Sakura Hime 6

Arina Tanemura – Viz – 2012 – 9+ volumes

So, now that I’ve read volume five, the fight between Shuri and Kohaku makes sense! As of this volume, the characters are still working their way furiously towards Sakura for an attempted rescue. Last volume, we were waylaid by a flashback and fight for Shuri. This volume: Ukyo, with a lengthy flashback about Asagiri!

I had wondered about Asagiri more than the others. She’s a tiny mononoke sprite, after all, and while she seems quite affectionate towards Sakura, she’s fairly grumpy otherwise. Plus, I was sure she was concealing all sorts of secrets. Her backstory is very good, and I don’t want to spoil it. She does come from a village of female snow spirits, and Tanemura does a good job of bringing their culture and lives to life in the flashback. There’s lots of tragic stuff afoot, obviously, and I liked both Asagiri and Ukyo’s role in it. It does finish up with one of my pet peeve plot developments, the “I’ve done something horrible that I’ll regret the rest of my life except nobody would ever blame me for it so I’m not really a bad person”-flashback. But even so, it’s pretty evil stuff, and the story suited Asagiri.

There’s a couple cute short stories in the back. One’s a fairly simple children’s story about an angel named Maple Rose that visits the world of humans to escape from an angel party, and another is a silly gag chapter about the mascots from the various Arina Tanemura series. I missed Finn and Jonathan. And I say that Asagiri should be the mascot from Sakura Hime. And what about the cat from Time Stranger Kyoko? Maybe cute small people don’t count? But Fin does!

Obviously I’m still having a blast reading this. I loved Asagiri’s flashback, and I’m looking forward to where the story is going to go from here now that all the backstory is out of the way. Hopefully it’ll lighten up a little bit between serious story arcs, because I love seeing the characters having fun with one another.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.