Sakura Hime 4

Arina Tanemura – Viz – 2011 – 8+ volumes

I can’t help but be a total girl about this series. Every volume is yet another foray into sparkly shoujo manga heaven, and even with all the action we get in this series, there’s just something inherently shoujo about everything that Tanemura draws.

Enju enters the story in grand style, and the fight between him and the moon people against the prince and Sakura’s allies begins. We get to meet all of Enju’s followers, who are not real moon people, unlike Enju and Sakura. Apparently all the various hangers-on drank moon water, or something, to gain their powers and ally with him. We get stories for two of them this time around. There’s one that’s like a golem, not a real person, and is actually a pretty interesting character. There’s a weird relationship between her and Enju, and a very strained one between her and Sakura, and she even tries to infiltrate the Prince’s party. Rurijo was my favorite part of this volume.

We also meet Maimai, who Tanemura admits is a lot like Maora from her last series. Except Maora wasn’t nearly as depressing as Maimai. He’s actually kind of a bad guy, joining this side for all the wrong reasons, but you still empathize with him quite a bit.

The story here is the beginning of what will probably be a very long battle. The end of the volume also has a short story about Asagiri, too, and I suspect as the battle wears on, we will also find out the deal behind Ukyo and Shuri, Enju’s two other followers. I’m not sure how this will end, probably with Sakura and the Prince together, but the threat of the moon people is a pretty real one in the context of the series, and Enju isn’t someone that Sakura can easily go against. He won’t just go away, either. I’m very curious as to how this will turn out and what direction the rest of the series will take from here.