I really liked this chapter, especially when you find out why Kurokagi is the way he is and that he's waiting for something to "change" in the world.

[Travisaw]

Chapter 0 was interesting, Chapter 1 was okay, Chapter 2 got me hooked.
I'm looking forward to the scanlations.

~Travis

[marvelB]

I'm bumping this thread since I've been reading this series for the last few days (translations for volumes 3-12 were released last week in one huge batch). And holy crap, am I addicted! Right now I'm in the middle of reading volume 10, and I just can't put it down! The series' awesomeness factor really shoots up about a hundredfold by volume 8 when a...... certain event triggers a significant change in Tarouza. It's truly a blast from that point onward.


Anyway, I'll post some more impressions when I finish volume 12, but I'll just say that I VERY MUCH recommend this series to any Makoto Raiku fans (Gash Bell anyone?) or anyone who likes seeing cute, goofy-looking animals being badass.