Tail of the Moon, Vol. 3

月のしっぽ [Tsuki no Shippo] #3

by Rinko Ueda

Usagi goes from village darling to castle clown, but that's not going to stop her from doing her best! She's going to get her man and become a ninja, and not even two super-skilled shinobi beauties can stop her!

Usagi is the granddaughter of the leader of a prestigious ninja village, but she's such a klutz that she's never made it out of the kiddie class. Frustrated with Usagi's lack of progress, her grandfather sends her to marry Lord Hanzo and have lots of ninja babies. But the lord has no interest in her or her childbearing potential!

Lord Hanzo readily agrees to Ieyasu's offer to take Usagi away to work as an herbalist--almost as quickly as he agreed with Ieyasu that Usagi doesn't have what it takes to become a ninja! Hanzo seems unconcerned about having Usagi out of his life, but Usagi isn't faring as well. Lonely in a new place, Usagi crawls into Yukimaru's bed, much to his distress!

Genres: Manga, Romance, Graphic Novels, Shojo, Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Historical

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2003

About the author

Japanese name: 上田倫子

She is a Japanese manga artist who does mainly shojo manga. Her works are primarily serialized in Margaret magazine, with series published in collected volumes by Shueisha, though she has also been featured in fellow Shueisha publication Ribon, as well as illustrating the novel adaptation of her own Stepping on Roses series in Cobalt.

Reviews

[Rosenblue(vintage & retro manga & classic literature deserve more love on GR)]

This manga is hilarious.
Full review soon.

[Angela Auten]

I am taking a longer time to finish these volumes so I can really absorb the story. I love this manga. <3

[Noelle]

This volume is the best so far. Characters feel a lot more flushed out, though I do find Usagi’s “one track mind” of marrying Hanzo to be somewhat irritating. I appreciate the humor in this, too. I’m hoping the next volume will be good!

[Jamie]

I loved getting a glimpse of Usagi's past in this one! Very emotional for her too. And I am enjoying getting to know Yukimaru. Goemon ticked me off in this! I wasn't sure of him before, but not I straight dislike him. What he does is so very wrong. ANd he doesn't just do one bad thing. No...but repeatedly. Poor Mamezo is now being tormented. Everyone is afraid of something. GUess what his is?! Romantic potential in this one.

[~Cyanide Latte~]

Once again, I absolutely am enjoying Tail of the Moon, and are we surprised? This series is very fun so far, with toes dipped into historical fiction and rom-com, and several fingers in different trope pies. (I'll add in a quick note here that I'm sort of reading this in counterpoint to revisiting Naruto, so I guess 2020 is Ninja Summer for me? It's really interesting to see how the two series juxtapose one another though, what with this one being under Viz's Shoujo Beat imprint and the other from their Shonen Jump imprint.)

Goodness, I feel like I have a LOT of thoughts at this point, and I am probably going to have to throw all of them underneath a spoiler tag.

For starters, I am struggling to suspend my disbelief and actually buy into Hanzo's sudden heel-face-turn, this sudden affection for Usagi where he spent pretty much the first two volumes angsting quietly about the fact that he can't get with Princess Sara. It just feels very abrupt with little-to-no foundation or build-up behind it, and I guess it could be a case of, (seeing how Hanzo more or less kicked Usagi out and sent her to Hamamatsu to study as an herbalist) of "absence makes the heart grow fonder" but if so, it feels very forced. I want to like Hanzo, but he reads as having a lot of toxic masculinity coded into his character, and outside of that and just looking very bishonen, he feels very one-dimensional.

Normally I would lean more towards the love interest that fits the Childhood Friends trope, but in this case, much as I enjoy Goemon as a character and I feel like he (so far) doesn't display the same level of toxic masculinity as Hanzo, I can't get behind him being with Usagi either. A lot of Goemon's actions/behaviors that are born out of his jealousy over Usagi and his desire to win her back from Hanzo (who doesn't really have her in the first place, but that's neither here nor there,) are equally bad in their own way, right down to him lying about Hazno trying to send her a letter and asking after her. Goemon knowingly tears up letters from Hanzo and Mamezo that he was supposed to deliver to Usagi, even stating that he realizes it would make her happy to receive the letters, and then later when he sees her, he lies to her about the whole thing. None of these are a good foundation for a healthy relationship, no matter how much Goemon cares about Usagi and is devoted to her. (To say nothing of some of his behaviors and remarks towards Yukimaru, which smack of queerphobia. Granted, given the time this was published in both Japan and in the US, this is rather common to see in manga, but that still annoyed me nonetheless, especially given Yuki's tendency to get upset when people mistake him for a woman.)

That being said! I absolutely love getting to see Yuki's growth in this volume. Could have done without the slut-shaming he sort of gets into regarding the brothel women that helped raise him, but in all honesty, I think that really helps to cement the fact that he IS starting to grow and change as a result of his interactions with Usagi and her impact on him. I think I've heard that he develops feelings for her later, which I hope isn't the case, because right now it feels like they're forming more of a big brother/little sister sort of relationship, and it's so natural I want it to just stay that way.

Not a spoiler but I do want to end this rambling with the fact that Mamezo needs a break, poor kid.

Now that I've gotten my thoughts out, I just want to reiterate I'm really having fun with this series, and I'm beyond glad I found Dylan's video where he recommended it, because it's making me happy and I didn't expect that. I look forward to getting to the next volume, and you can bet I'm going to keep working towards collecting the rest of the series!

[Abi]

I love Yuki! That aside, this was a great volume. It had a good amount of action, the romance built a bit, and it ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. I'm quite glad I have through volume 7 from the library. Good series! A nice mix of romance, action, and hilarity! 5 stars.

[˚⊱ Avi ⊰˚]

Forget what I said about liking Goemon as a character, he's toxic trash in this volume. Yes, lie to the person you "love" to crush their heart and spirit, that would sure make them available to fall in love with your snake tongued words and grand gestures...

It was nice to see more depth to Usagi's character, touching upon some of her trauma. I wish it was more present before this, but the romance is definitely the forefront of this story. Speaking of which, Hanzo very quickly turns into a tsundere here, it's a very sudden shift from disdain to affection.

Also, I forgot to mention it in the last volume, but I really hate Yuki's design. I always have. He's supposed to be pretty and put together, but that collar piece always makes me think of a clown. I get it, it was an Eastern style, but I can't unsee it lol

3.5 stars

[Christina]

I still feel the MC needs a good beating to get everything through to her but then again she has more of a hold on things then the other characters think she does. She and the man who loves her will always be my favorite.

[Karlie]

Hanzo is so pretty 😍

[Dylan]

Really love this manga.

[Kurtis Burkhardt]

Really great Shoujo manga, cute story/characters and really loved the story 😻😁👌❤️

[Oscar Manga]

2.5

[Sophie Byers]

Major plot holes: Usagi mentioned that her mother had a rough pregnancy and died while trying to give birth to her baby. However, in the first volume, Usagi didn’t know of what pregnancy and childbirth is. She also mentioned that the reason why she had herbal medicine because of her mother’s death. Although, during volume one, Usagi thought of the time when she started to make herbal medicine because of her stomach cramps.

[桃]

It seems like the story was only sprung together as the mangaka went along, and instead of using the cliches as additional touches to the story, or using them in conjunction with the story, they instead quickly become crutches. What story? This is simply formulaic pictures of every manga cliché out there. Skip it.

I fell in love with a secondary character, probably only because he had more depth than the main love interest, (just look at the Wikipedia page, every one else has at least a paragraph of info and the main love interest has two sentences. I understand a lot of mangaka try to make the main guy vague, but you need SOMETHING to go on...) and when it was clear that he was only used as a plot device for the second volume and that he was going to be paired off with a different character, I decided enough was enough.

[Shannon Thompson]

This volume was such a whiplash for me. The beginning kind of threw me off, because Hanzou’s feelings were very sudden, which was a bit of a disappointment. I would’ve liked to see him grow into it. That being said, I think we do get to see that later on, so it was made up for. BUT section 18! SO FREAKING SAD. Very much worth the volume. The characters are really coming into themselves.
~SAT

[Dylan]

Very good book. When I first read this I was like OMG Yukimaru's a guy, wierd.

[Sarah Evans]

This series is growing on me, though I really wish the heroine would change her hair and clothes. No one else in the series looks so ragged. I'm also starting to get tired of the little sidekick.

[Patrice]

:)

[Becki]

See first volume for general review of the series

[Vonze]

I was slightly bombarded with the number of minor characters in this volume. This author really piles them on! Nice dose of manga comedy.

[Brittany]

Love this series, it is great. The artwork is beautiful!

[Kayla]

Really cute, I like how Hanzo is slowly changing <3

[nidah05 (SleepDreamWrite)]

I'm really liking the series so far. Each character is different with their own personality so you know who's who. That ending was cute.

[Jadah]

LOVE

[Kayla]

it is ok

[Alexander Adrien Ren Grey]

It's a shoujo manga worth a read. I'm not big into ninja stuff but I like how it was done.

[Riley]

This was an awesome book, I stayed up till the early hours reading it.