An artist may occasionally work on a series that is so excellent that it threatens to overshadow all of their other creations. Fans of Nio Nakatani’s Bloom Into You series may be a little disappointed that God Bless the Mistaken isn’t a similarly mellow yuri story. For Nakatani, that series is Bloom Into You. That shouldn’t deter you from this, though, as the first volume of God Bless the Mistaken demonstrates Nakatani’s equal proficiency in any genre she chooses to explore. It offers a little window into a world where the extraordinary has become commonplace.
The main character of the series is Kon, a middle school student who shares a home with four other people. Kon is the lone child; Iyoda looks to be in university or possibly graduate school, Kosei may be in high school or early college. Maruko and Kasane, the final two residents, are both employed women, and Kon spends the most time interacting with Kasane. This is because she works as a researcher studying what are colloquially called “bugs,” that is, “glitches/bugs in the fabric of reality.” Formally referred to as periodic exceptional events, these odd deviations from normalcy lead to a variety of outcomes. For example, at the beginning of the book, every plant has grown extraordinarily. Vegetables and fruit are ripening out of season, flour is sprouting, and greenery is taking over buildings and roadways. However, we also witness the day that made it possible to ascend the air like steps, the day that flips everything, making left turn right, and so on, as well as the appearance of cryptids in accordance with people’s beliefs. Nobody can predict what the day will hold.Unless you count Kasane, the only person our characters know who doesn’t, as they say in the novel, “bug out.” She perceives the world as we know it, yet she doesn’t consider bugs that have an impact on the actual environment around her—she can see and feel the plants, but she can’t go to the sky via invisible stairs, for example.
This acts as the conduit between Kon and Kasane as well as the other residents of the shared dwelling. As a scientist, she may remove herself from the world around her because she isn’t always able to experience it, but she also needs to monitor and collaborate with people who are able to escape. Kon is her preferred assistant, a choice about which he appears to have mixed feelings. More so than the cryptids that show up in the last chapter, there’s a feeling that he doesn’t quite know what to do with her and that she’s a very strange person in some respects. In actuality, anomalies make sense. Individuals who are not part of that do not.
The chapter that describes how a glitch makes an extra step appear on every staircase is where we see this the best. This entire plot takes place in a school, where Kon and two of his friends overhear some girls telling the typical school ghost story about a girl who committed suicide by jumping off a roof. The story goes that if you see the girl’s ghost on the roof staircase, she will try to take you with her. Kon’s friend leaves her pencil case on the roof, and she takes use of the situation to convince the other girls in the class that the ghost story is true. It’s really simple, but sufficiently spooky for the age range. When she does, it’s crucial that no one finds out about the extra step bug, and Kon and his buddies understand that, between them and the bug, they’ve effectively brought the school ghost story to life. Although Kasane isn’t in the story, it illustrates how people who don’t experience the bugs (the three who don’t know about this one substituting for that) can still change how other people perceive the world and how, despite the occasional exceptional phenomenon, people will still be vulnerable to other unknowns. This is a fitting thematic aspect for the series, given Kasane’s sometimes almost psychological approach to her study.
Throughout the volume, Nakatani doesn’t seem to be purposefully developing Kasane in the same way that Kon did. We know that she may be a little harsh at times when she teases Kon and other people, but we just know minor details about her. But above all, she’s a mystery, going through life in a way that she can only do since she’s not like everyone else and isn’t dependent on the bugs. It’s a clever ploy, and even while she can be a little obnoxious at times, that serves to highlight her as a wild card—or rather, as the rock that keeps the world from going completely insane.
Glimpse by Shima Shinya and When a Cat Faces West by Yuki Urushibara, respectively, God Bless the Mistaken is a mildly magical realist novel. Although Nakatani’s novel lacks the emotional impact of Bloom Into You—at least not yet; who knows what might happen in the future—it is nonetheless a delightful read with well-drawn illustrations and an intriguing setting. Despite having a single series to her credit, Nio Nakatani is obviously more than just a one-trick pony.
