Manga: Knight of The Ice

Knight of The Ice Vol 1 
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

Kokoro is the talk of the figure-skating world, winning trophies and hearts. But little do they know... he's actually a huge nerd! From the beloved creator of You're My Pet (Tramps Like Us). Chitose is a serious young woman, working for the health magazine SASSO. Or at least, she would be, if she wasn't constantly getting distracted by her childhood friend, international figure skating star Kokoro Kijinami! In the public eye and on the ice, Kokoro is a gallant, flawless knight, but behind his glittery costumes and breathtaking spins lies a secret: he's actually a hopeless romantic otaku, who can only land his quad jumps when Chitose is on hand to recite a spell from his favourite magical girl anime! 

I'm not going to lie, I've been missing Yuri On Ice quite a lot lately and I will take anything that even remotely resembles it, no matter how vague, to try and fill its place. Knight of The Ice has the ice skating element and focus on it of Yuri On Ice, complete with fleshed out rival characters, and the secret otaku element of Wotakoi alongside the romance so I was curious to see how things would turn out. I was a little worried things might be a little too ridiculous or a little too much but I was pleasantly surprised! 

I ended up laughing so much while I was reading this first volume and it very quickly caught my attention and I had a feeling it was going to be one of the series that I look forward to each new volume impatiently! 

We quickly establish who each character is and a little background to the whole spell casting thing and how it came about. This initial volume moves the story along nicely, giving us a feel for the relationship between Chitose and Kokoro as well as Chitose and her Editor in Chief who screams second male lead at this point already. 

The supporting cast are a lot of fun from the manager to the coach and each of his rival competitors has their own distinct personality. They were interesting to meet and I'm sure they're going to be interesting to see in future volumes. 

As for the art style, it's nicely drawn that's for sure! Especially the skate sequences, they were so wonderfully drawn and represented. 

Quite a lot happens in this initial volume and I feel like we covered a lot of ground to get to the main point of the story. There's a lot of set up, and I'm already shipping the main two characters though it's clear we're in for some angst for now as everything isn't smooth sailing! This took a lot more of a serious tone than I initially thought it would, though there were moments of humour, and I found myself really enjoying reading this volume. On this volume alone, I'm sure it's going to become a favourite series of mine and I'm already eager for the next volume!