#sango is cool & the mysterious merprince fiance brings some excitement but the lukia/kurosuna drama is too much

[incorrectmmpppquotes]

chapter 9 is out and i've got Thoughts. i'm actually pretty excited for where the story is starting to go.

first off, COCO IS BACK BABEY. best girl makes her return and i am HYPED.

anyways, so is lucia not aqua regina? it really makes sense for her not to be at this point. it makes sense for her character in pure to be a housewife & not have to worry about being ocean god.

but then, what is with the side story then? is it not canon? was it all a dream? did lucia become aqua regina but then give the position back so she could have lukia? was it all kept a secret & no one knows except lucia & kaito, and maybe laurent captured the original aqua regina thinking she's still The aqua regina but really she's powerless? (not sure how that works out but hey i can think of something). i hope it's explained rather than glossed over bc i think just about everyone considers that ending the true ending of the original rather than rina's fever dream in episode 91.

my other question is why bring back izul & potentially 2 of the other dark lovers. while they are my favorite villain group it seems like an odd choice, unless they're setting up for laurent to be a half merman half panthalassan who they serve?

(left: chapter 3, right: chapter 9)

it's interesting to see how the silhouettes have greatly changed for the villains too. i had definitely pegged the one to the left of laurent in chapter 3 as suspiciously similar to izul & looks like i was right. between the glimpse of the woman to the far right of laurent given in chapter 3 & the silhouette on the left in chapter 9, i think we can safely suspect maria is back too. i'm very curious about the last one though. the one in the back in chapter 3 definitely looks like erill, but the silhouette in chapter 9 does not, unless her hair is entirely covered by her bandana.

it's not hard to guess why yuri wouldn't be back as a villain but i do hope we get to see her. & i hope we get to see her & hippo together too.

as much as i love the dark lovers though, i wish someone else could have come back. they sort of got a redemption arc in that short story where hippo & yuri met, although the anime episode was far more of a redemption arc than the manga was.

it would be nice to see a redemption arc for michel's servants, assuming their spirits are still around considering michel created them & he peaced out at the end of pure.

it would be nice to see the black beauty sisters too. it was anime-only, but mimi did have that redemption arc going for her & she did seem to consider the princesses friends at the end. in the manga their death was a lot more gruesome but hey michal got reborn, why couldn't they have been reborn?

either way, it seems like we'll be seeing more characters from the original going forward. maybe hanamori realized that the new characters she was writing have no personality so reverted back to the ones who were already established, or maybe they're all coming back as a homage to the original. either way, excited to see where things go!