Bride's Story

Bride's Story is the manga where I buy a volume every other year or so and re-read what I have five times, still not feeling the need to buy more. I read all of Emma over a weekend, probably because it... has a plot, I guess?

Having picked up volumes 3, 5, and 6 of Bride's Story, I'm still there. I read all three in one evening and re-read parts of it the next day, sat down and re-read the first volume when I came home, because that's what that comic does to me, even if it's only with the end of volume 6 that the story might be going somewhere (even if the afterword says it's back to Mr. Smith and his guide who instantly became my favourite character among a cast that's all of them are my favourite characters).

It's interesting how volumes 3 and 5 are easily read as standalone comics that require no knowledge of what came before them. But volume 6 was still the absolute best because of the possibly unintentional irony by its framing. It starts with a story about Karluk being upset because oh my god mum I'm almost thirteen I'm not a little kid okay please recognise my manliness. It ends with Amir saving his life in an act of badassery beyond anything she'd displayed this far. And then hauling him off over her shoulder, because he's only bgown *this* much after all.

The reason I find this comic so endlessly fascinating (beyond being really really good) is something that requires more insight onto the topic of marriage than I can cought up at the moment. But part of what makes it really, really good are moments like that.