What is the yuri equivalent of being force-fed a bottle of corn syrup? Probably this series, which has all the friction of a pat of butter dipped in motor oil and all the obstacles of a paved highway in Saskatchewan.
All I can say is that this is basically the mangaka having a lot of fun and being published for their efforts. If you have enjoyed the ride, the ships will all arrive at shore very quickly and perfunctorily.
I probably let this get away with a lot because the art was (and remains) fantastically detailed right to the very end and it isn’t harming anybody. It just doesn’t especially excel at anything. I’m not going to claim it isn’t romantic at times, nor terribly charming, but the excess of sugar got to me by the denouement.
Also, copping a page from Goodbye, My Rose Garden, of all places, it decides to throw out any trappings of realism to deliver the ending that it wants. Which is a choice, this is a fantasy and all, but there’s less tension in this volume than a rubber band on muscle relaxants.
Momo’s mother has Aki dead to rights and, instead of being a big thing about the class struggle in whatever furry paradise this is, it turns out that Momo’s parents are way cool with their daughter hooking up with the butler.
It’s so hilariously terse and to the point, mostly existing so Aki is forced to extol Momo’s virtues in one of those typical big speeches. You know, the kind that always show up in last volumes of series.
Also, the queen herself had a forbidden romance with her dressmaker (there’s so much gay in this series they should have called it a sapphic novel), before she took her duties upon her. That’s not surprising here, but…
Does this seem to have affected her heart? No, it does not. Which is a little weird; this seems like something that should deeply affect her, having to love somebody other than her true love due to an obligation. What a hook to tie into Momo and Aki’s own resolution! …But this story is laser focused on being fluffy without the barest whiff of an issue.
It gets a little ridiculous by the end, and it was already pretty ridiculous to start with. Again, if you wanted it to just cheer loudly the whole way to the ending, that’s what you’re getting. It is designed to appeal to one particular part of the brain at the expense of all others, which is not a bad thing, per se.
Honestly, the best part of this is watching side couple Kiku and Sakaki finally sort themselves out. They’ve been dancing around one another long enough that this is a solid payoff, especially when Kiku takes matters into her own hands quite literally (having had that move inflicted upon me myself, I vouch for its effectiveness).
Parts of the narrative do lend to the ‘anything goes’ nature of the manga, which effectively robs it of any urgency or tension. Idol terminology, yuri novels, various trappings of various cultures; toss into a blender and hit frappe. Add some vowels and the odd consonant to an animal species and you get a whole new kingdom!
Also, don’t think about this too hard, but if Momo gets married to a prince from the penguin kingdom, what sort of Eldritch nightmare is going to result from that pairing? There’s a lot that this story handwaves that is potentially terrifying.
Wedding dresses and happy endings for all, basically. No female goes without a similar partner, again asking the question of how this place has any population left in it. But, again, you’re not meant to ask, merely enjoy.
3 stars - and I did enjoy, especially Sakaki and Kiku, but it was nothing to write home about and feels like an ending that indeed happened rather than anything worth lauding. Nothing surprising and nothing narratively exciting. Just cuteness, which is all it ever wanted to be. Adjust my rating upward if that’s totally fine with you; you’ll be very satisfied, promise.