okay, my thoughts...

I fell in love with the world and the plot first. The characters soon after.

The entire time I was a little confused and not sure where things were going or what was happening or what motives certain characters had. And while the end left me confused and with more questions, I still think the plot was the strongest point of this book. I love politics, and I want to see more of what is going on at court, especially between the Emperor's wife and consort. Two strong women at each other's throats because they want to protect themselves and their sons is just the kind of content I want. But we also get a couple huge reveals near the end, which I was not expecting. Ranmaru having the yellow eyes of the fox and having known Mariko was a girl the entire time??!! And then finding out Ranmaru isn't Ranmaru but actually Tsuneoki, and Okami is actually Ranmaru. I was a little lost when this came to light because I had to switch everything I knew about the characters, especially with what happened with their fathers. But it was really well done.

The few issues I had were with the dialogue and the romance.

The dialogue itself felt too flowery and obtuse at times. It was overly philosophical and hard to follow through with what everyone was talking about. Maybe I'm just not that intelligent when it comes to word battles lol, but some of the stuff went over my head, and I had to read certain lines a couple times to understand what the characters were getting at. It took the joy away from reading a little.

And then the romance. I liked Okami before he suddenly fell in love with Mariko. It sort of went from him being interested in this new recruit and finding her suspicious and annoying, to suddenly realizing she's a girl and that he does have feelings for her. And it starts to take over the plot a little more than I wanted. And to see Mariko side with her new lover instead of her brother...I wanted to read a book with a good sibling relationship, and maybe there's still hope cause Kenshin's actions are the result of his ignorance and single-mindedness. And he's just as unaware of the world as Mariko is, but I don't know. The romance and then this really bugged me.

Excited to get to the second book, despite hearing mixed things. If we're going to court that means we get court politics and I live for that stuff.