Kurokawa reunites with a childhood friend in the fifth volume of Ajiichi’s Failed Princesses manga. That really gets Fujishiro considering her feelings towards Kurokawa.
This volume contains chapters twenty-five through to thirty-one.
Front cover of the fifth volume of Failed Princesses, featuring Kanade Kurokawa and Nanaki Fujishiro
More than friends?
With the school trip over, the girls have returned to their normal school lives… or have they? When Kurokawa runs into a boy she knows from her childhood, things turn interesting fast. Just what does her childhood friend mean when he says he wants to “meet up”?
I don’t know about anybody else, but saying things turn “interesting” might be a bit of an exaggeration. Kurokawa happens to run into a childhood friend, and of course he wants to hang out. It’s a very familiar set up; I don’t feel like we’re really experiencing anything fresh here.
We also have Fujishiro being unable to accept in inwardly, but being supportive on the surface. Even though she has feelings for Kurokawa herself.
So we get the frustration of Fujishiro just stepping back, believing that it would be for the best to just leet things play out between Kurokawa and her childhood friend. Perhaps Kurokawa being somewhat dense is actually a good thing with this whole situation, as she is unable to pick up on what it is her childhood friend really wants. At least until he says it outright.
Whilst the whole setup feels pretty familiar, at least we do get some good stuff for Fujishiro out of it. And to think, she was almost just going to step back from the whole thing, and act happy for Kurokawa’s sake.
Nothing all that spectacular in this volume, but it’s not bad, either. Just giving us some rather familiar story beats, all the aid of advancing the relationship between Kurokawa and Fujishiro. Guess it feels kind of safe. We’ll see the results of everything that happened in this volume in the next one; which will be the final.
Here’s hoping things will end well.
Rory Muses 