Tales of Wedding Rings (Season One) – Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari
Satou was playing in the woods when he saw a bright light. He raced towards it and saw a girl and an old man walk out of it. Ten years later Satou is ready to confess his feelings to Hime. However, she has to go back. What will he do?
Tales of Wedding Rings (Season One) – Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari
What did you watch?
I watched the first episode of Tales of Wedding Rings back in February and even wrote up a review of that episode. However, I never scheduled it and then decided that I would rather just binge it and just write a season review. In hindsight, that was the right decision, but it wasn’t an easy one to make as the first episode made quite an impression on me. Anyhow, let’s dive in and see what I thought about the rest of it. There will be spoilers so don’t go running into any strange lights just yet.
What happened?
Hime had been Satou’s best friend ever since she appeared before him in the woods. In truth, he’d fallen completely in love with her but never found the courage to tell her. Finally, he decided he would do it at the festival after the school year had finished. However, before he could say anything, she revealed that she was moving away the next day. He was stunned and heartbroken, but still he couldn’t tell her. Then, as he lay in bed that night, he remembered the incident in the woods and realised that was what she meant. He ran outside and saw the light on the hill. By the time, he got there, Hime was about to walk into the light. She thanked him for coming and then went. Satou stared at the light as the love of his life vanished. Then, he made a decision. He wasn’t going to let her go, so he ran in after her.
Seconds later, he found himself in a strange room in what must be another world. Hime was standing at the altar with another man. They were about to get married. He was shocked, but not nearly as much as the attendants were by his sudden appearance. Then, a demon burst through the window. The next thing Satou knew, Hime had embraced him, slipped a ring onto his finger, and then kissed him on the lips. Someone threw him a sword which instantly glowed with light. He cut down the demon with a single attack and then passed out.
When he woke, he discovered that he was now married to Hime. Not only that, but he was now the Ring King, blessed with the power of light from his union with Hime. He discovered that their intimacy would further increase his powers. If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up. However, he soon learned that there were much more powerful demons and they were coming. To defeat the Abyss King, he would need to acquire the other four rings and to do that he would have to marry four more princesses! What?
What did you think?
The thing that grabbed me about the first episode was that Satou showed agency. So many isekai protagonists are just a victim of circumstance, reincarnated or summoned to a new world by a power they don’t understand. Well, in this series, Satou chose to follow Hime. He considered his life there and how it would be without her. Then, he ran headfirst into the unknown to be with the woman he loved. If only things had continued in that manner. While I enjoyed this series, I couldn’t help but become more and more frustrated with Satou. As time went on, he went from this courageous kid in love to yet another terrified virgin. That was this series’ biggest flaw.
What was your favourite moment?
I mentioned in my season review of Solo Leveling how I loved that the series continuously ramped things up and that as a result, my favourite moment was the final act of the season. Unfortunately, with Tales of Wedding Rings, it was backwards. My favourite moment was the first episode and how it gave Satou a choice. He was free to make the decision and that felt refreshing. Even more so he decided to chase his love into another world unaware of what he would find there. Finally, an isekai harem protagonist who I can cheer on… or so I thought!
What was your least favourite moment?
I want to talk about how Satou became annoyingly insufferable, but I’ll get to that in a moment. This series did something that really annoys me. There’s another series that did something similar and that was The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar. At the end of the season, things were building up to a big battle. The show wasn’t great, but I was excited to see what happened. Well, at the last second before it got interesting, the hero was transported back to our world. Then, we had to watch him doing mundane things. He eventually managed to get back to the other world, but the battle had long since finished. I hate it when we cut away from the action and Tales of Wedding Rings did the exact same thing, all be it with four of his wives in tow. Don’t promise action and then give us slice-of-life. Just don’t!
Who was your favourite character?
Granart Needakitta was the obvious strong woman with a sword archetype and I will admit to liking her. However, I found Hime (Krystal in this world) to be the most believable character and that made her interesting. Rather than blindly accepting that the boy she loved was destined to marry four other women, she got jealous and fought to be alone with him. She understood that the prophecy was bigger than her feelings, but that didn’t make it easy or something that she wanted to accept. Unfortunately, that just further emphasized how badly Satou fell.
Who was your least favourite character?
Damn you, Satou. I was in your corner for the first episode and then things got steadily worse. After being so brave and following Hime into another world, Satou turned into a coward. He was married to Hime. He had everything he wanted, but still, he struggled to tell her how he felt about her. They had a bath together as a married couple and he could barely look at her. I didn’t get it. This was what he wanted. This was what he dived headfirst into another world for. So, what the hell was wrong? I also felt his reluctance to “sleep” with another of the wives, especially Hime to put a rather odd focus on sex. Rather than it being something that couples in love do, it was as if it was saying being abstinent even after marriage is the way to go. He loved her. She loved him. Just do it already!
Would you like some more?
Despite all that, I would watch more. I would definitely like to see some things change, but I would watch another season. The story has got a long way to go because we discovered that the Abyss King is somehow stronger this time and Satou was too weak to completely defeat him, even with five rings. It would appear that he needs to strengthen the bonds with his wives… Seriously, just do it already! Anyhow, if they made more, I would watch them, but I definitely wouldn’t try to or even think about doing episode reviews. I think that would have been too frustrating and left me feeling down on the series as a whole.
What have you learned?
Sometimes a story needs to have sex in it! There, I said it. However, it doesn’t necessarily need to be shown. Fading to black or implying that something happened is often all that is needed. Even if Satou had only slept with Hime it would have improved this series massively. When he told her that he would wait until they could go back to his world, I almost lost it. There was no reason to be such a wimp about it. Not to mention that you’re fighting a demon that is feared across the world and you’re just going to put it off until later. Live every moment you have, especially when you’re in a situation like that. I thought that this series would do better than that when we saw Satou make the decision to follow Hime. Sadly, it never followed through on that promise.
Other shows from Winter 2024
- Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Season One) – Sousou no Frieren
- Chained Soldier (Season One) – Mato Seihei no Slave
- Solo Leveling (Season One) – Ore dake Level Up na Ken
- The Unwanted Undead Adventurer (Season One) – Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha
- Tales of Wedding Rings (Season One) – Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari
- Gushing over Magical Girls (Season One) – Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete
- My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! (Season One) – Sokushi Cheat ga Saikyou sugite, Isekai no Yatsura ga Marude Aite ni Naranai n desu ga
- The Witch and the Beast (Season One) – Majo to Yajuu
- The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic (Season One) – Chiyu Mahou no Machigatta Tsukaikata
- Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable! (Season One) – Dosanko Gal wa Namara Menkoi
- ‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess (Season One) – Himesama “Goumon” no Jikan desu
- The Strongest Tank’s Labyrinth Raids -A Tank with a Rare 9999 Resistance Skill Got Kicked from the Hero’s Party- (Season One) – Saikyou Tank no Meikyuu Kouryaku: Tairyoku 9999 no Rare Skill-mochi Tank, Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou sareru
- 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! (Season One) – Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijou wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyuu Kimama na Hanayome Seikatsu wo Mankitsu suru
- Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I’m Not the Demon Lord (Season One) – Akuyaku Reijou Level 99: Watashi wa Ura-Boss desu ga Maou dewa Arimasen
Series Information
| English Title | Tales of Wedding Rings |
| Japanese Title | Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari |
| Medium | Anime |
| Released | Winter 2024 |
| Episodes | 12 |
| Animation Studios | Staple Entertainment |
| Genres | Action, Ecchi, Fantasy, Harem, Isekai, Magic, Romance |
| Demographic | Seinen |
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Not a big fan of the terrified virgin trope.
It seems to me that tropes related to virgin protagonists always associated with narrow-minded stereotypes which I’m not pleased of depictions of virgin characters being immature and/or wimpy. It’s worse if said protagonist is asexual-coded being written by those who aren’t asexual themselves.
May you’ll be receive an antidote to this upsetting virgin trope; my PG-13 sex scene of my ongoing story may be “the cure” though that scene will only happen way, way into the future since my (possibly) demisexual protagonist just about to get a “restart” soon.
Sex doesn’t have to be in every story, but to exclude it from every story is absurd. They were married and in love. I’m not sure what else needed to happen for them to feel like it was all right, not that I particularly believe those two things need to be there for sex to happen. Sometimes it’s just sex!
Not at all, especially when he had absolutely no reason to be and he had already shown how determined he was by following her to another world. I had a lot of respect for him in the beginning and it quickly faded away.
This one didn’t pass my three episode test. Like you, I was frustrated with the direction it took after the first episode.
It’s annoying because I thought the first episode was great and set things up well. Then, he turned into a wimp…