Sheeta's Little Big World was weird...

Sheeta's Little Big World is manga trilogy by Yuki Kamba. It seems to take inspiration from the Studio Ghibli movie The Secret World of Arrietty, with elements of survival stories. Sheeta lives with other littlefolk in a small village in the woods somewhere after he was abandoned by his father. He becomes close friends with another boy named Nala. One day, the two boys see smoke coming from a giant tree from afar, and Nala runs away to see what it is. Sheeta then has a mission to find Nala and find his father, too.

Sheeta relunctantly teams up with another littlefolk named Izuna, who holds a grudge against Sheeta's father for something he did to him in his past. As they travel, they learn to survive of the land, and encounter other littlefolk with problems they help to solve.

It doesn't sound too bad, doesn't it? That's what I thought at first. The first book had a solid beginning. Book 2 still wasn;t too bad--I just didn't like how a large chunk of it was spent dealing with ants trying to steal people's syrup.. I don't have a phobia of ants, but I couldn't shake off the creepy crawly feeling while reading about them. Funnily enough, I also couldn't stop thinking about the Chimera Ant Arc of Hunter x Hunter while reading it (if you know, you know). 

Book 3 is where it went downhill for me. The story got a lot more dark and kind of mean spirited? It really caught me off guard. 

So the first book was great (5 stars), the second book was okay (4 stars), and I really didn't like the third book. I actually DNF'd it! 

So overall, it was kind of disappointing.  

TL;DR: A 3-volume manga series tries to be like most Studio Ghibli movies, but missed the mark.