Lonely Castle in the Mirror #3

The ornate mirror-frame motif returns for volume 3 of Mizuki Tsujimura and Tomo Taketomi's quietly affecting series, and Taketomi's muted, olive-toned classroom setting gives the cover an almost dreamlike unease. Four young characters are arranged across the empty school room — a tall, weary-looking blond student in the foreground, a dark-haired girl in a school uniform standing mid-distance, a bespectacled boy hunched anxiously at a desk, and a figure in a flowing red dress with animal-eared accessories turning away near the window — each radiating their own brand of isolation. It's a beautifully restrained image that captures the series' tender, melancholy heart, and at $13.99 this 2024 Seven Seas edition is a very easy recommendation for fans of emotionally rich manga storytelling.