Perfectly Fine on My Own, So My Fiancé Can Twist in the Wind Volume 1 Review

Kodansha is well known for publishing plenty of high school romance manga, but it’s not so often we’re treated to a tale of love in a fantasy setting instead. But that’s precisely what we’re getting in this new debut from the Vertical imprint: Perfectly Fine on My Own, So My Fiancé Can Twist in the Wind. Does it prove entertaining? Let’s find out!

Our story follows noble lady Nicole, who is engaged to a nobleman known as Keios. Although she’s done her best throughout their relationship to send him letters, have tea with him and invite him on outings, Keios never does anything but talk about Princess Caroline. Keios and Caroline are childhood friends and they’re on the student council together at the elite academy all nobles attend at their age. Given how inseparable the pair are, rumours swirl that Keios is actually in love with Caroline (despite her being engaged to a prince of a neighbouring country) and with the way he acts, Nicole has come to believe the same.

The final straw comes when Keios presents Nicole with flowers that he thought she’d love because Caroline did. Learning that Keios gave the same flowers to someone who isn’t even his fiancée drives Nicole to entirely ignore him and give up any hope of a happily ever after. Instead, she’s going to live for herself and enjoy every day to the fullest! After all, if Keios can do as he pleases, why shouldn’t Nicole have the same freedoms? And how will Keios feel when he learns Nicole is visiting town and attending events all by herself without even an attendant to keep her safe?

Perfectly Fine on My Own shows us the story not just through the perspective of Nicole, but also Keios and Caroline. Here, we gain a clear understanding of what is actually happening. It’s not that Keios is in love with Caroline; it’s that he has no idea how to act around a woman like Nicole. Since her engagement, Caroline has been presenting herself in a more ladylike manner, but when she was a kid, she used to practise swordsmanship and had a tomboy reputation. Having spent so much time with a girl like that, Keios can’t even begin to grasp how he treats his fiancée. In fact, he sees no problem with the way he has been acting up until now, which immediately drives everyone to despair.

Perhaps most importantly, now that he’s realised the error of his ways, Keios does want to fix their relationship. With the help of Caroline and his other friends on the student council, Keios is realising that fixing their relationship may be an impossible task due to all the damage he’s caused, but he’s going to do his best. And we readers will certainly enjoy watching him run around like a headless chicken as he tries to make amends!

The copy on the back cover of this volume advertises the series as perfect for fans of Bridgerton, and while I didn’t anticipate there being a lot of crossover between this and that (despite being a fan myself), I think it’s a good comparison. Both for how clumsy, yet sweet, the romance is and also because of how noble society is depicted.

We’ve avoided the usual trappings of a society where our heroine would be bullied, and instead the series leans hard into the gossipy element of a setup like this, something that has caused no end of misunderstandings for basically the entire cast. The truth gets embellished (which we get to see play out first-hand a couple of times) and it becomes difficult for anyone to know what’s really true. Especially when you have someone like Keios who is absolutely terrible at communicating. These are the kinds of misunderstandings and relationships that only work in a setting like this because it makes sense how they got so terribly out of hand. I think it was very clever of the author to ensure we see this through the lens of several characters, too.

This is based on a web novel by author Yahiro Arase and has been adapted into manga by Jun Hareta, where it appears to be Hareta’s first work. On the whole I really liked the artwork, which perfectly conveys the emotions of the cast and sets the scenes well in terms of background detail. Sometimes panels threaten to be overwhelmed by the lengthy text boxes, but it’s generally well balanced in this department. The only issue I had was that I sometimes struggled to tell the difference between Caroline and another of the side characters as they have very similar appearances in terms of their faces and hairstyles.

As mentioned earlier, Perfectly Fine on My Own Volume 1 comes to the West thanks to Kodansha under their Vertical imprint and in one of their smaller print formats. The release has been translated by Nicole Frasik with lettering by Mercedes McGarry and reads well with some excellent translation and variety of lettering on show. Extras include colour pages at the beginning and a short story by the original author.

The series is ongoing in Japan, with 3 volumes currently available and #4 scheduled for late May. Here in English we have Volume 2 pencilled in for early May, followed by #3 in August, so plenty of this still to come in the near future!

Overall Perfectly Fine on My Own, So My Fiancé Can Twist in the Wind’s first volume is off to a highly entertaining start. It manages to avoid several common missteps of the genre, while also devoting itself to showing us the story through the eyes of several different characters. Normally, that would leave someone underdeveloped, but here we’ve gotten to spend a good amount of time with everyone. It’s funny, charming and definitely a series to pick up if you’re into the romance genre.

A free preview can be read on the Kodansha website.

Our review copy from Kodansha (Vertical) was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).