Nakama no Ie

nathandouglasdavis Feb 17, 2022

1

This is like Goldilocks meets haunted house. Well sorta. Actually not really, now that I think about it. There are three states of being--those comfortable outside the house, those comfortable on the first floor, and those comfortable on the second floor. The former of those three is the neutral, caught-in-the-middle position (which I think is what reminded me of Goldilocks), but it's also moreso of an outsider looking in. There are ghosts and a creaky, dilapidated building. The transition between just exploring the ruins and the latter half of the story felt very abrupt and not strongly justified by what had occurred before. I think we're supposed to assume that Minae and Chikako had both gotten possessed by ghosts, but it's not very clear what that possession really means since they both seem to retain their personalities and general faculties (at least until the last few pages when they go, like, catatonic). Within all this ghost-y stuff, there's also a fear thrown in about being abandoned or betrayed by those you've trusted the most. The characters don't look very good, in my opinion. The building looks appropriately grimy and worn down, and some of the other background stuff does a good job of creating an environment, but the characters just don't look very good.