Been reading Maybe’s To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts? Then you’re probably going to pick this manga up. If you watched the Dusk Maiden of Amnesia anime, then you get to check out Maybe’s work in manga form.
But now the question is — if you’ve done neither of these things, is Tales of Wedding Rings worth a read? Well, it’ll depend if you don’t mind harems or the very simplistic story. If so, this is a fairly nice, good looking work that can get better as the series goes on.
Satou is a normal high school kid who happens to be a long time friend of Himeno “Hime” Nonaka. Hime Nonaka happens to have blond hair, is flashy, looks foreign, and is definitely not normal. As in, Satou, as a kid, met her and her grandpa in the woods surrounded by a flash of light, and she persuaded him to not mention this moment to anyone. So they’ve known each other since then and liked being in each other’s company, and they probably wanted to be more than childhood friends.
That part gets crushed when Hime tells him she has to leave…tomorrow. Awkward and unsatisfying, Satou stews over this news, when, lo and behold, he sees the flash of light again! Rather than be passive, he heads over to the light and tries to stop Hime from going back to her world. She rejects that and leaves him hanging. Undeterred and unable to stop his momentum, he dives into the light to be with her.
…And finds himself in a fantasy world.
Not only does he walk into said fantasy world, but also walks into Hime getting married to an unknown prince. Then a demon interrupts the ceremony, which makes Hime choose to “marry” Satou. After kissing him and slipping a ring on his finger, he is suddenly granted power and is able to make quick work of the demon. This power trip knocks him out, but when he awakes, he’s in a room with Hime alone. He also then learns he is married. And then learns he is the Ring King.
…THEN he learns he’s supposed to save the world from the Abyss King. And he’s gonna need to “marry” four more people to do so. Satou probably didn’t think this through when he jumped into the light…
Tales of Wedding Rings has been published in English for quite some time. It was (and still is) on Crunchyroll, but Yen Press decided it was time to make it available in print. I have been reading the manga on Crunchyroll, so reading it again is surprisingly refreshing. As in, I probably remembered it was kinda funny, but not quite this funny upon re-reading it. From Satou being forced to grandstand in front of hundreds of people and declare himself to be the hero with the goofiest look on his face to him and Hime’s “moment” in the bath, the jokes do work well. The interactions between Hime and Satou are pretty nice to read, and the art is really good. Maybe does know how to draw for sure.
But upon reading this again, I am reminded that it does take a bit to pick up because the story is very simplistic. In the afterword Maybe admitted there were ideas for the work, but after stuff happened, this simple story was the result. As Maybe’s first fantasy work, it definitely is pretty standard fare. It’s gonna at least take the appearance of the other Ring holders before this gets intriguing. Combine that and the usual harem trappings, this may not be all that fun for some.
That said, I do think it does a few things that make it far more fun and tolerable. For starters, no complete “waffling” around like usual harems. The manga goes well enough out of its way to establish Hime and Satou’s status in volume 1. The humor is fine, and because the story’s simple, it doesn’t get convoluted. At this point, if you were just in need of something light, this volume will work. And Tales of Wedding Rings should get better as it continues. Since it’s been a while since I’ve read CR’s early chapters, I don’t know what’s changed, but the letterers are different. I do imagine there are changes though, and moving forward there are probably going to be more.
But for now, Tales of Wedding Rings is a fine and funny work with potential for it to grow as the series continues.