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Serf’s Weekly Manga Recommendations Week 4:

Hakumei & Mikochi: Tiny Little Life in the Woods

“Nine centimeters (3.5 inches) tall, the tiny girls Hakumei and Mikochi live in the forest.
Living in a house in a tree, riding insects and birds, and making umbrellas out of leaves, they live a happy and comfortable life. Follow their tiny but lovely lives as they live their day to day in a fantastic world of inchlings, animals, and strange happenings.”

Hakumei and Mikochi is the quintessential cottagecore manga. If you have any romantic notions of town and rural life of yesteryear then this will scratch an itch you might not have even known you had.

In addition to chapters of character focused vignettes with the main girls or the rich cast of side characters there are many chapters of detailed day to day tasks like carpentry, masonry, roof repair, food preservation, preparation, and cooking (the tomboy Hakumei does more of the trade work, her roommate Mikochi does more of the housework), some of which are processes that are recreated perfectly from real historical processes, some, especially the cooking, are a fascinating mix of doing tasks like we would in our world and how it would be to make meals when you are 3 inches tall and a blueberry is to you the size of a watermelon to us. All of this combined with the outstandingly detailed art makes for one of the most richly detailed and believably lived-in fictional worlds I’ve ever seen, not to mention just about the comfiest.

Give this one a read if you need some relaxation or healing. Or give it to your wife gf (if applicable) if you want to get her into manga, girls love cottagecore after all. There’s a passably good anime adaptation that I’m willing to half-heartedly recommend for getting some of the same experience but you’ll be missing out on the truly stunning art of the original manga.

mangadex.org/title/a71e9594-6269-447f-99fa-3d4c8e1fff6f/hakumei-to-mikochi

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