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I can't tell if this is a picture of me cracking my knuckles ready to smash or being really pleased by something truly smashing, and I love it either way.
At its current standing the story has 18 chapters, but judging from the pacing and a hint of another major character entering the scene that hasn't even shown up yet, it sounds like the story will be able to reach 50 or more. I read everything that was available, and this review will reflect what is available right now with the understanding there is more to come.
TLDR; A germaphobe in the 1700s grows up a bit.
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Main Character - Semi-Smashing! - The girl, Cerise, is a fourteen year old who is scared of everything. She is pretty stupid, especially for someone her age, which is impressive, but this is in a cute, sheltered, naïve way and is understood easily enough by the fact that she is extremely sheltered and has mental problems. She can use two brain-cells when necessary, and though she still makes mistakes, they are very easily understood mistakes anyone would make. Normally stupid characters annoy me, but this felt like a cross between Forrest Gump and Adrian Monk, in that she is a bit dumb and simple, but also extremely detail oriented and discerning in other matters. So a label can't just be slapped on her, especially as clearly being sheltered and mental has an effect on it. The thing that truly makes it work for me is that the story doesn't baby her, but takes the matter seriously enough to question if her mental problem is due to being sheltered or if she is sheltered because she is mental, and demands some self-responsibility from her as well as those who have allowed her to reach this stage. This combination tells me there will be growth and conflict in the future, as the side characters are doctors trying to help, as they have to figure out how much of it is actual mental conditions that cannot be 'cured' and how much of it is just trauma or sheltering that can be healed. She is also right on the perfect middle ground between cute and tragic as she skips over cracks like any kid but you know she isn't doing it to be silly.
Overall I quite liked her. Her phobia leads very well to an exploration of the world we recognize from fresh eyes, it makes the world look bleak and dark and infested and traumatic, and it allows an attention to detail most stories outside of detective novels just really don't need to have. The given atmosphere has importance because it gives a contradiction of how we see the world against how she does, thereby also solidifying the reality that she has serious mental problems. And more importantly, and most impressively, it does this entirely by showing it. We see she has problems and the only time we are told she has problems is when the doctor is like "yeah something aint right here." I think this combination of character and world and traits work so well because by showing it in the world through her eyes it tells us what we need to know by that contradiction. You see the world through a child, a sick one.
