This is actually Sugar Apple Fairy Tale’s second manga adaptation. The first, which has never been released in English, was serialized in the online version of Hakusensha’s Hana to Yume and was decidedly more cutesy in appearance. Almost a decade later, the manga was given this reboot in a seinen magazine.
It’s a bit strange since what I’ve read of the original light novel has done little to venture outside its shoujo base. In the kingdom of Highland, Anne is an aspiring candy maker that uses sugar apples in her creations, and she hopes to one day be deemed a Silver Sugar Master like her recently departed mother. To get that honor, Anne needs to make it to the kingdom’s big fair, but the shortest path is the most dangerous.
But while Anne wants to be friends with fairies and even befriends a little one by the name of Mithril, she’s in the minority. For in Highland, fairies are bought and sold as workers and pets, and as long as a person has control of one of their wings, a fairy must obey or face excruciating pain. Although it goes against her personal ethics, Anne decides to buy a warrior fairy to be her bodyguard to the fair. Challe is a beautiful fairy with a smart mouth, and although Anne can’t bring herself to forcibly control him, she also doesn’t risk giving his wing back and hoping he sticks around out of kindness. During their journey, Anne the human finds herself attracted to Challe the fairy.
The manga adaptation, unsurprisingly, doesn’t quite get into characters’ heads the way the novel typically does, and this both helps and hurts the story. For example, Anne asks Challe to touch his wing, which, understandably, he forcefully refuses since his other one has been ripped off him and is currently in Anne’s possession. In the manga, this comes across as more of a spur-of-the-moment request, like a random child-like though. The light novel, from what I remember, had Anne really staring at the wing and would have had time to think before speaking. In another example, we see the two of them sitting side-by-side as Anne basically says, “You’re lucky to never have loved anyone.” It seems rather cold of her to be waxing poetic about her loneliness while assuming Challe, who is her elder both in physical appearance and in actual age, has never cared about someone else. So sometimes this adaptation covers for cringeworthy moments found in the light novel, and sometimes it creates new ones.
Perhaps this is as a result of Sugar Apple Fairy Tale‘s manga trying to reach more male readers. Not all light novel and manga adaptations target the exact same demographic, but compared to others, the manga here has a notably different vibe than the original novel’s illustrations. Challe, for instance, looks more like some kind of magical elf tutor/mentor on the cover than a love interest. I never really understood why Anne was called a scarecrow so much in the novels, but that comparison seems even stranger here. She isn’t presented as a buxom beauty or anything, but she doesn’t look as thin or lanky as the repeated punchline would have you believe. Anne should be more worried about some of her off-model shots here, including one where it looks like her upper eyelid is two separate pieces.
Anyway, my final impression of Sugar Apple Fairy Tale volume 1 is that this manga seems to be better at presenting the story as Anne’s journey to be a Silver Sugar Master and the trials she faces both personally and professionally. As a trade-off, those looking more to swoon over the beauty of Challe or see Anne become increasingly flustered around him are likely to leave here disappointed, especially since that sort of (eye/text) candy is the reason many readers look past the slavery element in the story.