Manthika

Better summary from first 5 chapters: Ishtar, goddess of love, was a selfish, awful, cruel goddess who stole from the other gods and messed with humans and was punished by being reincarnated with no memories into a human body in another world.  Then, years later for the human body (but thousands of years later for the World of Gods) she was put back in her ‘original’ body with no say in the matter, now technically a goddess, but weakened to the point of disappearing if she doesn’t fulfil some quests, and also she owes the equivelant of a bit less than 17 million USD in debts due to Ishtar.  Pretty crappy starting deal all around, I must say. 

Warnings for hints of depression, not being able to find a reason to keep living, and referenced parental neglect. 

Right off the bat from chapter one, you have the cliché ‘I have weird dreams and headaches because I’m Not Like Other Girls’ special main character setup so don’t expect too much.  Though, she’s a pretty likable character overall.  The amnesia aspect is frustrating but expected (doesn’t remember her past life, barely has dreams of snippets of it, that type of thing.)  Personally I think it’s dumb she’s held accountable for the things she didn’t do but her past life did.  I wouldn’t stand for that, lol. 

A mythology, history, fantasy alternate world fusion, the World of Gods is pretty interesting, conceptually.  But the plot isn’t very driven.  When you want things to be interesting or get to the point, they meander around and get boring.   And the overall tone is… cynical.  Not lighthearted or fun at all.  Messages of ‘the fear and desperation and sadness of humans are what fuels the gods’ and such.  I mean, I get it, people usually pray when they’re in need, but that’s still cynical af. 

The art is pretty great from the get-go.  Though, oof, the characters are so hard to distinguish at first.  They name drop all of them at once and the water god has red hair and looks like a fire god, for example.  Just makes it a bit harder on the reader to try and remember who everyone is.  Also, the ears are so big, I can’t stop staring, why would you draw the ears so big??

TL;DR: not as fun as it looks on the cover