Fairytales play a significant role in human society. They stand in as simplistic moral education, tales of punishment and reward. They are also expressions of psychological and philosophical experimentation. Fairytales don't just create worlds for us to experience; they question those worlds. Why do good and smart children have abusive parents, or no parents at all? How does one understand a world in which magic is power and can lead to reward or punishment? Why, in this case, is a goddess punished because humans started a war over her identity?

Whatever the reasons are, the Goddess Solange finds herself living as Lainey, a human among humans. She shares a home with Daria, a talented but skittish singer at a local inn. Lainey is not trying to do goddess things; in fact, when she finds herself able to heal a small injury, she's surprised and pleased that she can do that much. Instead, she is approaching her punishment sincerely, really trying to help the people around her. However, when Lainey ends up feeding the King's brother, she accidentally opens up a can of worms. Once the delicate King of the North learns there is food he can eat outside the castle, he wants desperately to try it. And so, in disguise, he and one of his loyal retainers meet a goddess, although they don't realize it.

Which brings me to a point. I love food manga and comics, and I love Japanese food, too. But no one loves Japanese food as much as Japanese comic artists. The detail in which artists explain how to make and eat a bento, the art that so carefully depicts, say, a rolled omelet, is painful and exquisite. The town is bare, streets and buildings are simple, to say the least, but bento boxes? They get narration.

The art, which I call simple, deserves a mention. This isn't the stark penwork of Takako Shimura, but this art is both simplistic and unadorned. Screentones are used broadly, and there is little realism in the art. If it weren't so suited to the story, I'd consider saying it's unpracticed, but every once in a while the art does something meaningful, and I think maybe the artist knows what they are doing, but isn't quite up to doing it, yet.

This comic is deeply bound by the idea of stories. Fairytales, cautionary tales, and expository tales all wrap around the characters to not just explain their pasts, but inform their present. Everyone,—King, Goddess, or a mere singer-songwriter who does not people well is entangled in their own stories, which begin to wind their way into each other's lives. Where it all will go is unknown. What will motivate that going is likewise unknowable until it happens, but only a few chapters in, we can see that these people are meant to have met. How else can it work for a goddess, even one who merely makes lunch? We learn a key fact that if a god is forgotten, their story no longer told, they disappear from the world. When Solange asks after the deity of the South, she learns that the South no longer has gods, and her friend no longer exists.

The story offers no foreshadowings, no prophecies. We're not privy to royal councils or diplomatic discussions. We have no idea what is to come. And that is the final character in this story. Lainey talks often about the “gaps.” Monsters grow from the gaps humans experience in their lives. Her bento boxes are a physical meditation on filling gaps. There are gaps in the lives of the people around Lainey, and, as we learn more about her, we come to find that there are gaps in Lainey's existence. When she is confronted by another god, Lainey stands comfortably in the human-shaped gaps of her own life and finds that those gaps are filled with friends. It's a meaningful choice by a god whose future is uncertain, who makes a powerful choice as a small, harmless human.

There are many gaps in the narrative that may or may not be filled in as the story progresses. I love worldbuilding with intentional holes. I hope some of these many gaps are left for us to try to fill ourselves as we consider the way in which stories about ourselves and our society function.

We can't see the future here for Lainey or any of the characters —there are too many gaps in the story. But those gaps are filled with possibilities, and Lainey, at least, does not appear to be frightened of whatever may come her way. She's committed to doing her punishment and living the life of a human, with other humans, in a totally human way. What we do know is that Lainey enjoys making bento because arranging things to fill in the gaps creates a kind of order of its own.

This tale of an outcast goddess of death who makes delicious food and tries to do good deeds as penance for being, you know, a goddess of death, is prickly and weird, and I think I love it.