5⭐️ Aaargh, schon wieder so ein gemeiner Cliffhanger 😱 Zum Glück hab ich schon Band 12 daheim!
Die Geschichte nimmt wieder richtig Fahrt auf. Sie ist so zum dahinschmelzen süß aber auch so nervenaufreibend spannend. So langsam festigt sich auch wieder meine Tendenz zu Team Seto..ich war jetzt doch ein Weilchen zwischen Azur und Seto hin und hergerissen und konnte und vor allem wollte mich nicht entscheiden..
The real princess Alicia turns out to have been alive this whole time, but in the care of the Astral Villa. Also turns out there are two star people on the loose and loose star people tend to cause ruin wherever they go. Is Nina really that dangerous? Or is the whole thing a bit of a stitch up?
If things were really stagnant last volume, and they were, this one attempts to redress the balance and is definitely a step up from a lot of strange plot contortions. It remains a fact, however, that none of this feels as if it has any idea of where it’s headed from one chapter to the next.
Hey, the whole star people thing takes a turn and might just be more of a curse that will doom Nina to be forever alone. That’s a fun pivot - there’s a suggestion here that she’s probably being played by the Astral Villa, aka the evil matriarchy (even though the story takes pains to paint them as neutral, they sure cause a lot of damage), or maybe just the real Alicia.
The whole thing goes tragic again, as the deception is revealed and Nina ends up having to face her friends and companions, all of whom she met under very fake pretences.
That’s also really strong - there’s a lot of big emotion, especially when it’s further revealed that Nina might be beguiling everybody into friendship (or more). Although, I wouldn’t trust the source on that one. The poor tiger cub especially wrenches my cynical heartstrings.
It definitely feels that this is all being done to move things into a new phase and bring Sett back into the story, rather than existing as a massive lump. But it’s also feeling like every time Nina and Az get together, the mangaka decides to shove them apart. They’re a good pairing, they can spend more than a little time together.
The scheming is better than the plotting, at least, and I like the way they bring Hikami back into things towards the end too. This series has a fantastic cast, honestly, that sometimes deserve a better story than they’re getting.
Art-wise? I cannot not mention the really weird look to Princess Alicia’s stitched up eyes. I mean, it gets the job done, but it looks terribly out of place and, since she can open her eyes a little, I hardly see the point there.
I want to like this so much that I feel like making excuses for it, but a bulk of this feels like it was made up on the spot, rather than organically seeded ahead of time, and that weakens the narrative.
3.5 stars - it bounces back hard enough that I nearly gave this 4 stars, but it also hits the creative ceiling pretty hard. There’s a lot of good here, but until I’m convinced this is going somewhere that isn’t just conceived on a chapter-by-chapter basis, I remain skeptical.
I cried while reading this. Like, UGLY cried. And the A U D A C I T Y it has to end on a cliffhanger (am unsurprised, they literally ALL do...) my sweet baby Sett and Nina. Ugggggh. I'm unwell.
4.5 stars. Emotional and quickly moving the story forward while bringing up a past unsolved mystery and new ones. I'm team Nina and then Sett, so I really enjoyed this turn.
«Las consecuencias de la decisión que tomé en aquel momento están ahora frente a mí para...».
Desde que Nina aceptó ser la sustituta de la princesa Alisha, muchas cosas han cambiado en su vida. Primero tuvo que vivir en palacio para aprender a ser una princesa, la futura esposa de un reino vecino. Cuando su corazón acabó envuelto en la calidez de otra persona, la joven fue hacia el reino de Galgada para casarse con el príncipe heredero, Sett, aunque, finalmente, sucedieron tantas cosas en el lapso de tiempo en el que estuve en ese reino que, finalmente, Nina ha logrado regresar a Fortna junto a Azure, algo que creía imposible cuando lo dejó a él y a su corazón atrás. Con planes de futuro para los dos, ahora que es el rey, Azure desea que Nina esté junto a él por quien es y no como una falsa princesa de las estrellas. Lo que el joven monarca no imaginaba era que la auténtica princesa Alisha apareciera en escena, revelándose el secreto que la Villa Astral ha estado escondiendo: que la muerte accidental de la princesa fue una farsa, pues poco estaban dispuestos a entregarla a un país extranjero.
Acusada de farsante junto con el anterior rey, Nina es apresada y encarcelada sin que Azure pueda hacer nada para evitarlo si quiere mantenerse en el sitial de monarca y poder así ayudar a la joven, aceptando el juego que la Villa Astral ha iniciado al no culparlo a él de la farsa sino a su antecesor, el cual quería entregar a la princesa en contra de las leyes establecidas en el reino. Nina, con su fe ciega e inquebrantable en Azure, está más que dispuesta a esperar hasta que él consiga liberarla.
«Eres un auténtico ser de las estrellas».
Pero la situación da un nuevo giro completamente inesperado cuando Alisha, la auténtica princesa de Fortna, hace llamar a Nina y le cuentan a la joven la verdad que se esconde tras la leyenda de las gentes de las estrellas que se ha difundido por el reino desde los tiempos del primer rey. Tal cantidad de información hace estragos en Nina cuando esta comienza a analizar todo aquello que le han contado junto con los distintos sucesos que han tenido lugar y en los que ella tuvo un papel fundamental, tanto de forma voluntaria como involuntaria. ¿Y si lo que sienten Azure y Sett no es más que el embaucamiento y el encandilamiento que puede llegar a producir en las personas por sus poderes innatos?
J'ai adoré ce nouveau tome même s'il m'a bien fait mal au cœur. Nina traverse de terribles épreuves, elle m'a beaucoup émue. Par contre, je n'ai pas compris le comportement d'Azur. Est-il manipulé par Alisha ? Il m'a énormément déçue. De toute façon, je lui préfère Sett ^^ Dans l'ensemble, l'intrigue est toujours aussi palpitantes et les différents rebondissement m'on tenue en haleine jusqu'à la fin. Quant aux dessins, ils sont toujours aussi beaux et attendre la suite va être une torture !
Recap: Nina is outed, real Alisha shares they are bringers of ruin, they talk Az away from Nina, Nina is in prison and then banished, astral village tries to kill Nina, Sol and Hikami save her, Sett sets after Nina
Beware: this is the volume in which a lot of people start hating Azure and end up being "team Sett"
Wow this is just... agonizing. What a twisted turn of events. It's awful... it's so well done, I think you can totally get where Azure's and Nina's paranoia, questioning if everything was real or not, is coming from... BUT that doesn't make it less painful when Az turns his eyes and back aways from her...it's truly awful. It would've been so, so different if he had supported her then and there...
Sigh Azure... it's not easy to be king. But yeah it does suit him so well
Fucking priestess. They just wanted to get Nina out of Fortna! And that's not enough! They try to kill her so as to not have two priestesses with power in the same generation! If Azure had thought about it more throughly BEFORE being a distant jerk... ugh though i had forgotten Azure is weary of going to save Nina himself because Alisha "feels and sees everything", and he's avoiding that
Thank God Sol is seeing through it. Thank God Sett is not letting anyone else driving him away from Nina, no matter what they say. And I have no idea why after this Sett's fans will become Azure's fans lol
I'm going to be such a broken record with every single volume until this series is complete, but if Sett isn't endgame it's going to be devastating.
Honestly, the only thing that even makes me nervous at this particular point in the narrative is Rikachi saying in an author's note that the original plan had been to wrap it up in 3 volumes. I can't see Nina's romance being anything other than with Azure if that had remained the case, because Azure was basically an instant, "perfect" first love - like the "perfect boyfriend" he is in the character sketches at the end of this volume. Sett is a massively intense slow burn who takes many volumes for his full character development. Which is of course why I vastly prefer him for Nina...because she's just as complicated and needs as much time and space to grow into her true self.
We get a lot of information, finally, about the star people and about who Nina and Alisha actually are.
The astral palace in Fortna is fixated on the ideas that (a) star people are incredibly destructive and dangerous and (b) there is only one blue-eyed girl born into the world in each generation, which makes the simultaneous existence of Nina and Alisha blasphemous.
This seems like a wildly ethnocentric view, considering they also seem to think these astral princesses only exist in their little kingdom, even though the star people have existed for probably centuries or more in other lands. Perhaps it's that Nina's birth spells a different kind of danger: an indication that there are far more of these people out there, quietly living their lives without being tied to a specific land and a specific kingdom that uses the star powers for its own purposes.
When a princess is born to Fortna, she's spirited away to the astral palace to essentially be manipulated and controlled by birth. If Alisha is any indication, their eyes are also shown shut so they can't wield one of their other powers - whether true or not, Alisha truly believes the story she tells Nina, about their eyes controlling the emotions of other people.
Nina, after accidentally unleashing lightning and putting her friends in danger, sees clear evidence that Alisha has been telling her the truth about some of her powers, so the rest must be true, as well. Which means that Azure and Sett falling in love with her was never real.
A few really interesting things here. One is that Nina doesn't really question the Azure part. After all, he abruptly fell in love with her right after she wished - a full, outright spoken wish - that she could be special to someone. Anyone. Azure became that person.
But...it can't be true for Sett, too, can it, she thinks in despair, those dangerous blue eyes welling with tears. She'd wanted him to like her. She'd asked him to try liking her. And after a while, he did. So it must not be real, either.
Azure hears the same story, and the first time he sees Nina after, he averts his eyes from hers, then shuts them. He claims, later on, that it's himself he doesn't trust, not Nina...that perhaps he was simply trying to fill his emptiness with her warmth...and he sends Sol after Nina to save her from the bandits the astral palace had hired to kill Nina.
But he doesn't go after her. He makes no move to stop all of these events. Worst of all, he does fear and distrust Nina, no matter how much he tries to excuse or temper it later.
Sett, on the other hand, literally has to be put to sleep with the strongest sleeping potion Sol and Hikami can contact, so he doesn't destroy Fortna trying to save Nina.
With his finger moving at the end of that scene, and with his speech and reason returning to him as soon as he woke up, I hope he was able to hear Nina's entire farewell speech. That's important, too, and displays a lot of the difference in how Nina's relationship with each of them differs.
She still looks up to Azure. She sees him as a king, an ideal man on a throne that suits him perfectly. She begs for his time and waits for him to come for her. When she does seek him out, there's this hesitation and anxiety in it, a fear of rejection, that he won't need her, that he will stop wanting her.
Sett is someone she speaks to on the same level. Even if he hadn't been asleep, she would've poured out her heart and the full story to him in the same way, because she knows he would listen. He wouldn't try to manipulate the situation to suit himself or to maintain control over his kingdom. He would listen, and make a decision based on his heart, and his heart is with Nina.
Absolutely loved the scene with Sett riding out to search for Nina, with Azure watching from his golden tower, knowing he doesn't have the courage to do the same. Particularly loved the funny and sweet bonus chapter, where Sett accidentally became the people's hero by fighting off bandits and saving townspeople. It's one of those classic westerns, in a way, with the grim, cold loner turning out to be the one who has a heart of gold.
Nina didn't create that heart with her strange powers. She just saw him, and believed in him. She thought that leaving Sett would free him from whatever evil she'd brought into his life, so I really can't wait for them to reunite and for him to tell her there couldn't be anything further from the truth.
I'm assuming, or at least hoping, that Nina will at some point reunite with the other star people and find out more about her true heritage, without the warped legends built around Fortna's founding. It's hard to tell what role Alisha will play...she's not evil, and had to be put to sleep, like Sett, to keep her from finding out about the plans to kill Nina. That was probably another of the dangers...when she met Nina, she began to feel actual emotions, which would make her so much harder to control.
I would say I'm curious about what wish Azure asked Alisha to grant, but I kind of don't care about him. I know he's going to have his own long arc and will probably swoop back in to show his true love for Nina, but I'd really rather not.
we love a good lore involving a community directly connected to god and all living things on earth described as the "bringers of ruin" 🫧𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚🎐ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ✰⋆ im SO seated
however, it hit me to the core seeing nina crying her heart out in the prison thinking she had hurt and manipulated every single person around her... someone go SAVE my girl
btw the extra chapter with sett looking out for nina in every single place the sun touches... hes so scrumdiddlyumptious! thats a real MAN... az could never (amo rivalidade masculina)
Extrait : Dès les premières pages de ce tome, je commence à en vouloir à Azur, il dit aimer Nina, mais au final, il ne se fait pas entendre en tant que suzerain et se pli devant celles qui l’ont manipulé (et continue donc de l’être). Nina quant à elle, continue de subir sa vie sans jamais avoir le choix, à être accusée de choses pour lesquelles elle n’a jamais eu le choix. Plus ça va, moins je peux me voir Azur, qu’il finisse mal ne me fera rien ressentir de bon à son égard.
Le dernier tome avait déjà dû me marquer, puisqu’on devait avoir un aperçu de celui-ci. Mais la suite aura vraiment été très difficile à lire pour moi. Voir Nina s’en prendre encore plein la figure, alors qu’elle ne fait que ce qu’on lui dit, le mieux d’elle-même et surtout de mal à personne… C’est vraiment assez frustrant, dans un sens, cette partie est un peu réussie. C’est plus ce qui en découle qui me paraît moins bon. Azur continue de faire son petit malin alors qu’il est berné de toutes parts et n’a pas le courage d’avouer la vérité dès le départ par peur de perdre son trône et le pouvoir qui va avec. Toutefois, s’il n’agit pas, c’est qu’il n’a pas tant de pouvoirs que ça. Dire dès les accusations que ce sont elles qui font passer Alisha pour morte et forcer le roi à trouver une solution serait le minimum. Surtout que, au départ, Nina est supposée ressembler à la vraie, sauf qu’en la voyant, c’est clairement pas le cas en fait. En fermant les yeux non pas une, mais deux fois sur les agissements du temple, Azur a loupé l’occasion de s’en débarrasser. Même si la religion à une place importante, mentir et manipuler la famille royale devrait être puni, sinon, ils admettent juste qu’ils n’ont aucun pouvoir et que ce ne sont que des marionnettes. Azur étant lui-même un imposteur, il a sans doute peur que ce soit dévoilé. Il critiquait aussi l’ancien roi, mais au final, il ne vaut pas mieux. Maintenant qu’il a soutenu la version du temple, il ne peut plus aller contre. Quant à discréditer Alisha, ça va être compliqué puisqu’elle a des yeux partout et peut manipuler les gens. Au final, cette occasion était la meilleure pour l’éliminer une fois pour toute. Dans tous les cas, sa situation n’ira pas en s’améliorant, donc autant frapper dès le départ, quitte à être éliminé ensuite. Il y avait moyen de les confronter selon moi, dommage qu’il est opté pour l’indifférence. J’ai l’impression que pour lui, l’amour, c’est la roulette russe, il s’engage quand il veut pour abandonner ensuite. Pour moi, il n’est clairement pas fiable, même en tant que personne pas besoin d’aller jusqu’au potentiel conjoint. Sett me paraît également bien mieux écrit, ce qui peut indiquer que l’autrice a créé Azur pour tout autre chose et doit tenter de le développer maintenant…
Le problème dans tout ça, c’est que je commence à avoir l’impression de tourner en rond. Nina ne fait que passer de prison en prison. Elle ne peut jamais choisir, ne prend jamais la peine de se défendre. Elle est donc une proie facile pour tous ceux souhaitant lui faire du mal et ça m’agace. C’est littéralement une femme à sauver alors qu’elle pourrait être beaucoup plus. Son évolution est inexistante et quand j’ai une lueur d’espoir, elle est vite balayée. Personne ne resterait aussi naïf après avoir vécu tout ce qu’elle a vécu. Plus le temps passe, plus son personnage devient incohérent et presque agaçant, j’ai envie de la secouer et de lui dire de mûrir. La naïveté dû à ses origines devrait être disparue depuis longtemps, pourtant, elle est toujours là et elle continue donc d’être manipulée. La vraie Alisha a prouvé qu’elle était capable de tout voir, même à distance. Elle sait donc pertinemment comment manipuler les autres, ce qui la rend bien plus dangereuse que Nina. Je ne sais pas si les mots dits sont la vérité, je suppose que oui. Mais dans ce cas-là, la vraie Alisha est plus dangereuse que Nina, puisqu’elle sait comment utiliser ses pouvoirs et le fait visiblement pour manipuler les autres. Là où Nina ne le maîtrise pas vraiment et franchement, vu ce qu’elle a fait jusqu’à présent, je me demande si Alisha n’est pas aux manettes depuis un moment pour réveiller son pouvoir et justement, la discréditer. Pourquoi s’être fait passer pour morte ? Pour ne pas finir dans un autre pays ? Pourquoi s’être révélée uniquement maintenant ? Cette fille n’est pas nette, elle manipule déjà son monde. On l’a élevé pour ne rien ressentir afin de contrôler ses pouvoirs, il ne peut donc pas y avoir plus dangereux qu’elle, je suis sûre que les derniers événements qui finiront de persuader Nina sont de son chef.
Ganz ehrlich, in dem Moment wo einer ankommt und meint, alles über einen zu wissen und einem seine Moral etc. aufzudrücken, kann nur suspekt sein. Nina ist mit dem ganzen, was ihr erzählt wird und widerfährt, überfordert und glaubt es aus dem Grund auch. Vor allem, da ja echt einiges auch direkt passiert, was es sie glauben lässt. Azur, sorry dude, aber du bist jetzt bei mir unten durch. So verhält man sich nicht, wenn man jemanden liebt, nur weil jemand kommt und einem irgendwas sagt. Ich bin Sol und Hikami dankbar, dass sie Nina retten wollen, jedoch habe ich Sorge, was ihren Lebenswilen angeht. Und Seto, my man. Mir war schon fast klar, dass er es gehört hat, und ich bin froh, wenn er sich nun wirklich auf dir Suche macht. Die echte Alicia ist mir auch super suspekt und Sol hat berechtigte Gründe, an ihr zu zweifeln … ich frage mich, wo nun die Reise hingeht und wie die politischen Umstände sich entwickeln werden.
I’m somewhat disappointed in this volume…or maybe I should say I was frustrated by this, mainly because there was a significant lack of Sett :( but also…what the heck is going on with Azure?!
I’m definitely a Sett fan and I prefer his character over Azure but I just didn’t like Azure’s behaviours in this at all. In the previous volume he was declaring his love to Nina and now he’s done a complete 180! I have no idea whether he will later reveal that his behaviour was all just an act but ugh…I actually felt like hitting him! :’)
Perhaps I should be happy though because Sett is on his way to find Neena :)
And she really gets put through the wringer in this volume too! I think this instalment just wasn’t exactly to my tastes - there was too much cruelty enacted on Nina and I have a soft heart when it comes to her - she deserves all the happiness and love! (hopefully with Sett)!