Kozue Amano (天野こずえ Amano Kozue) is a female Japanese manga artist. She is widely known as the creator of Aria, which proved to be a best-selling hit, and was adapted into an anime television series consisting of 3 seasons and an OVA.
In this volume we get to meet a whole other (non-Undine) job for rowing gondolas alongside some new peers for Akari. We also get a chapter with Alice and Alicia, where Alice is looking for some imperfection in Alicia but is struggling to find any- a real treat to watch Alice be all sneaky and suspicious. The bonus at the end with Akari and Akatsuki reading their horoscopes was real cute, whenever this series dabbles in romance there are a bunch of sweet moments. But my favourite chapter, and a highlight of the series thus far, is a chapter about winter holidays where Alice laments growing up and not having a big holiday spirit anymore. It's an angle that especially works for her, as her role in the series is being the youngest member of the cast, and not only do we get some great art that depicts this almost fairy tale-like wonder of the holidays but we get this great moment between Alice and her mentor, Athena, about finding 'magic' as an adult and sharing it with others.
In this volume some of the main takeaways are ; growing up is better then staying a kid, it matters who you keep around you, and don’t take horoscopes seriously