Fluffy Paradise Mild Novel Vol. 1 Overview
The release of Fluffy Paradise is the most recent example of how an appreciation for animals and the isekai genre may coexist together. It is as follows, even just from the Cross Infinite World catalog
As an animal lover, it’s difficult to deny the appeal of the subgenre because, even if you’re fortunate enough to have pets of your own, the majority of us will never have the opportunity to experience a tiger’s fluff up close and personal. Examples include Even Dogs Go to Other Worlds, I’d Rather Have a Cat Than a Harem!, and I Will Cook with My Fluffy Friends. The core isekai notion of starting over in a new world and the chance to engage with both real and fictional creatures are offered by tales like Fluffy Paradise. In this story, a young woman’s life ends prematurely at age 27 owing to overwork (which is swiftly approaching traffic accidents as the top cause of isekai experiences), and she is shocked to receive an offer from the god of another planet. He asks her for assistance in determining if humans are valuable enough to preserve in exchange for a new life and one skill of her choosing. Without even batting an eye, she requests the ability to pet any animals, and before she has a chance to consider whether she made the correct decision, she is a newborn named Nefertima (also known as Neema), the youngest daughter of a wealthy ducal couple in a different dimension.
Neema, the heroine of the book, is a toddler with an adult’s inner monologue because the entire thing takes place when she is between infancy and age five. Although important for narrative development, this disconnect is the hardest obstacle to get over. The main reason for this is that Neema is frequently frustrated by having to talk with a baby lisp whenever she opens her mouth to do so. But because she needs to communicate with everyone around her in order to carry out her role as the narrator, we readers must deal with the challenging baby speak that is always typed down phonetically. The discrepancy between what she wants to say and what she can actually get out of her mouth makes this humorous in theory. In actuality, it wears thin and is far too precious (or “pwecious”), and I can’t help but wish that Neema’s early infancy had been skipped over sooner or handled in a different way.
On the other side, there is something endearing about seeing a three-year-old (or “twee”) kid frighten everyone around her by merrily approaching dangerous animals and being completely certain that she would be okay. Of course, she is constantly in good health since the god maintains his word, but Neema is the only one who is aware of this. Neema will approach and become friends with any animal, be it a big bull with horns or an adult dragon with an enormous white tiger. Each adult is astounded by the fact that she can approach the monsters safely despite several assurances to the contrary, and more than one starts to doubt their own lengthy training when they witness her carelessly being able to accomplish what it took them years to master. Only when the gigantic boar piglets desire to play rough does Neema ever really risk getting wounded; however, this is more a result of their ignorance of their own strength than anything else.
Neema’s loving family is able to conceal their concern for her to a significant extent. Her mother, a formidable sorceress, and father, the prime minister of the kingdom, are more worried that dishonest political figures will attempt to use their daughter’s abilities for dishonest reasons. Although Neema is somewhat aware of this, she can’t bring herself to worry about it because she is so enthralled by the sheer thrill of her relationships with all scaly and hairy species. Neema occasionally remembers her obligations under the agreement, and she does pick up on the fact that there is widespread corruption in the national religion, which seems to be the thread that will ultimately drive the plot. Only morsels of information are revealed to us as Neema tangentially learns about them, but by the end of the novel, we are starting to see how the church’s position is actively disrupting the natural world’s balance. Things start to sound very dreadful indeed when you take into account the very casual remark of how the church “adopts” girls who have healing power, and once Neema gets a little older, she’s going to have to start considering what’s going on.
This puts this book in a gray area between “feels like a prologue” and “sweet slice of life fantasy.” The latter is what author Himawari goes toward here, but it never really sinks that deeply. There is a part of Neema that is aware of this, and because of this, she is extra cautious about her newfound friendship with the royal family. Will, the crown prince, who is the same age as her older brother, is enthralled by her, however at this stage it appears that only his parents regard this as the beginning of a sexual engagement. Fortunately, she is only five when the book ends. Neema, however, is unsure of whether she wants to be so close to the royal family. This isn’t simply because she considers Will to be unpleasant to be around; although while she doesn’t express it directly, there is a sense that she is wary of being used. That is a very real prospect, not to mention the fact that she is heedlessly amassing animal and monster allies at a startling rate, as the situation in the kingdom becomes clearer by the book’s conclusion. Despite this volume’s thin plot, things may perhaps become more darker as the series progresses.
This does seem like a promising beginning, despite the fact that the baby babble can be tedious and the book depends a little too heavily on detailed descriptions of various creatures and how much Neema wants to touch them. It’s a good read that seems to demonstrate that fur-based isekai as a subgenre isn’t going anywhere, whether it stays in its current light vein or develops into something more.
