LogFAQs > #901572483

Aria Vol. 3 (of 3)
https://imgur.com/a/Dp8gIXn

The color illustrations at the beginning of the book throw me because they are not hair colors I imagine! Spring has come, and that means Akari's been here for a year. While training, we encounter Alice, a beginner from the upstart company Orange Planet. Despite being a beginner with two gloves, (Akari and Aika have one glove because they're farther along, and you lose that one when you are a full Undine) Alice is really good, and has a quiet, loner nature that comes off as arrogance. Aika gets mad and challenges her to a race...but she's tired from earlier training, so Akari will be the one rowing. It doesn't take a psychic to guess how this will go! Akari is actually really fast when she wants to be- apparently there's a technique called "reverse rowing" that you're not supposed to do with customers on board, and it appears to be a specialty for her. Akari shoots ahead, but gets distracted by picking flowers and loses. It's a bonding experience for all parties involved.

On a day off, Alicia takes Akari to "look for spring" and have a picnic along some abandoned train tracks. Alicia is trying to find a special place of some sort, but we take the wrong fork, and instead find a big cherry tree that is showering a roofless, abandoned train car with petals. It's a nice scene, as Alicia talks about how sometimes mistakes work out well. President Aria even manages to get the electricity running, adding some nice lighting, although it's a bit scary for about two panels as he climbs up to a transformer.

After our previous expedeetion, one of our boats sprung a leak, so we are taking it in to the shop and replacing it with a mildly dilapidated boat. It's old, but well cared for. Aika finds a hidden treasure map in a compartment, and Alice shows up to join the hunt. It takes us on a lovely tour of the town because everything in this manga is lovely. Now we have a treasure in our hearts! We go back and reset all the clues for the next person, and realize that others before us have done the same.

Aika has left Hime-ya and is crashing with Akari. Aika is sick of her boss, Akira, (do we really need an Akari AND an Akira AND an Alice AND an Alicia and everybody else in this business has an A name too?) who is one of the top three Undines around, in addition to Alicia and somebody from Orange Planet. Having been thus prefaced, Akira shows up to yell at everybody, including her childhood friend and one-sided rival Alicia. We get Aika's backstory- one day when Alicia was still a trainee, she was very kind to Aika, inspiring her to also become an Undine. Oh by the way she's also the heir to Hime-ya! Aika and Akari are set to race for reasons I don't entirely understand, but they have to do with Akira playing a bad guy to get Aika back. Really this whole incident was their tsundere-ness rubbing against each other.

Next comes a combination of rainy season and high tide. Buildings flood and everybody stays home to relax because there's not enough relaxing in this town. Akatsuki calls out Akari because today you're supposed to give a girl a single rose and he needs help carrying all the roses he got for Alicia. Due to a misunderstanding, though, Alicia comes to think they're for Akari. The roses fall into the water and float away prettily, Akari gives Akatsuki a pep talk, and he gives her one of the roses just because. Also, Aika shows up at the empty office to try to give Alicia one, lol.

In the omake the author reveals that Presidents Aria and Hime are based off his actual IRL cats! That's pretty cool.
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Look at all those chickens
There's a hunger in the land, there's a reckoning still to be reckoned