A review by emergencily
Seven Little Sons of the Dragon: A Collection of Seven Stories by Ryoko Kui

4.5

Ryoko Kui, your pen is absolutely unmatched. RYOKO KUI IM YOUR FAN!!!! YOUR FAN!!!!

A collection of 7 short fantasy stories from Ryoko Kui, author of Dungeon Meshi (my favourite manga series ever).She's great at conveying emotion and expressiveness, even when her character art leans towards the simpler side, and I think she really excels at making designs that are simple but still distinctive and meaningful. I was also impressed by the range and variation in her art style across the stories, especially in "Byakuroku the Penniless," where she mixed in traditional Japanese illustration styles. 

My favourite stories:

• "My God," about a Japanese middle schooler who befriends the small fish god of a mountain stream that's been plugged up to build apartment buildings. She takes the weakened fish god home, now the god of nothing at all, and cares for them lovingly inside her home aquarium as they slowly disappear. The story reminded me a lot of Natsume Yuujinchou, and I really liked how she wove in magic and spirituality as part of the everyday life of a child. For such a short story, it packed a punch with implied themes about the tensions between humanity, technology and modernity with nature and spirituality, but with a really beautiful optimism about finding a new way forward in harmony.
• "Wolves Don't Lie," a two part story about a mother whose son is born with Werewolf Syndrome (passed down genetically in the maternal line, in this world). I thought it was a really interesting look at living with a disability with a supernatural and fantasy twist, and I liked that it dealt with both the mom's perspective of trying her best to learn how to care for and support her son, and the son's own feelings on living with a stigmatized and sometimes debilitating condition as he grows and tries to find a place in the adult world. 
• "Byakurou the Penniless," taking place in Ye Olden Japan, about a painter so talented that he could make his paintings leap off the scroll and come to life. To prevent his painting from running off the pages, he always ensures to leave one eye unfilled. Betrayed by his apprentice and estranged from his son, he falls on hard times and brings a counterfeit copy of one of his works to life to help him journey to visit his old masterpieces of fantastical tigers, lions and dragons, bring them to life, and sell them for a buck. It was a really touching story about familial reunion and the personal, emotional meaning of art versus its productive value.
• "The Inutanis," a humorous story about a family where each person has different supernatural powers such as pyrokinesis, teleportation, dimension shifting, invisibility...and the ability to turn clothes into pajamas at will. It ends up being a hilarious parody of detective stories as they use their powers to try to evade a detective convinced there's been a murder at their home, but keep getting themselves into hotter water. Made me laugh out loud more than a few times. Ryoko Kui is seriously underrated for how funny she is.

All in all, I was impressed with the collection and the range of tones, settings and themes she packed in here. I also thought her use of fantasy elements to make commentary on things like inequality, disability, and gender were really interesting.