So we’re back to Backstage Prince. I found it rather average but sweet in volume one, so I am expecting more of the same in this volume.
There’s talk of marriage at the start of this volume, which is pretty fast considering they have only known each other for three months. Akari seems to flit between thinking it’s great and being dubious (were I in her situation I’d probably lean more to dubious, but that’s just the cynic in me).
But obstacles fly into the way of their courtship. First there is the opposition of Ryusei’s father, who wants him to bind two famous kabuki families together by marrying Miyuki, a glamorous starlet we met in volume one, who is Toshiya’s sister, a senior kabuki actor who’s a bit of a matchmaker (but not for his sister) and rather fond of breaking down dressing room doors. After a section of slander, where a newspaper gets a photo of Akari and Ryusei, they are separated for a month, and Akari falls into a river (but that’s not really plot relevant).
Finally, Naoki, a kabuki friend of Akari’s, leaps into the spotlight when he is invited to costar with Ryusei. But can Ryusei control his jealousy, when Naoki is blatantly using it to try and split Akari and him apart?
I was right when I thought that this volume would be more of the same, and so the plot just meanders along, with the normal shojo trouble bumps along the way. Naoki seems to do a relatively fast character switch from nice-guy-who-likes-Akari to sabotaging-guy-who-likes-Akari, but the story did need a villain.
If anything, this volume is weaker than the first if only because there is a little less freshness due to the first volume. There’s the occasional kabuki knowledge tidbit lurking within the pages, but I still feel that so much more could have been done with this story.
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"Continuing in much the same vein as volume 1, it’s not bad, but it’s not startlingly good either."
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