A Bride’s Story vol. 13

You know who we haven’t seen in a while?  The twins Laila and Lely and their husbands Sarm and Sami.  We’re reintroduced to them as the girls are being their usual energetic selves and making the repair of their roof more of a hassle than it should be for their husbands.  Everyone’s attention is subsequently diverted when Mr. Smith and his entourage roll up into town and the girls volunteer to host them all.  This will also be their first time hosting any guests as married adults and the complications start piling up as the married couples quickly realize how much work they’re going to have to do.  It all makes for some enjoyable light comedy and character building as we see these characters struggle to be good hosts.

This business with the twins only covers a little over a third of this volume with the rest covering the further adventures of Mr. Smith, his wife Talas, and their guides Ali and Mr. Nikolovski.  They wander into some unexpectedly timely territory as their path to the East is threatened by the Russian advance.  Oh, and bandits too.  Both of these elements give mangaka Kaoru Mori a chance to show off something they haven’t demonstrated in a while:  Their action chops.  While Mori’s skills clearly lie in intricate detail that supports character interactions, they’re also really good at pulling off a well-staged action scene as Ali and Mr. Nikolovski first work together to take on the bandits, and then later as the latter pulls off some real “Army of One” moves.

The end result of this is an abrupt change in direction for Mr. Smith’s journey and his overall story in this series.  While I appreciated his role as an outsider/point-of-view character in this series, I have this nagging feeling that I might be in the minority here.  After all, he was a white European touring the Silk Road who even managed to pick up a wife in the process.  As the characters remark later on, he also wasn’t a jerk and treated everyone in a decent manner.  I realize that they’re I’m appreciating him for the same reasons I am:  meeting the basic standards of decency.  It may not seem like something that should be celebrated, but as that’s something a lot of people still struggle with in the present day it seems right to give it some recognition.