A shoujo fantasy that brings readers into the magical world of nail art.

“I’m going to become this world’s first decorated nail artist!”

In a foreign land where nail polish acts as a magical conduit, Saara aspires to create pretty and powerful decorated nail art!  Unfortunately for Saara, she lacks both the magical ability ad the know-how to paint anything other than useless party tricks.  Even her best customer, Rocco — a beautiful wizard with a mean streak (and an even meaner apprentice) — can barely summon a spark from the cutesy nails Saara creates for him!

Rather than be discouraged, Saara determines to improve her abilities and surpass even her benefactor, the grouchy goblin Master Reed!  But as a woefully average, utterly unexceptional protagonist, Saara has a long way to go —and a lot of nails to paint — before she’ll ever stand a chance at greatness.

For now, she’s just an average girl working as a below-average nail artist in a fantasy world!

So…nail art has never quite interested me, largely because I don’t grow out my nails or treat them all that well. When this was gifted to me as an ARC, I had some trepidation–readers, I thought this was going to be a bit on the ridiculous side given its focus on fingernails. But actually, it’s really cute and very creative, and I enjoyed myself a lot as I read this!

The big thing to understand is the magic system. Wizards have their nails painted and decorated, and these polishes and decorations are imbued with magic they are able to channel with their fingers. If you paint someone’s nails red and then glue tiny pieces of dragon scales to decorate the nail, wham! They can summon fire by making a gesture with their finger or hand (this is just an example; I think it came from my head and not the manga). You can put different types of magic in each nail for a varied magical attack. I never thought something like this would be all that interesting, but the manga very much makes it so!

Saara doesn’t know how to put magic into her nail work, but the wizard Rocco keeps coming to her because her designs are beautiful, and he likes beautiful things. But wearing Saara’s nail art usually causes some sort of magical backfire in the user. Luckily, Rocco is quite strong so it hasn’t hurt or harmed him.

(Click the pics to enlarge. All images (c) 2026 TOKYOPOP).

Rocco is such a bright, glitzy character compared to our more down-to-earth, grounded Saara. I hope something romantic happens between them, lol! The side characters are interesting, too, and I love the little adventures that happen to Saara all while she is trying to get settled into this new world–which, by the way, came about randomly. One minute, doing her gel nails, and the next minute, poof! New land!

An interesting detail is that the people who have come to this country from the “outside” all have rainbow eyes, including Saara. That’s not really explained, but it must mean something significant. There are tiny little details like that that keep me interested in finding out more and continuing the story.

All in all, I initially expected this book’s premise to be a bit on the loopier side, but the worldbuilding and characterization and how nail adornment is tied to magic conduction is really unique, and I had so much fun reading this. I’m definitely looking forward to the second volume!

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Apprentice Nail Artist in A Foreign Land, Volume 1 releases April 14, 2026. You can preorder your copy now directly from the publisher and it will also be widely released from a variety of booksellers online.