This is a very simple and sweet Manga with very cute character design that teachers the reader a lot about traditional Tibetan remedies and herbs, since he main character is an apprentice doctor. Very simple little slice of life with an easy feel.

The art style of this book was really beautiful and I found the story to be sweet. It was also very interesting to learn about Tibetan cultures as it is not something I am super familiar with.

Blissful Land by Ichimon Izumi was a delightfully funny and interesting middle grade manga that I can't wait to read more of very soon.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

So, keeping in mind that this is geared toward middle school kids....well, I just didn't care for it. It was extremely slow. Nothing really happens. It is a historical romance, but very PG rated. Rati comes to live with Zhipa and they start to awkwardly adjust to each other. We learn a bit about 18th century Tibetan medicine and way of life.

Blissful Land is a sweet and interesting manga, by Ichimon Izumi. It was really enjoyable! There are some good conflicts, characters, and humor in the manga. I will definitely be keeping up with the volumes. The art style is nice too.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this ARC. It’s my first graphic novel since I was a kid!
It was so charming and cute. I love the artwork! I want a hard copy now and colour in everything haha. The story was simple but lovely. A kid from Tibet is a doctor in training and is obsessed with gathering herbs to make his medicines for his patients. One day a girl arrives at his house and he finds out this is his arranged bride to be!
I definitely feel this is a good little book for younger readers, however I do want to read the next volume! It’s so endearing!

Blissful land tell us an amazing story settled in Tibet. It reminded me a lot of "A Bride's story" by the mangaka Kaoru Mori. Blissful land it's about a young doctor who loves to take care of his patients. Loves to pick up herbs and create medicine to heal pain. His life will change as soon as he will be married. I loved how everything is explained and that at the end there are historical notes about typical food, names and Tibetan culture. Looking forward to read the second volume!

A charming manga set in the 18th Century. Primarily focusing on Khang Zhipa, an apprentice healer, and his fiance, it's very much a slice-of-life style manga. It's artwork is lovely. The only real gripe I have is that the other characters definitely need some fleshing out. Either way, it's only the first volume and I'm interested enough to check out other volumes.

<em>Blissful Land</em> reminds me a little of <em>Bride’s Story</em>; the settings are very different (18th century Tibet versus [x]th century Mongolia), but they have a similar premise of a young bride being brought to her fiance’s home and introduced to a life that she’s not necessarily familiar with, and adopted into her new husband's family and his community. (If you haven’t read <em>Bride’s Story</em> I can recommend at least the first three volumes – the art is beautifully intricate and detailed, especially when it comes to clothes or woodwork, and the afterwords about the creator's research are really cool.)

But yes, returning to the book I'm supposed to be reviewing; I thought <em>Blissful Land</em> was really sweet! I liked the little details worked into the story of how the characters made medicine or dyed wool, and Khang Zipa's relationship with his family and his fiancé worked quite well. Both of them are shy and awkward around each other, but determined to help! It's nice! And all of the drama is low-stakes and resolved through people talking to each other properly! Yes, this is content I'm here for, whether it's a family making medicine and crafting materials, or trying to resolve a fight between children.

Honestly the only complaint I really have about <em>Blissful Land</em> is that I don’t like the way that the artist sometimes draws the faces like they’ve got googly eyes stuck on, because it’s REALLY DISTRACTING! Especially when they do it in serious scenes! Apart from that one thing, the art is fine, good at the animals and details of the village, the differences between communities clearly shown through the characters' clothes – but I keep turning the page and finding the googly eyes waiting for me and it throws me off!

So yes, I liked Blissful Land. I don't know what the plot is going to turn out to be, or if it's going to be following two teenagers getting used to and having crushes on each other until the day of their wedding, but it's peaceful and I think I really needed a book like that.

[This review is based on an ARC from Netgalley.]

I really wanted to love this but it was just okay. I appreciated the setting and characters but something just didn't click with me.

Set in 18th century Tibet, Blissful Land recounts the story of Khang Zhipa, a young doctor apprentice, and Rati, a bride-to-be who is sent to his house in anticipation of meeting her future husband. Although the plot doesn't progress very much in this first volume, the manga does a wonderful job portraying everyday life and Tibetan customs, allowing the readers to enjoy snipets of this foreign yet fascinating culture.

The art is absolutely mesmerising, containing highly detailed sceneries and clothes, thus enhancing the immersion in Tibetan culture that readers experience. Reading this manga made me feel cosy and calm, and it makes for an excellent relaxing and fun read. I'll definitely seek out the rest of the volumes once they are released.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Very cute comic. I highly recommend this book.

2.5 stars

Blissful Land is a manga about a Tibetan family of doctors. Khang Zhipa is a 13-year-old doctor in training who is a bit of a goofball, obsessed with herbs and kind to everyone. One day a foreign party comes to visit his village, and with them a beautiful and sweet Moshi Rati who will stay with Khang Zhipa much longer than he could have ever anticipated.

Blissful Land is a delightful celebration of Tibetan culture, rich in nature, clothing and food details. I absolutely loved this part of the manga!
Also the characters are all sweet and kind, they care about each other and the village has a strong sense of community.

In mangas, the illustration style is very important for the story. Blissful lands is mostly drawn spectacularly with a lot of little details and beautiful textures everywhere. However, I was slightly frustrated how often Khang Zhipa's face was left unfinished. Having read a bunch of manga, I know well that usually having goggly eyes is a way to transmit emotion, but in Blissful Land I felt that it was a bit too usual. I started to feel like Khang Zhipa just was a goggly eyed person, and the 'normal' illustrations of him started to look odd. This was a bit confusing for me as a reader. And those goggly eyes kind of haunt me.

Although I liked the idea of Blissful Land, it had a huge problem: nothing happened. It was cute and nice to look at, but there is virtually no plot whatsoever. The characters barely communicate with each other and mostly we just look at Rati and Khang Zhipa picking herbs or see Khang Zhipa's little sister fight. I know it is pretty and has loads of great cultural elements, but dang I was bored. It took me a long time to finish this just because I kept spacing out while reading. Although I find the art intriguing, I don't see myself continuing this series.

Blissful Land is a delightful read with beautiful artwork. In the first volume, set in 18th-century Tibet, a young doctor meets his intended bride and they start to get to know each other. It is not overly dramatic but instead focuses on the connections between people. There is a lot of detail within the artwork that is not always typical of many manga. Additionally, there are notes in the back to educate readers on aspects of the time and place they may not be familiar. The lack of conflict is refreshing when one is used to typical notions of how stories should be told. Overall, this book left me with a good feeling and eager to read more.

I really enjoyed this story, it's quiet and sweet, about family and love. A young man learning to be a doctor meets his wife-to-be, who has come to stay with his family before the wedding. In this first volume, we see them starting to get to know each other, learning about each other, and developing a friendship. They each have something they love- he loves all things herbs, she loves dyeing and weaving, and they discover their loves are complimentary to each other, which was really adorable, I thought. The artwork is gorgeous, and adds so much to the story. I look forward to continuing this series!

A fun and insightful story about the then years about customs and cultures. This was a short story and it was just that to it. I didn't feel like there was much of characters' development or any of that. It was just like following their journey as they weave through the day one at a time.

A little slow paced for me. Overall, a nice, sweet story. But not a lot really happens.
The story is about a doctor in training who lives in a Tibetan mountain village in the late 18th century. Khang Zipa finds out he is planned to get married to a beauty named Moshi Rati. The story is about them getting to know each other and through this interaction, the reader learns more about the culture at that time.
Interesting but not something I would generally pick up or recommend broadly to others.
Thank you NetGalley and publisher, Kodansha Comics, for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Our protagonist here in this tale is Khang Zhipa, a 13-year-old doctor’s apprentice living in a mountain village. Set in 18th-century Tibet he is going about his daily duties of collecting medicinal herbs and such and comes home to unexpected guests! A bride-to-be around his age and her wedding party stay the night and Khang is due for the biggest surprise the next morning. The bride’s name is Moshi Rati and it turns out she’s actually Khang Zhipa’s fiancee from another land! I initially pegged this book for the slice of life genre for the slower paced focus on everyday life and such and I don't think I'm wrong.

For those who like their historical manga and or are history buffs, this manga is set in Tibet, and we get to learn proper Tibetan honorifics. For example when early in the book when Khang approaches Tenzin and calls out to him with "Tenzin-La" it is noted that "-La" is a honorific similar to the Japanese "-San" so it is a formal way to greet and refer to someone, in this case someone older and more established than him. "Pema-ga" is in the same vein as "Pema-chan", an affectionate honorific sometimes assigned to equals like friends or affectionatly given to those younger than you like children.

Learning about the different customs such as how Brides-to-be traveled: on the backs of their fathers--or on the backs of their husbands! Seeing the different herbs collected for certain medicines for certain ailments is also worth looking into (Barberry for eye drops, the Pelt of an Otter to stop bleeding) --with certainly I'm pretty sure many of them are still collected and used today. Seeing certain Tibetan foods like Tingmo, steamed bread and Sha Phaley, meat pie sends me down a rabbit hole on youtube looking up videos and getting hungry.

The artwork is a real treat to look upon and immerse yourself in from the opening shots of the mountain village with the farming plots and animals to the elaborate clothing. I got sucked into whole pages of interiors of buildings like the kitchen with such elaborate details where where herbs, cooking items and cupboards are all on the page. The pages that feature cooking and preparing medicines alongside chanting and conversation alone are worth their weight in gold. Khang, himself has a variety of silly and intense expressions that happen to make it on his face and can be seen in his body language throughout the book that speak to his boyish charm and innocence. Such captured moments are hilarious fun while others touch upon the severity of the situation.

At just fifteen he's still very much a child on the cusp on becoming a man yet old enough to be considered to apprenticed and relied upon to help out his household. I started off reading thinking the story would center on this boy and found that it focuses on Rati, his future bride, his family including his younger sister Pema and other fellow villagers. As adorable as it is to see him be wowed by Moshi in their first meeting, it is equally enjoyable to see him slowly learn about who she is and what her passions are. The two teens are still growing up and maturing emotionally and physcially: they're still figuring out each other and trying to process not just what being married will be like one day but who they'll be marrying. I had worried that Rati would be a side character, a means to an end--but she does have some budding agency. She's along for the ride and manages to be helpful being a key player in helping to resolve some of the conflicts in the book along with starting to find her voice in a new home, in a new village.

I'm a sucker for the focus on crafting the medicines and food items with healing properties of that time period. Young Khang's dedication to his doctor apprenticeship and his consideration and care of the people around him really comes across the more and more I read. He happens to think beyond himself to the people in the villages and surrounding areas without a doctor or healer and how, he wants at least the people local to have blissful smiles--with one less worry because he's around and can serve them. And tied with that is his blossoming relationship with Roti and how they'll figure out how to move forward. Not sure how long a series, how many volumes Blissful Land will be yet if the first volume is any indication of what the heart of the series is about, I'm game for the next volume following his and Roti's journey. Come for the slice of life premise, stay for the absolutely endearing journey of food and family and young adults figuring out how they can heal those around them with more than just medicine.

An absolutely adorable slice of life comic with insight to Tibetan life!
The scenery in this book was breath taking i loved how very detailed the art is especially with the clothing.
The dialogue is easy to follow and understand, just like your talk with friends and family. The comic gives a warm fuzzy feeling.

Overall it''s a good and easy story to follow.

This was such a cute manga. And not only was it really cute and an enjoyable read, the end had some very useful information on the customs, the prayers, and even how to make Butter tea! Rati really stole my heart. She was sweet, eager, and shy, but also proud of the things she created and excited to share more about them with her soon to be husband Khang Zhipa.

Being so young, I like that the author didn't have them married right away but spent the first volume letting us get to know the characters as individuals and meet their family. We know they will be wed, but attraction wasn't the main story point here at all. It was how will these two do together? How do they get along and what do they have in common? Khang Zhipa is a doctor in training who is obsessed with herbs, but we see him getting to know Rita and appreciating her more and more as the story progresses. He doesn't change who he is, but he grows up a little by asking for help from Rita and sharing his resources so she can use them as dye.

Overall I would recommend this to people who like happy easy reads and want to enjoy some beautiful scenic drawing with adorable characters in gorgeous clothes.