Kozue Amano knocks it out of the park with another volume of his magnum opus, but I've definitely reached a point where I cannot ignore this obvious pattern...
As of both volumes of Aqua and the first two of Aria, Akari has still not rounded out a whole year living on Planet Aqua. As such, there are more things for her to see of the culture of Neo-Venezia. As such, there are more things for Amano to show the reader in the guise of Alicia, et al., showing Akari. As such, each chapter begins with Akari being told of some heretofore unsaid element of Neo-Venezian culture, then she gets excited to learn more, then Amano gratuitously telegraphs scenes where the reader sees Akari express awe in the final panel of one page, only to turn the sheet and see a large, highly detailed vision of some beautiful what-have-you. Always, these vistas are stunning, for Akari and for ourselves, but it is so incredibly predictable. I began reading this series because I'd heard great things about it, and by now it seems I will continue because I know there will never be a dip in quality; Amano's found a formula that cannot yield shittiness. This almost makes it hard to -truly- enjoy the series, because it feels we can only go so far with the predictability of its wonder. Kind of a weird thing to say, but it is what it is.
This volume sees the dawn of winter. Aqua's yearly cycle, being twice the length of that of Manhome, accounts for six months of winter. Six months which pass by in the course of one tankoubon.
The little snow bugs were cute. The introduction of "Gnomes" was neat, adding more sustainable world-building, insofar as we can imagine Al becoming as semi-significant as Akatsuki [I'd half-forgotten Al's name, and coincidentally/conveniently opened the volume right to the page he introduced himself!].
Cait Sith returns, from the Aqua manga. This is most definitely the highlight of the volume, in my opinion at least. This is a wonderful sci-fi world, yet oddly I find myself most attracted to the fantasy elements. The foxes in the previous volume, the cats here and in Aqua.
I also like the color illustration of Aika in the Chinese-inspired clothes on the table of contents page. Those spats...!