Merry Wanderer of the Night + TIME

Emma: Volume Three

I was a little disappointed with the second volume in Kaoru Mori's Emma series, so I was thrilled to see how beautifully crafted Emma: Volume 3 was. It truly made me fall in love with the series all over again. As I read each new volume I can see Mori's artisty become even more sophisticated. This was especially true of this volume. I don't know the manga lingo, so I will do my best to describe it. In this volume it seems like Mori is moving away from having several boxes on the pages to longer ones that take up a third of the page or even scenes that take up two full pages. The details in these drawings amazed me, and when I turned the page a few different times during the book I literally gasped. If you haven't read the Emma series yet, I urge you to do so. The remainder of this review will assume that you have read Emma: Volume 1 and Emma: Volume 2.

The last time we saw Emma she was leaving London after a failed romance with the aristocratic William Jones. This volume picks up right there, with Emma's journey to a new home on a train. Here she meets Tasha, a maid to a wealthy family. It is through Tasha that Emma finds her new place of employment and encounters many new mysterious characters. William Jones is still in London, but he is actually working now. It appears that since his father requested him to be serious and not consider riff raff like Emma he has decided to do exactly that. It is truly sad, because he pretends like everything is fine and dandy. His sister, however, can see that something is bothering him. William passively moves through this book though, not hinting towards his true feelings.

It seems like Mori is getting a little more interested in Victorian history with this volume, and especially with the options given to women during the time period. Most of Mori's stories deal with maids in Victorian England, but here we are introduced to the possibility of teaching as a governess or becoming an authoress, as the book says. Mori also uses historical background as a way to transition between scenes which is different from the two past volumes.

This novel earned an A.

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Emma: Volume Three + TIME