Slightly Biased Manga

I always forget how much I love this series.  I put off buying this volume for so long that it looks like I only need to wait a few weeks for volume 4.  I’m so bummed that the series is still coming out in Japan (and in a magazine that only comes out 9 times a year, no less).  We probably have to stay about a year behind the newest volume, so I suspect we won’t see volume 6 for awhile.  Volume 5 is scheduled for May, though.  Hooray for that.

I always worry that the general thrust of the plot is lost, because the only direction the series has at this point is maybe Primula will be Queen someday, and maybe Argent will eventually find a cure for his poison, if he feels like it, and then there’s a lot of forbidden romance stuff heaped in there as well.  But the way the characters interact is wonderful, they are always sincere, a lot of them will surprise you with cleverness towards the end of the chapter (especially Primula’s dad, the King), and man, I do love basilisks and forbidden romance, so I’m all for this stuff.

This volume kicks off what looks like it will turn into a much longer subplot.  The King and Primula’s etiquette instructor decide to find Primula a suitor so that she will settle down and get married, but… obviously this isn’t going to happen because Argent and she are mutually attracted.  While the ball that is thrown in honor of her 17th birthday is very entertaining, what springs from that turns into Argent trying to find a cure to an endemic condition in a neighboring country as well as a trip by Primula with a few other characters to try to solve the problem/disease and warn everybody in the country about what is going on.

This plot is broken up over the course of the 4 stories in the volume.  The last chapter is actually the beginning of the journey, and the characters get waylaid almost immediately for silly plot reasons that wind up turning fairly serious by the end of the chapter, but I can tell this storyline will probably last at least through the end of the next volume.  It’s decent, and it ties a lot of politics and background about the world of the story together, so I really like it so far.

There are plenty of romantic moments between Primula and Argent to enjoy in this volume too, one in particular towards the end which is to die for… if you’re into that sort of thing like I am.