A Bride’s Story vol. 5

It’s Laila and Leily’s wedding and we get to see all the work that goes into such an event in this region.  From the girls’ beautification process, to the butchering of sheep for the feast, and the arrival of all guests (invited and not) we get to see every little detail of this epic celebration.  Now, as was the case with the introduction of the twins in the previous volume, a lot of this is pitched more overtly towards comedy.  If that annoyed you then, you’re probably not going to like this any better.  However, mangaka Kaoru Mori’s focus on character means that the humor is always grounded in the characters’ believable personalities and that’s what makes it work for me.  You can see this best in the illustration that graces the full back cover — easily one of my favorite images from Mori and something I’d love to have up on my wall as a poster.

Then the focus shifts back to the couple that started it all, Amir and Karluk.  The usual format is broken for one chapter which depicts a typical day in their life through full-page illustrations.  A short about Karluk’s grandmother and her incredible goat climbing/riding abilities and a longer story about the efforts to care for a wounded hawk round out the volume.  As always, they’re stunningly illustrated windows into a time and culture that most of us don’t really think about.  Mori states in her introduction that we’ll be sticking with these characters for a while yet and following up on the fate of the outspoken Pariya and Amir’s brother.  I look forward to seeing what she has in store for them, but more intriguing are the whispers of war with the Russians which pass through here.  Could we be getting a bride’s wartime story in the future?  Given Mori’s skill and versatility in storytelling, that’d be something I’d like to see.