Maddies Manga

Haven’t read volume 2 yet? Take a look at my review recap here!

Let’s take a look at what happens in volume 3 of Colette Decides to Die!

Looking for more information?

Please check out my introduction to this manga series here!

Already read volume 3? Read my recap for volume 4 here!

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Setting

Volume three adds a new venue to the mix! It still takes place in both our main character, Colette’s domain, the human world, and our male love interest, Hades’ domain, the underworld. Butin this volume, Colette takes an unexpected trip to the heavens, Zeus’ realm.

This story takes place in a world where the Greek gods, and the Greek heroes, are in existence!

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What happens in volume 3?

Volume 3 starts off with a very confused Colette being surrounded with beautiful women all claiming to need to see a doctor. When Colette’s coworker offers to help the women refuse, stating that they came after hearing rumours about Colette’s amazing skills – they don’t want to be seen by a strange doctor they’ve never heard of.

After starting to see the women individually, it’s clear early on they they really don’t need a doctor, but Colette does her best to hear them out regardless.

After escaping from the hoard, she meets up with Hades and Zeus, and learns exactly what happened: Zeus told everyone about the time he spent under Colette’s care. Already a little bit intrigued, after the doctor in the heavens goes on an abrupt vacation, the goddesses looking to be seen flock to the human world to see Colette.

The night before leaving

Colette agrees to head to the heavens, just for one week, to replace the suddenly missing doctor. Hades warns her to be careful during her time there, as the gods are incredibly fickle. If she were to accidentally lose favour, she could be cursed, he warns her.

Colette, now in her room preparing to leave in the morning, is feeling a little bit regretful. She’s worried about leaving Hades by himself for a whole week, so she decides to fix up some different medicines and teas that could help him during her absence.

Upon heading out, she runs into Hades before she even gets to the well connecting their two worlds.

Hades explains that he came because he wanted to see her, and that he had some things to tell her: he arranged for Colette to be given a proper workspace and sleeping area in the heavens. He also gives her a blessing in the form of a kiss on the forehead – something that would be handy in her near future.

Right before they part, Colette asks Hades what he would have done were she asleep when he came to see her. Hades replies that he simply would have stayed outside her house, waiting for her to wake up. They then part, and the morning soon comes.

Arriving in the heavens

Zeus arrives with a horse-drawn carriage to bring Colette up to the heavens. Once they enter his kingdom, Zeus explains that in the heavens, every god has their own little floating island. Because of this, traveling between islands is a little bit difficult – you either need a horse-drawn carriage, or a sky taxi.

Zeus lets Colette off at the floating island where she will be staying for the next week, and introduces her to Hiragi. Hiragi is a nymph who helps the doctor to the gods, and helps Colette get adjusted to her new surroundings.

The doctor’s island is absolutely flush with gardens, Colette quickly spots medicinal herbs not even seen on earth. Before she has time to get excited though, Hiragi explains that there is already a long line of gods waiting to be seen by Colette.

Colette, doctor to the gods

The gods in the heavens, we quickly learn, really do not need a doctor at all. Hiragi even explains that gods are beings that do not age, and do not get sicks. They seem a bit annoyed at the gods insisting that they do indeed need a doctor, but Colette calms them down saying that being a doctor is more than just healing physical wounds.

When Colette starts seeing patients, some of the “ailments” include being hungover, and being in love.

Hera, Zeus’ wife

After just her first day of working in the heavens, Colette is ambushed by Hera, Zeus’ wife. She exclaims fury at the thought of her husband bringing his cheating partner into the heavens, and attacks Colette without a second thought. The attack surely would have killed Colette, had it not been for the blessing that Hades bestowed upon her.

Hera recognises the blessing at belonging to Hades, and backs off right away, saying she doesn’t want to injure Hades’ lover.

Back in the underworld, Hades knows right away that his blessing had been used. It’s revealed that every time the protection is used, it sucks away some of his strength – this is still unknown to Colette, though.

Hades’ Blessing

Colette is then taken on a tour of one of the more impressive gardens on the island, with Hiragi as her tour guide. They quickly lose sight of each other, and Colette is targeted by a human-eating plant. Hades’ blessing kicks in again, and Colette is saved from her second deadly encounter in just one day.

Hiragi, rushing in to help Colette, asks if she wants to leave the garden, as it may be too dangerous for humans. Colette says she’s fine as she has both Hiragi’s expertise, and Hades’ blessing, so she is basically invincible. Hiragi then breaks it to her that Hades’ blessing takes a toll on him every time she uses it, and as his blessing is one of the strongest, who knows just how tired it being used makes him.

Colette then vows to do her best to no longer use his blessing.

Something’s bothering Hades…

In this volume, we’re shown Hades perspective for quite a large portion!

During his judgement of souls, he receives a large amount of souls who all died together in a tragic fire. After hearing various stories of how they all died in this fire, and witnessing their sadness, Hades is having a difficult time staying neutral emotionally.

After judgement, he still is unable to shake how sad the souls all were, and sends all of his attendants away so that he can be alone. When Colette comes to check up on him he sends her away too, but she doesn’t listen.

Thinking that she wanted to pay him back for the blessing he bestowed upon her, she wants to do everything in her power to help him out. While she can’t give him anything as powerful as a blessing, she can try and make his life a little bit easier. So, she suggests he take a bath, and prepares a nice herbal infusion to add to the water.

This does help Hades a little bit, and he looks like he starts to relax in the water.

Something’s still bothering Hades…

Colette then leaves to back to the heavens, and Hades heads to bed. Where he can’t sleep. He pulls out the little bag of lavender potpourri that Colette gave him, and reminicesses about the flowers he once was able to see every day when he was living in the heavens.

It’s revealed a little while later in this volume that the gods tend to love nature even more than humans do, and Hades is no exception to this.

He pulls out a petal from the bag, and tries to remind himself that as he is the ruler of the underworld, he should be able to give up the unimportant things that don’t exist in his domain(such as flowers).

After some contemplating, and talking with the skeletons that work for him, he decides that he can’t completely forget about the flowers he once loved. He decides to lean on Colette just a little bit, and asks to if she can’t find them when she returns to the heavens.

Colette’s flower search

With her mission from Hades, Colette is determined to find his flower before her time in the heavens is up. When discussing information about the flower with Hiragi though, a large group of goddesses eavesdrop and insert themselves in the search.

Each of these goddesses is in love with Hades, and is looking for some excuse to get closer to him. Finding his beloved flower seeming like an incredibly romantic way to do so, they get into something of a frenzy and head off.

At first Colette is a little bit confused and accepts their help, but slowly starts to feel a little bit worse and worse every time one of them thinks they found the flower.

After quite a bit of searching, Colette makes one last ditch effort to find the flower, heading to a lonely looking island far from the rest of the searching goddesses. While she is successful in find the flower on this island, her ride left without her, leaving her absolutely stranded.

Hades to Colette’s rescue

After having her sudden disappearance reported first by Hiragi to Zeus, and then promptly to Hades, Hades rushes out to find her. Thankfully he was able to track her using the blessing he granted her, and he teleports to the little island she is stuck on.

When Hades finds Colette, she is able to show him the flower in person, and he states that he was right to entrust this task to her. He then explains why he likes the flower so much: he first spotted it when he was a much younger god, and after seeing how beautiful and resilient it was, he began to aspire to be a god that resembled it.

Colette tells him that he has already became a god resembling the flower, and reminds him of just how loved he is in his domain. He tells Colette that she is the only person he’s ever told this story to, as she’s very special to him, and takes back his blessing via another kiss to the forehead, claiming she will no longer need it.

Karon’s backstory

In Hades’ domain, there is a worker named Karon who mans the boat that transports souls. While Karon is one of Hades most prominent workers, not much is shared about them until now.

They were once a worker in heaven, manning a sky taxi that moves all residents from one island to another. After witnessing a goddess mistreat a nymph based on their low status, Karon embarrassed the goddess in front of Hades, and allowed the nymph to ride on their sky taxi, along with Hades.

Hades, simply just visiting the heavens, doesn’t say much about it at the time, and simply gets off at his destination.

Once Hades was no longer visible, the goddess came back for her revenge on Karon. She put a curse on them so that their body would become so heavy it could no longer be moved, and Karon fell to the ground on the spot. That night, Karon was horrifically attacked by wolves, and was found brutally mutilated the next morning. Still alive, those around them did not come to help, as they all feared incurring the wrath of the goddess as well.

Hades soon comes to find Karon, explaining that he has been in the heavens looking for someone to work as a guide in the underworld, and that he wants to personally recruit Karon. He grants Karon two blessings so that they could walk again, and takes them off into the underworld.

Kanon looks on this history fondly, as they feel as though they finally have purpose now that they work for Hades. Their backstory is kept secret from everyone, including Colette and the skeletons. All that Hades would share is that he scouted Kanon from the heavens, leaving everyone curious.

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…and that’s where the volume ends!

didn’t I say a lot happens!!

Maddie’s Ratings

There were quite a few really sweet scenes between Colette and Hades in this volume! They both acknowledge the other as being important to them, to their face!

All of the romance in this volume is very fluffy. I wouldn’t call it all that romantic, but rather their relationship is still being established.

Again, this volume had me hooked right from the very start. I loved the introduction of the heavens, and getting to see the differences between Hades’ domain and Zeuses. Learning about the different goddesses was also fun, and I liked how the idea that the gods are fickle was kept in this manga!