Gen-ei Musoh (as the title is written on the cover on the bunkobon) is the first serialized work of Natsuki Takaya, the artist most well known for drawing the comic Fruits Basket. Though not as large, deep, or powerful as her later works, it is just what it is: an exemplary first work.

You could say that Takaya-sensei started out rather rough; most people do when they've only just gotten into something. Her amateurish skills, however, do not mar the work itself; knowing her limits, she kept the story to a small scale, and the art is kept simple. Despite this, the work itself has interesting characters, a somber, dreamy tone (the title seemingly based on this rather than on any literal "dream" in the story), and the art certainly has the flowing, stringy look of 90s girls' comics.

Amateur art by artist who I know go on to do much more "clean" work is a guilty pleasure of mine, so seeing an included story that Takaya had done before the series in the original tankouban release was a treat, similar to the bonus story in the first volume of Millennium Snow. I would recommend the bunkobon release to anyone interested in purchasing the series, however.

This series is certainly worth the time of anyone interested in girls' comics, especially for the very ukiyo-e-type art and imagery often used during this time period. It is a great example of expressed tone in a comic.

This manga has a very nice plot in contrary to what has been stated before, but you have to read it all the way through, because it's really a mystery until you read the end. I really liked that, few manga are able to surprise me anymore, but this one did. The art is nice, not ugly at all, it's an old manga, so the style is a bit different, but I don't see the problem.
And what someone said about not being able to tell whether a character is a girl, well, if you're talking about the antagonist from the first chapters I can tell you there's a VERY GOOD REASON for that, but I won't spoil.

I'll admit that I picked this because of the cover, and was a bit disappointed when I actually started reading because the art left a bit to be desired.

I don't mean to be picky, but I guess she didn't really know how to differentiate between male/female faces, so there are times where I would be confused about the gender.

I do understand its her first work, but that really doesn't mean anything unless you're a fan of the artist. For most people, bad is bad and good is good. The summary is interesting, but the development was very confusing. It would be like she wanted to do something, didn't know how but continued anyway, and then suddenly had some sort of epiphany and tried to make a complex situation and failing because it was so sudden.

However, I will finish because I want to see how she ties everything together. Until then, I guess I'll just leave the rating section blank.

People tend to compare any Natsuki Takaya work that is not Fruits Basket to Fruits Basket, even the ones that came before it....as is the case w/ Geneimuso...
This story is 17 years old and it was her 1st serialized series so we cant expect it to be as refined and "pretty" as Furuba is....in order to get Fruits Basket she first had to go through this series and Tsubasa wo Motsu Mono...and along the way she perfected her art...so I think it's unfair to Geneimuso to compare it to its successor....Asahi was the prototype for Tohru, Tamaki for a combination of characters we came to love in Furuba....
I personally found the story interesting, and for those who only read the 1st volume and were put off, give it a chance, read past volume 1, it picks up and the art gets better too....

... Last updated on November 17th, 2010, 2:19am

The summary sounds nice and all, but there's definitely something missing in this plot. It just doesn't tie in as nicely as Fruits Basket. There's no introduction. The story just throws the reader in, and while it's true that this can work for some stories, I didn't feel that it worked with this one. We get a sense of who the characters are, and what their relationships are, but that's all it is, just a sense. Nothing solid enough to keep your interest. Usually in manga with plots like this, it's either the character development that keeps your interest, or the interesting cases that the characters run across that do so. But in this manga, it's neither. I don't know what it is. I just know that I was very disappointed and had a small headache after reading the first volume.