This human girl x beast boy manga kicks off right where the previous left off: with Sariphi (unknowingly) feeling jealous of a potential consort. Well, this is wrapped up rather quickly and is pushed aside for the first of two major events: the arrival of Princess Amit.
Amit is not your usual beast girl — she’s a crocodile (or some type of lizard). Despite her appearance (which would normally be considered scary), she is a maiden in love, crushing on the captain of the king’s guard whom she met as a child. Amit is a bit clumsy but full of charm, literally eating Sariphi up because she’s adorable and blushing like crazy whenever she sees Jormungand.
The author notes that Amit was actually from another manga she wrote, but she became a natural part of the cast here. I hope we get to see whether her feelings will be requited or not. For now, she’s content with the Alliance of Maidens in Love with Sariphi and the male Cy and Clops. (I love their reactions to this bit of news.) As someone expressive, she livens up the story compared to the more serious and practical Sariphi and Leonhart (whose role is minimal here).
The other major event in Volume 2 is Sariphi’s attempt to summon a Holy Beast. It does seem a little ironic that royalty in the Beast Kingdom have to summon some type of animal familiar, but we’ve already seen this magic in the first book. As a human, Sariphi has to use her own life force to try to summon a creature. We do finally see what she summons: a fat, flightless phoenix. This still doesn’t satisfy Anubis or the other anti-Sariphi government officials, and so she decides to coach her familiar. Unfortunately, a sidebar from the author spoils the end result. I doubt most readers thought this would end badly, but seeing Bennu’s true form before the story reveals it takes away any suspense the manga might have had.
Unlike Amit, I didn’t care for the phoenix. First of all, it can only communicate with his summoner, so everyone else is clueless whenever Bennu speaks. Perhaps they’re lucky though, as Bennu acts like a rude old man who keeps bragging about his glory days. Of course, he ends up coming to Sariphi’s aid, but he goes right back to being a glutton. Neither he nor Amit play a significant role in the final chapter, so I don’t know how often he’ll be a part of the story. Sariphi has other things to worry about than translating for or feeding her Holy Beast.
What the next problem is, I don’t know. Presumably, the next volume will introduce her second objective to winning the council’s approval to be queen. The way the story is right now, there could be any number of tasks, and the plot could just get stuck in a repetitive cycle of task, fulfill task, next task, especially if the main couple is going to be locked in a struggle of “depend on me” vs “I want to support you too”. At least Amit shows that Tomofuji isn’t afraid to include a variety of creatures as enemies and allies, so I’m curious whether the story can be just as creative.