Excellent production quality, but a slightly awkward premise that maybe could have benefited from stronger world building. There's some challenging and well developed ideas the author's working through, and I appreciated how she consistently subverted expectations. There were multiple points where I was sure she was headed towards a stereotype or trope and then she pivoted. However, the setting and premise to me read more like a fan homage to anime/manga/light novels than an immersive fantasy experience and it kept pulling me up out of the story. I could see how fleshing out an unfamiliar set of legends as well as the Japanese contemporary culture and environment could be a tall order while still keeping the plot moving, and not sure if the author had actually been to the locations she wrote about or just knew them from media, but it felt a bit too distant. Generally a solid read otherwise.
