Soil is brilliant but I hated reading it. It's one of those mystery stories that takes two completes to appreciate. The first time you'll be thoroughly confused, and the second time you'll see how consistent and simple everything was, once you understand how its "rules" work. Apt metaphor for a lot of things I suppose. It's also similar to Ergo Proxy in that regard, which I reviewed positively, but Soil has nowhere near the charm for me to want to bear with it. The beauty of Soil lies in how everything goes back to its premise: oddities are sprouted by some original sin, and inturn cause even stranger things to occur if the root problem remains unsolved. The more confused the characters become from inexplicable mysteries, the weirder things get, until they have mental breakdowns and something has to give. The flat, black and white artstyle, devoid of any grayscale shading, was an intentional choice to make readers undergo derealization after immersing in the pages for too long without answers, forcing them into a similar experience.

Being manipulated and made into a part of the manga's thesis is an unpleasant experience regardless of how clever the world building is. It also required the reveals to be postponed for maximum effect. Although I didn't feel it was too slow on the reread, I still wound up feeling a bit annoyed at the author Kaneko Atsushi, for how many panels there were that would only make sense to someone who already knew the story. It was clever, but also quite masturbatory.

Soil is unique, no doubt about that. It's bold and expands what manga can be, but also off-putting due to the trickery involved. I didn't like it and likely won't reach for it again, but I respect it and wish more manga were as artful as Soil.