"Living in comfort. Serenity and security. Everyone wishes for a warm and happy home. And thus, as you would expect, man is not the only creature who longs for a home."
—Chapter 1
Soara and The Monster's House (ソアラと魔物の家, Soara to Mamono no Ie) is a fantasy manga by Hidenori Yamaji.
The manga follows Soara, a former Street Urchin raised by a group of soldiers to become the strongest monster killer in the world. However, when she is ready to officiate her position, the war against monsters is declared over and humans and monsters are set to live peacefully apart, leaving her with no knowledge of what to do with her life. While traveling aimlessly, she meets with a trio of dwarves, Niko, Gansho, and their leader, Krik. The trio are "Monster Architects", that go around to solve the living arrangements for monsters and building proper homes to them. Realizing she never had a home and without another purpose, she tentatively follows them in building homes for the various monsters in the world.
The manga is published in Shonen Sunday Super, starting its serialization in November of 2021.
Tropes
- Action Girl: Soara was trained to be the mightiest monster slayer ever. While she no longer is able to hunt monsters, she maintains incredible skill in battle, making her the bodyguard of the architects.
- Bait-and-Switch: The Cait Siths' backstory gives a tragic example. When they learned that their beloved father died, they first thought he had been killed in combat. He actually starved to death.
- Black Eyes of Evil: Hagan had black sclera in his time as the dark lord, those faded as he turned his back to it.
- Call to Agriculture: Dark Lord Hagan, as well as his three generals, have quit the war against humans. They spend their days cultivating produce in a field atop the now abandoned castle.
- Central Theme: Making a home. The architects job is not only to make a construction for where monsters can live, but actually a home where they can build a life. In counterpart, Soara's journey is also one to looking for a home upon realizing she never had such a thing.
- Cowardly Lion: Despite being capable of withstanding most attacks, the dwarves are very cowardly when it comes to fighting (since they have no skill on it), and shake or even pass out when confronted with danger.
- Cuteness Proximity: Soara's reaction when the Cait Siths act like cats.
- Eyes Always Shut: In the current day, Dark Lord Hagan's eyes are always closed due to the shock of Kahyou rejecting his proposal.
- Foil: As Soara notices, she and the monsters, despite their differences, share their desire for a home. Monsters never had the knowledge to build homes properly for themselves and only had basic habitats, while Soara, due to being homeless and then being raised as a soldier in a dungeon, has never had what could be considered a home.
- Interspecies Romance:
- Baldur and Maribel are a Thunder Wolf and a Mermaid in love with one another but due to the latter's constant electrical discharge have difficulties being together until the dwarves make a home out of the molten skin of a giant jellyfish capable of absorbing his discharges.
- Dark Lord Hagan was the lord of the demons, but fell in love with the human Kahyou. It's unclear if she reciprocated.
- Love Redeems: Hagan quit his evil-doing partly because he fell in love with Kahyou, and even asked her to become his queen before she left, though she was deadset on trying to work on the monster world and left anyway. It's unclear whether she returned his affections the same way, even as she grew to care for him.
- Master of Your Domain: The Earth Golem Golly has full control of his inner body due top being made of essentially clay. With the help of the architects, he changes its innards into a clay house where the Korpokkurs can live.
- No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: The Dark Lord spent years easily beating enemies and getting everything he wanted, which left him with a void inside that he believed would be filled by getting even more things, culminating in the biggest, most amazing castle ever created built by the greatest architect in the world, Kahyou. The architect build exactly what he wanted only for him to learn that it means nothing to him just the same. Kahyou then convinces him she can fill it by building a small, simple house with a thatched roof, which finally gets him to find fulfillment after having to actually have to put his work, effort, and time into something.Kahyou: To create something with your own hands, through naught but effort and diligence. Something filled with your own love and care, no matter how crude it may seem. It's a feeling you can never find by stealing from others.
- Our Dwarves Are Different: The Dwarves Soara meets have no beards and actually look pretty much like young but short humans. Their usual skill with blacksmithing here is translated to skill with construction, including the subset of skills with woodwork, glass crafting, metalwork, engineering, interior decorating, and anything that goes with constructing a house.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Having been raised for the purpose of killing monsters, Soara starts off as being fairly bigoted against non-humans (especially since humans making peace with them means that she's out of a job and without a personal purpose). Over time she overcomes this as she sees how the monsters simply want to live peaceful lives.
- Porn Stash: Among the things within Hagan's house is a book with a lewd cover hidden behind a scroll.
- Power Incontinence: Chapter 5 introduces Baldur, a thunder wolf, a werewolf that can't control the fact his body generates electricity, making it dangerous for him to enter a relationship with mermaid Maribel without hurting her every time she touches him.
- Retired Monster: This seems to be the case for all monsters in general, as they seem to be trying to make a peaceful life following the end of conflict, but the Demon King is a particular big example, as he and his three generals have ditched the whole of their evil doing to cultivate plants in his garden. Later it's specified that there are, actually, monsters still planning to attack humans, led by a powerful triad called "The Great Three".
- Shout-Out:
- Baldur the thunder wolf and Maribel the mermaid experienced the soulmate shock when they made eye contact with each other.
- The family of cooking Cait Sith that is introduced in chapter 12 seems to be partly inspired by the Felyne of Monster Hunter, cat-like, bipedal beings that help the player in various tasks and are quite capable in cooking meals for the player.
- Wham Episode: The last scene of chapter 11 shows that something intends to destroy and ruin our heroes' efforts.
