It’s not that one reading is not enough to understand the intricacies present, but that the beauty of the work demands it. Honestly, it is an injustice if not read more than once.
Characterization, and character development. Story flow. Thematic coherence. Plot, and plot development. Paneling. Drawing; background, foreground, middle ground, and the characters. Narrative, that is how the story is told. The emotional depth, and the ambiance of the manga. Everything is simply perfection.
In terms of the use of temporality it reminds me very much of Shinjuku Lucky Hole. Another gem.
The overarching themes are Death, Life, Nature, and Consumption (the enabler of life, and the lack of which is a sing of death). Niini no Mori addresses the question of the “Other”, the duty which we have to one another, and the fundamental vitality, Life, which each living creature possess.
In many ways Niini no Mori is concerned quite concretely with a) the question of Difference, which may be physical or mental, and then what this difference then allows and disallows, and b) the Body, or to be specific the bodies which seem to embody this fundamentally unbridgeable difference, however it is not so. True, the bodies are different anatomically speaking, however the differences which the bodies are then said (or rather thought) to inherently possess is a false claim.
Indeed, the marking of the body as Other, seeing it as inferior, unrabbit/human, and thus fit for “sacrifice” and consumption, is one very concrete way through which the manga address the question of Difference.

I don't think I can say more about this than toastmuncher did in 2017. This anthology is beautiful, dreamlike, both savage and gentle in turns. Reading it is almost a meditative experience. Someone out there could probably write a paper on it.

It's also massively underrated. Please give it a chance. Maybe two or three chances. My favourite story is the one about the beetles, it took a while to grow on me but its irreplaceable now.

Chapter 1 is sweet.
Chapter 2a left a bitter aftertaste. Wolf's selfless love brought me to tears. This is definitely a must read.
Chapter 2b is a nice read, though there is a lack of interconnectedness between the human and the beetle storylines.
Chapter 3 started out gloomy but ended on a light note. The story touched a bit on discrimination but this chapter is a light read overall.

Definitely one of Shoowa's best works.

... Last updated on April 5th, 2018, 10:00am

I loved it! It was so sad when I finished it that I haaad to re-read it *------------* Loved the art too, beautiful. The only thing is that, I would have liked to see a deepest evolution of Owen and Tadota's love, I wanted to see a nervous, cute and blushed Tadota, it was just me? ;9

It's been so, so long since I last read something as groundbreaking and inventive as this. Shoowa has always been one of my faves but she just outdid herself here, once again, it's unbelievable. This manga is perfect, there's no other word to describe it. It boggles my mind how much talent sensei must possess, and how significant her past experience has been to turn whatever genius ideas she had inside her head into such a culmination of fine art. Wow. I'm at a loss for words.