When I first read about Madame Petite, there's one thing that made me interested. It's the fact that the main male character here is an Indian. In many others shojo manga that I read, I rarely find a japanese manga that represent characters from other part of Asia, in this case, especially India. It's a fresh thing for me, and the mangaka even put a cultural representation about India here: the clothes, language, customs. Even if it might be a nobility customs. Mostly, other shojo manga will represent characters from China/Hong Kong or a mixed, like Shaoran in Cardcaptor Sakura or Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club.
Secondly, the thing that interest me is the complex historical setting and hybrid situation they were in. Imagine a Japanese and an Indian in France, at times when the colonialism still around, and when India was still occupied by British. The mangaka spoke about racism and discrimination towards Asian people very well here.
Not to mention that even between Asian countries, they didn't know each other cultures very well (Mari was thought as Chinese, since for them Japanese and Chinese are all the same).
This reminds me to the Lady Bird manga too. I love manga with a postcolonialism theme, especially if they were well-written.
Third, in this complex situation, there's a love story around. And the love story is really genuine and sweet too. In some interviews in Yuta and Asian Boss that I watch, the hybrid people are actually not that rare, but always considered as the Other by Japanese people. That they're Japanese, but different. That's why, I feel like a love story between an Indian and a Japanese in manga like this is really good, it represents the multicultural thing.
And the main lead being a polyglot? That's REALLY amazing! I love her because of this. I heard that polyglot are already rare nowadays. I'm happy that she can speak English, French, Japanese (of course), and still even learning to speak Hindi. She held her pride as Japanese, but she didn't lower others who's culturally different from her.
I know she's fictional, but I respect her a lot about this.
Totally recommended.