In Amongst Us, Volume 1: Soulmates, we meet cellist Veloce and her girlfriend, conductor Blackbird. Veloce is a rich kid who ends driving her brother to meetings in their family car, Blackbird loves sweets and can’t cook. Their life is full of pleasant bickering and they are very in love.

They are also alternate universe incarnations of characters of the same name from creator Shilin Huang’s epic fantasy comic Carciphona – a comic begun in 2006 that now is in it’s 8th volume. In that world Veloce is a hunted, broken magic user and Blackbird is the otherworldly being who wants her, one way or another. Magic in that world is expressed by music. They are both so lovely together, even from the beginning, Huang would post AU versions of the two characters, in lovely and contentious situations in our real world. Amongst Us the webtoon began about 6 years ago and in 2020, I contributed to a Kickstarter for the comic and, so reviewed this volume previously.

Luckily for all of us, Seven Seas has licensed this beautiful AU story (although not the original fantasy comic as of yet….) so we can enjoy a much goofier Blackbird and a less broken, but no less handsome Veloce, as well as other visitors from the Carciphona cast in what is mostly a rather light-hearted odd-couple comedy slice of life. The strips have been adapted from webtoons quite well and Huang’s art is…always…breathtaking. As I said when I reviewed the Kickstarted volume, Huang’s art is always worth coming back for. And here I am at, more than a decade later, still coming back for more.

Seven Seas’ edition here is lovely, full color and just…gorgeous. Since there was no translation this time, I’m going take a moment to thank everyone who worked on the production side here, Production Designer Stevie Wilson, Production Manager Lissa Pattillo, Prepress Technicians Melanie Ujjimori and Jules Valera, Print Edition Editor Robin Herrera, Cover Graphic Designer: M. A. Lewife and Shiling Huang for the logo and cover art. Why am I pointing out all these people? Because it has always been my position that if manga fans knew how many folks it actually took to do the work of getting books out to you, they would appeciate how much work publishing really is! So thanks to the folks at Seven Seas and to Shilin Huang for drawing us pretty magical musicians.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – A goofy 8
Characters – 8 Divorced from their origins, they still seem pretty intense. ^_^
Service – 0 That postcard of Veloce in an evening dress was smokin’. But no, not really.
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

Many thanks to Seven Seas for the review copy and reminder that links to books go to affiliate accounts. Your support is greatly appreciated!