Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5
Publisher: VIZ Media (Shojo Beat)
Volumes: 9
Goodreads Synopsis:
Reads R to L (Japanese
Style) T audience. Shurei Hong, destitute but of noble birth, has always
dreamed of working as a civil servant in the imperial court of
Saiunkoku, but women are barred from holding office. The emperor Ryuki,
however, refuses to take command, leaving everything to his advisors.
Shurei is asked to become a consort to the emperor to persuade the
ne’er-do-well ruler to govern.
Review:
It has taken me
forever to get this volume. And I even have the next one, and have had it for
months, but this one was nowhere to be found. The lack of manga availability in
my area is frustrating beyond belief.
In the previous two
books, I was not very impressed with this series. The language is a bit dense,
and I’m not all that interested in the history, and it was just not as
interesting as I wanted it to be. But I already had the fourth volume (since I
found it on sale), and so I needed to get this one and read it. I was hoping
that it would get better, although I had doubts that it would. And in the first
half of the book, I was still not really enjoying it, but in that second half… I’m
not really sure why, but I started to enjoy it a bit more than I was expecting
to.
In this volume, we
meet a new character: Ensei, who knows Seiran from some time before. Shurei lets
him stay with them, since he has nowhere else to go. Seiran ends up working
outside the palace, working to catch some bandits, while Shurei and Ensei work
inside the palace with a mysterious, masked, Minister Ko. Where Shurei has to
pretend to be a boy, since girls can’t work in the ministry. She doesn’t mind
pretending to be a boy, even if it upsets her that she can’t get a job there as a
woman.
There is very
little of Ryuki in this volume, which was sad because he’s pretty much my
favorite character in this series. He’s just so adorable, and it’s so charming
how he refers to himself as ‘we’. The little we did get to see of him was nice,
and most of it included him working. Also, he spoke up at some meeting and told
the ministry how he wanted to allow women to work in the palace. They did not
accept this, which just means that he’s going to have to work harder to get
them to agree.
I was a bit
surprised by this, but only because I hadn’t thought of the possibility of
women not working and how much Shurei would like to work there. And I love that
Ryuki wants her to so badly. Also, Minister Ko walked out of the meeting,
supposedly in outrage, but I believe he knows that Shurei is a girl, or is at
least suspicious.
Oh, we also found
out that Shurei is afraid of storms, and we got to see a memory of her mother
and Seiran. That was cute, and very entertaining to see.
So, for some
reason, I am a bit excited to read the next book, and very glad that I already
have it. I hope it’s good, but I am a bit wary that it won’t be as good as I
want it to be. We’ll see.
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