Manga Review: A Bride's Story volume 2

Once again I'm rather behind in this series, I got the second volume right when everyone else was getting the third volume, but since this series comes out so slowly I don't think this is going to end up being a problem in the long run.  It does leave me with a bit less to say since it feels like everyone has covered all the important details. It also feels a bit odd to be covering a volume of work in the middle of a series (instead of the first one or the series as a whole) but since I've already reviewed the first volume I'll give this a shot and see how reviewing indivdual manga volumes go.

A Bride’s Story (volume 2) by Kaoru Mori

Summary: Despite interruptions by Amir's family life continues as it has with Amir discovering new things about her adopted culture and deepening her relationship with Karluk.

The Good: The plot picks up a bit with the conflict between Amir and her family which, while not permanently resolved, concludes satisfyingly for the moment. This bit of plot development provides a bit more character development for Karluk and some development in his and Amir's relationship which works nicely. A few new characters are introduced and while they're not fully fleshed out they don't feel like 2D cutouts. In short I believe this was a stronger volume than the first and can only hope that the third volume is even stronger yet.  

The Bad: It appears that after this volume that the manga is shifting gears and will be focusing on other characters instead which will probably be a good thing in the long run but does make me a bit sad since Mori created some very likable characters and I hope the story comes back to them sometime later on. In some ways this "arc" was tied up a bit too neatly but, while it's clear that Mori is going for realism here she's also made it clear in Emma that she won't be a slave to it if it gets in the way of her storytelling so that's to be expected.

The Art: The art continues to stun and shows what an incredible amount of visual research Mori must have put into the series. The scenes that show the characters sewing could be used as a step-by-step guide to teach people how to sew those stitches and her art makes the relatively humble art of baking fascinating. The action scenes also show that she can show dynamic movement without having the details overwhelm the image/sacrificing her trademark detail work.

Bit of a short review but again, it seems like everyone else has already covered everything worth saying about this volume plus it is slice of life, there's a bit less to talk about to start with. Not sure when I'll get a hold of volume 3, probably the next time TRSI has a Yen Press sale so most likely in 2 or 3 months, and I'm eagerly looking forward to that volume as well.