Manga Review | Firefly Wedding

If you know anything about me, I love the tension and knife to the throat dynamics of thriller romances along the lines of Love of Kill and Yakuza Fiance: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii. I eat that stuff up, so I was super excited when I first saw that Comikey decided to license Firefly Wedding (Hotaru No Yomeiri) by Tachibana Oreco.

It’s a historical romance set during the Meiji period, and the story follows Satoko, a young noblewoman whose incredibly beautiful and sought after by many suitors. This makes her wicked stepmother and stepsister extremely envious of her. However, one day, Satoko ends up kidnapped by a group of thugs who plan on killing her

Desperate to survive, she offers to marry the assassin of the bunch in exchange for sparing her life, and he agrees … on the condition that she loves him.

At first, she plays along just to appease him, but gradually the two start to get to know one another on a deeper level and she starts developing genuine feelings for him.

Now, at first glance, Shinpei comes off as an overly-possessive and overly attached yandere male love interest with a lot of red flags, which he is, to be fair. I mean, he does murder people for a living.

But in the famous words of Shrek, people are like onions. They have layers, and we get to see more sides to him as the story progresses--like Satoko learns to see Shinpei as more than just a cold-blooded killer and Shinpei admires Satoko for more than just her physical beauty but for her courageousness and compassion towards others as well.

You see, at its, core Firefly Wedding is a story about two individuals who find acceptance in one another—physical and emotional scars and all.

Overall, it’s just an addicting, extremely bingeable series that’s also surprisingly sweet and touching, and I cannot recommend it enough for fans of historical manga or thriller romances.

You can read Firefly wedding here from the official source.

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