Crown of Love 4

Yun Kouga – Viz – 2009 – 4 volumes

I liked this series in all of its melodrama, simply because I loved the way it wore its heart on its sleeve all the way through. It started out as an exercise in closely examining the feelings that Hisayoshi has for Rima. It followed the ups and downs of his pursuit, and not much else. It’s been a rough road, and I can’t say that it comes to an overly-dramatic conclusion here, but I did like the way everything worked itself out. I loved following the characters in their gentle relationship dance through all four volumes.

This volume… focuses more on Rima, actually. She comes to terms with her feelings for her teacher/sempai, and realizes that she may have squandered her last and best chance with Hisayoshi. Hisayoshi feels more or less the same, since she turned down his ultimatum, and both are too afraid to contact the other. We get to see a lot of eloquent moping on both sides. In most other series, this would be boring, but both Rima and Hisayoshi make for interesting studies, and you really get caught up in their hand-wringing and soul-searching.

I was surprised I wound up liking Rima as much as I did. It’s hard to get behind her in this final volume since she’s been rejecting Hisayoshi rather directly and cruelly through all four volumes, so why should the reader feel bad when she finally decides she might like to give him a chance, after she’s been more-or-less rejected by her first choice? But the way Kouga takes us into her head really works, and getting to see her side of the story helps a lot, too. It keeps her from being a simple, one-dimensional frigid type.

I also like the rather sparse artwork and wonderful compositions, which maintain their quality through all four volumes. Sometimes the character designs make it difficult to tell genders and characters apart, but the spareness also seems to go well with the intense dialogue. It makes things more empty and earnest.

While the fact that the series is mostly just a character/relationship study without much going on might turn a lot of people off, I thought it did a wonderful job with what it set out to accomplish, and might be worth a look for people looking for a bit of shoujo melodrama. I’d also suggest it to fans of Loveless, Kouga’s other and more popular series. I find Loveless to be too creepy for my taste, but this takes some of the things I like about it and makes it into a significantly less creepy series.