I occasionally find myself in awe of characters like Tsukihito. Hailed as a God, perfect in every way a human isn't. I find that kind of character setting relatively rare, especially when they're executed in a good way. He lords his power over people as you may expect, but not in the overbearing "rich demanding CEO" type of way. He's what you'd expect a "God" with no human emotions to be like-- rational, cold, detached, apathetic. Slowly, through his meeting and relationship with Mioto, he learns not only emotions, but what it's like to be human, that it's okay to be human. The people around him even noting that he started behaving less like their God and more like just a typical human, but... is that really such a bad thing? The manga poses the question: if we aren't perfect, if Tsukihito isn't as otherworldly as a God, if he's just another human being, does our value really drop down to nothing?
Mioto on the other hand is fascinating in his own way. Rather simple, he's kind, nice, and sometimes far too much of a good samaritan. But he's not a pushover, and I like that about him. He may be too weak to stop some unfortunate things from happening to him, but he doesn't let people walk over him like he's a rug. He gets mad, annoyed, and he tells it to people's faces if they make him mad-- but that doesn't come with brutality, instead he still treats them with respect and the hope that they may change for the better in the future. I think that he really is a good model of strength despite being in a poor situation.
I went into this story expecting a typical overbearing jealous tachi being pushy towards the poor, damsel neko. And to an extent, you can still describe it that way. But what I actually got was a rather interesting read about a boy who never learned to be human because he was raised as a God, to the point that he was apathetic even by the deaths of the people that should have been important to him, falling in love with a boy who was dealt difficult cards in life but never once lost his footing. I particularly liked the execution of Tsukihito learning emotions, the very gradual development of him first learning to truly smile, to becoming physically and metaphorically warmer, then gaining a heartbeat, and finally to crying in both sadness and happiness. I also really liked that Mioto questions if he's /forcing/ these emotions onto Tsukihito, only to realise that the world has been suffocating the latter for years. Tsukihito lives with the constant expectation to smile benevolently and detachedly like a God, be perfect, without a choice. Mioto specifically asks Tsukihito if he wants Mioto to teach him what feelings are like, finally actually allowing Tsukihito agency in his own life. It may have been borne out of obsession, but at least these feelings are truly his. The metaphor of Mioto having claustrophobia is very good too. I have a small gripe about the ending, really. It felt like it was pre-written. Like the author had the idea of that line, and just had it be the end... To me, it felt like it was backtracking a little, since I personally didn't want Tsukihito to be called God ever again, but... whatever, I suppose. That's really the only reason it's not a 5/5 for me.
The Prefect’s Private Garden