Are you tired of wall after wall of pretentious text? Do you just want to know if you should read the darn thing? Me too. TLDR It should be impossible to establish the characters set up the plot tell a good story and reduce me to tears in just 52 pages but Yuusha Goikkou no Kaerimichi managed to do so. If youre in the mood for a beautiful story with beautiful artwork do not skip out on this one. The name Yuusha Goikkou no Kaerimichi is too long so Im gonna call it Kaerimichi for short. PLOT Great Oneshots normally dont have amazing plots because of the limited amount of panels. But this one manages to tell a simple but emotional story that also puts a unique spin on the setting of a generic medieval fantasy world. The general premise is that a band of heroes is journeying home after their battle with the demon lord. In my opinion its best to go in completely blind and I dont want to deprive you of that experience. So even though I really wanted to sell you on Kaerimichi by talking about more specific plot details Im going to stop here. Surprisingly the story is not rushed at all. It was paced well enough that I wasnt bored and I actually knew what was going on because it progressed at a speed I was able to keep up with. New information is revealed gradually in the form of hints that you have to make guesses about which also helped me want to keep reading. CHARACTERS Good I was really impressed with how much I got to learn about the different characters considering the length of the manga. To be honest everyone except the protagonist was underdeveloped. But the main character was fleshed out with a clear backstory personality and motivations for doing the things she does. Shes really likable and I got attached to her quite quickly which allowed the emotional moments to hit harder. ART Great The art is great. Theres no other way to put it. Lines are clean theres enough detail to make the world and characters not seem plain but not so much that everything starts to blend together the shading is really well done and objects will often poke through the panel borders to give a sense of perspective scale emphasis or just for a bit of variety. Im especially impressed by the landscapes and environment which clearly had a lot of effort put into them. 80https://i.ur.com/5m9UapW.png The cherry on top of the art are the coloured pages which totally didnt have to be included but they were anyways because the creator Ryouji Hirano is just awesome. And they are beautiful. Each one is watercolour or at least it looks like it and manages to pack in so much colour and detail while remaining coherent. Theyre used sparingly but effectively to show changes in place or to add extra emphasis to something. 80https://i.ur.com/96HU8Hi.png WHO SHOULD READ THIS If you want a super quick read that hits different hit this up. I had to reread Kaerimchi to write this review and it still hurt the second time. It also puts a great spin on the overdone defeat the demon lord plotline by only focusing on the journey home. CONCLUSION This is possibly the best oneshot I have ever read. Looking at the grades I gave the different sections I gave two scores of Great and one score of Good. If thats not enough to get you to try Kaerimichi just know that itll take you the same amount of time to read this as it does to watch an episode of whatever mediocre show youre watching right now. If youre ever in the mood for a hidden gem why not give this a shot? A stranger on the internet said it was good and when have they ever been wrong? Visit my profile groggy1 to give feedback or to see my other work