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In a modern world, albeit one where people are born with mystical powers, Nagi is not one of the special ones. That doesn’t stop her from ending up at god school, mind you, and also from likely being the most special one of them all.

Even writing that last paragraph threatened to put my brain into a coma. Nothing especially new, is what I am trying to say with as little subtlety as I can courageously muster. Yet I clearly liked this, so why becomes the question.

And the first answer is its pedigree. I was absolutely not particularly interested in reading this until I saw ‘original story by Natsu Hyuuga�. They are the esteemed author of The Apothecary Diaries, which maintains a chokehold on second spot in my current ranking of favourite manga (behind Frieren, in case you wondered).

That was a good start and better than this story gets, honestly. Nagi is a kind character with inferiority issues, but we’re introduced to her along with her brother, who’s a shut-in with minor powers who communicates with Nagi via a doll. Unless something gets done with this character later, he apparently exists to justify a mascot character and little else.

Once Nagi gets to school, however, things really get jumping. A core group of friends (and less so) are introduced and they really work well bouncing off one another, minus that one guy who just sort of ends up tagging along.

It’s great the way it balances Nagi’s inferiority with her drive to push herself way too hard to compensate. That her nature is both a strength and a weakness is a clever idea. She’s really strong, but an unkind word can take her down pretty fast.

As far as the supporting cast goes, special mention must be made of the aloof Miruru, whose power of telepathy has made her an outcast because� she has the power of telepathy. She’s also suffering from her parents� beliefs that have kept her from learning about her true nature.

Nagi making friends with her and Miruru’s sudden transformation into an incredibly huggable smol floof that basically acts as Nagi’s pet is adorable. There are lots of ways to handle shy and distant characters, but this is one of the best.

There are a lot of Iruma-kun vibes to this story - fish out of water at a school discovers friends along the way and her own brand of special. Like that one, the aforementioned core group is strong and a lot of fun.

Even the big class trip arc we close with is very clever, with some fun use of powers. It is basically a shonen style story, but having a female lead and some interesting characters makes it a lot more enjoyable so far. It’s got a balance that, annoying brothers aside, it strikes quite well.

4 stars - I definitely have room in my heart (and reading pile) for more series like this and was impressed by how good it got once it got to the real meat of the story. An uneven start that finds its footing impressively fast.