Ura Sekai: The Hidden World by Anant Thapar

This is the first manga I have read, so the format was unfamiliar territory for me. I liked the central idea: a schoolboy named Arjun enters a bathroom, encounters a strange supernatural presence and is pulled through a portal, leaving behind only his Hell Spire friendship bracelet. When his three friends realise he is missing, they search the school, discover the bracelet and later return at night, where they encounter the same spreading, vein-like growths and the creature connected to his disappearance.

The second chapter introduces a mysterious monk who knows what happened at the school. He leads the boys to a hidden temple and explains that they are descendants of powerful samurai bloodlines, each associated with a different supernatural ability. He also reveals that Arjun is being held captive by a creature called Demorion and warns that they have only a limited amount of time to rescue him.

Although I found the premise imaginative, the storytelling felt rushed and was sometimes difficult to follow. I wanted more time to understand who the boys were, both individually and as a friendship group, before Arjun disappeared. Their personalities were not clearly distinguished, and because the character designs were very similar, I occasionally struggled to tell which boy was speaking or acting in a panel.

Some of the captions also interrupted the flow. Labels such as “Tensed,” “Moving Ahead,” “Running in Fear,” and “Shocked” read more like prompts or storyboard instructions than part of the finished story. They often tell the reader what a character is feeling rather than allowing the dialogue, expressions and artwork to convey it naturally. The dialogue would also benefit from further English-language editing, as some of the phrasing felt unnatural.

There is an interesting supernatural action story here, particularly in the monster design, hidden temple and different inherited power systems. I think the manga would be stronger with clearer character introductions, more emotional development surrounding Arjun’s disappearance, smoother dialogue and a slower build into the larger mythology.

That said, the author is very young, and these are only the first two chapters of a much larger story. Considering the amount of time and effort that must go into creating both the artwork and the narrative, I think they have done very well. There is plenty of imagination on display, and with further development and editing, the story has room to grow into something much stronger.