I picked up this softcover at Barnes and Noble. It takes the Marriage to a God trope and plays with it: here, the intended bride is a very young child, Asahi - who's somehow fallen into an alternate world from her modern-day-Japan backyard, and finds herself trapped there. She's welcomed by a young boy, Subaru, who takes her to his house, and his parents seem glad to see her - but it turns out that they're planning to use her as the next sacrifice to the water dragon, in place of their own daughter...

The cover-art on this book is all pastels-and-cuteness, which makes the scary bits of the story all the more shocking. The nasty smile on the face of Subaru's mother when she says she'll treat Asahi as her own daughter is chilling - but it only gets worse. We see Asahi being bound, weights tied to her feet, and thrown into the water... and even though we know she isn't going to die, the terror of a lost child in those circumstances comes through very clearly.

The Water God himself - the white-haired bishounen on the cover - is surprisingly bored by the appearance of yet another sacrifice; seems that the villagers' idea of what he wants doesn't match his own views at all. "They think a human could be the wife of a god? That is a strange thought indeed." But (surprise!) he decides he'll give it a try anyway, though he'll wait 'til she grows up. [Asahi has a wonderful scene when, having recovered a bit from her traumatic experiences, starts yelling at him for being such a perv as to want little girls as sacrifices.]

Meanwhile, Subaru, still furious at what his parents have done, resolves to get stronger and try to rescue - or at least avenge - Asahi...

The Water God has - well, not friends exactly; something between fellow gods and rivals, all of whom observe Asahi with interest. They add some humor, and one even intervenes to inform the Water God that poor Asahi is perishing for want of food (!).

When the Water God tires of Asahi's yelling, he takes her voice away, saying he'll give it back when she's his bride - hints of the Little Mermaid there. Another scary sequence, far from the adorable-tot-visits-magical-undersea-kingdom that I half-expected.

Meanwhile, Subaru goes diving into the lagoon to try and find Asahi - or what's left of her; she isn't there, but the previous sacrifices are, in a scene that's chilling and heart-wrenching. That Subaru is a champion!

The other gods have observed all this, and decide to bet on whether Subaru will rescue Asahi or she'll resign herself to becoming the Water God's bride - and, having taken an interest, they decide to tweak matters in favor of young Subaru, leading to another traumatic story-arc for Asahi.

There's a classic-fairy-tale feel to this story, with brutality and horror mixed with beauty and magic. At this point the deck is so clearly stacked in favor of Subaru as rescuer and (assuming the kids live to grow up) eventual love-interest that I'm wondering where it'll go; presumably the Water Dragon God will threaten Subaru to get Asahi to cooperate, and yet he does seem to be experiencing some new feelings of his own...

Good story so far!

I left this book in the Little Free Library on this warm day - hope the finder enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2017 I'll Drink To That release challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2017 June Brides release challenge. ***

I found this book at the free library at bensons park right after the person released it. We were just about to leave and I saw someone drop off a couple new books so I went to check it out and decided to take one of them and leave the other for someone else. The book itself was ok I haven't read a manga book in forever.

Left it in the little free library across from the Middle School in Milford, NH