Read The Great Snake's Bride (spoiler free)
Confession: the gleeful tweets about snake sex made me start this series. I stayed for the charm.
Don’t let the winking and nudging and giggling from us adult children fool you. The Great Snake’s Bride by Fushiashikumo is a brilliantly crafted story about family, trauma, healing, and how to find kinship in unlikely places. Alongside these themes is a salient commentary on womanhood and misogyny, which is expected from a gothic tale, and this manga is a fitting contribution to the genre.
Miyo lives an uncomfortable life in an isolated village that worships the lord of the mountain – a giant snake to which the villagers provide sacrifices in the hopes that their harvests will be plentiful. She works hard for her mother, who suffers from a depression so severe it has made her near catatonic, and her younger brother. Her father is dead, disgraced by a previous transgression, and the stain of his crime lingers beside every hushed conversation and wary expression in the village. Due to the disdain meted against her family, Miyo is unanimously voted to be the next sacrifice to the lord of the mountain. Usually, natural produce would suffice, but the severity of the year’s poor harvest requires a human this time. And just as Miyo has shouldered the burdens of her family, she now bears the needs of the entire village. Of course, the mayor and his allies aim for Miyo’s death – no one, including Miyo herself, expected the elusive, giant snake to actually be a soft-hearted, humorous, and lonely creature, relieved to finally have a companion.
The couple’s daily life is hilariously awkward in the beginning, and Miyo understandably battles with her sense of fear and revulsion, but after realising Daija-sama means her no harm, they form a soft alliance which slowly grows into friendship, and then love. During her days of loneliness and isolation, the crude, wisecracking tanuki Hachibe – who also lives on the mountain - provides sarcastic commentary to Miyo’s existential ramblings. With her newfound marriage proving to be a release from her old life in the village, Miyo grows in confidence. It’s satisfying to see her reclaim her own power, and when she confronts the villagers a while later during a trip to visit her family – alive and well – it’s impossible not to relish the stunned reactions from the villagers who once hated her. Now, she’s the most powerful woman they know.
Beneath the soft, slice-of-life storytelling style is a darker narrative surrounding Daija’s violent tendencies, his worrisome past with a young monk on a quest for revenge, and Miyo’s own unravelling as she transforms into something less than human. There are some deeply disturbing sequences and moments of genuine horror throughout the story, and Miyo isn’t the only villager who contends with a growing sense of inhumanity. There are times when the villagers’ actions make you question who is the real monster? And as the story intensifies, these questions increase with deepening severity.
As this story is still ongoing, I wouldn’t want to spoil what happens at the end of the first volume. But I can confirm we do get snake sex, and quite a lot of it. No complaints from me.
I can’t recommend this manga enough.
10/10