Hi, I like to leave a little review for the manga that I read that don’t have any other reviews.

Asebi and Adventures of Sky World is a sci-fi adventure set in a fantasy universe called Sky World, where people live on floating islands in the sky and travel with airships. In this world, hostile monsters known as dragonfish plague the skies, limiting humanities territories to fractions of what it was in the past. We follow Yuu, a guard trained to fight dragonfish, and Asebi, an android, on their journey to uncover the legacy and rediscover powerful technologies of that history, the Waldecia empire.

I think fantasy adventure can be compared to music: the elements of the author's imagination are the spectrum of instruments, the fantasy, while the story the author weaves is the melody, the adventure.

Asebi and Adventures of Sky World doesn't have an enormous symphony orchestra like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. The worldbuilding in Sky World is not the most intricate nor expansive, but I don't believe this is necessarily a bad thing. I think Asebi and Adventures of Sky World did a good job of creating a world that's intriguing but not complex, with details and lore easy for a casual reader like myself to remember. It's impressive to me that a manga with less than 60 chapters can accomplish such a feat without being too shallow or boring, and I think this can be attributed to how information is presented. From first person narratives, conversations between characters, flashbacks, to even the extra manga (bonus strips from end of volumes), Asebi and Adventures of Sky World dynamically introduces lore and details to construct a meaningful world. For the majority of Asebi’s adventure I never felt overwhelmed by info dumps, as exposition is often introduced at timely moments when needed.

It’s not a personal gripe with me, but to be expected, there is a lot to Sky World that is left untouched and unexplored. Beyond the immediate degrees of separations from our major and supporting characters, the rest of Sky World is hardly elaborated upon. There’s not much on what life on an island is like, no significant geography landmark besides Brant, the capital of Waldecia, and even the current society and kingdom of Sky World is only briefly mentioned as the backing force behind official outer airspace expeditions. Although, I don’t believe this lack of information detracts from the overall experience of Asebi and Adventure’s of Sky World. Hardly any of those details would have a significant contribution to the adventure.

The story of Asebi and Adventures of Sky World follows the structure of a Hero’s Journey, but I think the interesting trait that this manga has is the relatively short chapter count. With only 60 chapters, a typical story arc in Asebi and Adventures of Sky World lasts for about less than 10 chapters. To achieve this, corners are cut, and whether this is a good thing or not is up to your discretion. Build-up into a new story arc usually gets introduced quickly. For example, after forming the initial crew of Yuu and Asebi’s adventure team to Waldecia and escaping the initial antagonist forces, the setting of the next arc, the purpose of our characters visiting that setting, and the next obstacle(s) to our main characters journey are all introduced in basically the same chapter. This kind of quick flow between arcs, as well as in the arcs themselves leaves no moment to waste: There’s either action going on or just on the verge of happening, and during the respites character and world exposition are introduced. Fight scenes aren’t going to extend out for more than two or three chapters, unlike a Shougeki cooking battle spanning over ten. I personally didn’t mind the compaction since I believe the fast constant action compensates the lack of in-depth worldbuilding.

I think it does need to be noted that there’s a noticeable difference to the last arc of the story compared to the rest. For starters, the final arc is about 20 chapters long, and it follows after a timeskip. There’s also quite a bit of rush in tying loose ends to plots and wrapping up the story in a couple chapters, but still I left satisfied and happy about the ending.

The last point I’d like to leave before I wrap up as well is on character and art. I love most of the cast in Asebi and Adventures of Sky World as I think they have unique and charming quirks to their character. The “Wiseman of the Sky” Haito is fairly shameless and dotes on his daughters too much. Gale Gram is the badass sniper with a firm determination to right his hurt pride with the expedition to Waldecia. There’s Daria, the flashy android tasked with stopping our heroes who secretly hates how she’s unable to be more than just a machine like Asebi is. And of course, Asebi herself, the “Katara” of the team who’s able to grow to be more than just a machine through her interactions with everyone and their adventures. Every character is introduced properly and has fleshed out motives and ideals that I find surprisingly done with care in such a short manga. Yuu too, even if he’s the simple idealistic and naive hero whose motive is adventuring, is able to find a more concrete goal for his journey halfway through, which is to find Asebi’s master and free her. On this point, I’d just like to say, there’s a reason why it’s called Asebi and Adventures of Sky World, not Yuu and Adventure’s of Sky World.

I also love art, while most of the female characters all typically have rounded faces, the male characters have unique facial structures and art style, such as Haito and Gram. The exception would be Yuu, who has the same style as most of the female cast, but still the expressiveness of the art is cute and flexible. Beyond just characters, the background art has simple detail to it that’s not too distracting but not bland either, which I think fits well.

Overall, I’d say Asebi and Adventures of Sky World is a perfect fantasy adventure for a casual reader to enjoy without committing too much into a rabbit hole of wonders. I found Asebi to be lighthearted with exciting action and a tinge of romance, and was an enjoyable read even a second time around for when I decided to write this review. If you wanted to look for the forcefulness of a large symphony orchestra, a fantasy adventure with high stakes and heavy world building, or an adventure focused on character development and drama, Asebi and Adventures of Sky World isn’t for you. Otherwise, give Asebi a shot when you want a little more action on a rainy weekend afternoon, binge it in time before dinner, and hopefully you’d find it charming and thrilling as I did.