The Fall 2023 Manga Guide

Lonely Castle in the Mirror

What's It About? 

Kokoro is a junior high school student—but after years of bullying, she's become so anxious that she no longer goes to school. One day, she's pulled through her full-length mirror into a castle in another dimension by a girl in a wolf mask. The mysterious girl tells Kokoro and six other kids that they will compete in a scavenger hunt. If one of them finds a key that unlocks a secret room, that person will get one wish granted. As long as they observe the rules of the world, they can come and go as they please. The seven kids gradually grow closer as they explore the castle, but the scavenger hunt is never far from anyone's mind. After all, only one can win their heart's desire.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror has a story by Mizuki Tsujimura and art by Tomo Taketomi. The English translation is by Jacqueline Fung; the adaptation is by Rebecca Schneidereit with lettering and touch-up by Kaitlyn Wiley. Published by Seven Seas (November 21, 2023).

Content Warning: Depictions of childhood bullying

Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

Being unfamiliar with the original novel or recent anime film, I wasn't sure what to expect going into Lonely Castle in the Mirror. What unfolded before me was an "isekai" story of the distinctly old-school variety: One of the main characters (alongside several other people) traveling to another world not necessarily as an overall escape from the struggles of their life but as a presumable exercise to help them grow and face the problems that drove them there in the first place. The titular castle with its wolf-masked little guardian girl isn't an immediately inviting magical realm, populated as it is by hungry wolves wandering outside the windows and some obvious implications of ulterior motives towards its temporary tenants. But when our main girl Kokoro has also had to contend with human predators stalking outside her windows at home, the camaraderie of the other lost Little Red Riding Hoods in the castle must feel downright welcoming.

That's the push and pull that drives the edge and uncertainty of the situation in Lonely Castle in the Mirror just enough to not feel like purely establishing escapism in this first volume. Kokoro can find sanctuary in this place, but it's still something she has to make herself. An emphasis is placed on her having to take the first steps to reach out to the other kids in there, to submit herself to the mortifying ordeal of being known. Even then, interpersonal complications are communicated, as in the case of Ureshino's oppressing affections and the girls' differing approaches to rejecting him. Not everyone can get along perfectly, and we must manage our interactions with others. As the last chapter of this first volume lays out the true scope of torment that Kokoro had to deal with, it clarifies how any "safe" situation, even one seemingly magically manifested for you, can turn on the whims of those with more motivating malice.

It's all a provoking experiment within an old standby story framework, and it makes Lonely Castle in the Mirror an alternatingly melancholy, heartwarming, and gripping read. Some of it, particularly the vicious depictions of childhood bullying, might prove too much for some people. But even then, the story so well understands the arbitrary cruelty and the crushing inability to understand why it's happening to you that I can see many readers resonating and finding some catharsis in it. For all the flowery magical escape exercises, this is a raw book a lot of the time, and it's the sort of thing I'm already invested in seeing where it goes next. Or maybe I won't even bother waiting, and I'll fire up that movie.