What They Say
In return for a business loan of 50 million yen, the prestigious Kamiya family gave their daughter Haine away to the Otomiya family. Haine, now an Otomiya, is appointed to the student council of the exclusive Imperial Academy, a private school for the aristocracy. Even though Haine is of proper lineage to be on the council, she finds herself struggling to find her place among the many secrets of its elite members, especially those of the president who holds her heart–Shizumasa Togu, aka “the Emperor.”
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As the volume begins, we find Haine and company attempting to go to the twin’s grandfather, in an attempt to fix things once and for all between the brothers. Along the way, Ushio’s love is resolved, and the brother’s relationship begins to mend. Haine makes her demands, and the grandfather decides to give Haine the same “test” the brothers took long ago. Whoever’s rock Haine finds, she will marry, but if she finds both then the twins will be set free.
Haine begins her search, but is unable to find either stone. However, before long, Toya appears holding Shizumasa’s stone, and explains that the twin’s grandfather only placed the one stone in the garden to insure that Haine would have to give up on Takanari. Fearing the twin’s restored relationship will be destroyed when they inevitably fight over Haine, Toya throws Shizumasa’s stone into a nearby lake decides to kill both Haine and himself. Haine attempts to stop Toya and gets shot in the shoulder in the process, but still manages to pull out a speech that convinces Toya everything can still end up okay. She then proceeds to leap into the water after Shizumasa’s stone, and finds Takanari’s at the bottom alongside it, still resting there from the original “test.” This finally sets the twins free of their destiny, and Haine decides to marry them both.
From there, we see several scenes from the distant future, including the marriage of Takanari and Haine (Shizumasa decided to go abroad because he feels he has relied too heavily on Haine and Takanari), Shizumasa moving in with the two newly-weds, and the fates of virtually every character who appeared in the series. Finally, the volume closes with a short story about the budding love between a teacher and his sleepwalking student.
In Summary:
With this final volume, this series closes with an ending that very much parallels its own progression, throwing quite a lot at you, yet still sticking heavily to uninteresting or bland clichés. Everything comes to a happy ending and everyone gets their own little piece in the volume, but it all feels so generic that it’s difficult to get excited about any of it. All in all, an okay ending to an okay series, but hardly anything exceptional.
Content Grade: B Art Grade: A- Packaging Grade: A Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+ Released By: Viz Media Release Date: April 6th, 2010 MSRP: $9.99
A conclusive, yet rather generic, ending.
