Holiday Review #7 - I'LL NEVER BE YOUR CROWN PRINCESS!

Speaking of ladies, this year was better than average for josei manga.  Seven Seas has been dabbling in it for a little bit, but this year they went so far as to establish an entire imprint for it.  Let's take a look at one of their first books.

I'LL NEVER BE YOUR CROWN PRINCESS! (Ohtaishihi ni Nante Naritakunai), based on the light novel by Saki Tsukigami and character designs by Enn Tsutamori, with art by Natsu Kuroki.  First published in 2019 and first published in North America in 2022.

PLOT:

Liddy is the beautiful daughter of a duke and royal adviser (and also secretly a reincarnated woman from modern-day Japan).  She's trying her best to dodge her father's attempts to marry her to the crown prince of their land, as royalty is allowed to engage in polygamy and she's simply not interested in that.  She thinks she has figured out a loophole: if she loses her virginity, she will no longer be eligible to marry the prince!  Too bad that the mysterious masked man she meets at a masquerade is the prince in disguise, and that he's so smitten with her that he left a magic seal upon her to mark her as his intended bride.

PLOT:

I'll Never Be Your Crown Princess is technically a reincarnation isekai romance, but in practice it's more of a traditional bodice ripper, with all the pros and cons of that particular brand of romance.

Honestly, I don't even know why this story even bothers with the reincarnation angle, as it's barely mentioned and doesn't really inform either the story or Liddy as a character.  At most it's the excuse the author uses to explain why Liddy would not approve of polygamy and be comfortable with the idea of sex, but I feel like a smarter writer could have figured out in-universe motivations for that without the isekai crutch.  It also doesn't do much to improve Liddy as a character, who seems pretty nebulous beyond her dislike of the prince and her willingness for a one-night stand.  At most she's simply Not Like Other Girls, right down to the magical vag that the prince cannot get enough of.

It's a good thing that we do a chapter from the prince's perspective on these events because otherwise he'd come off like a manipulative asshole!  Like Liddy, he's not entirely thrilled with his lot.  Cursed with a magically enhanced sex drive, he's grown bored with the casual sex he's used to keep it under control and has no desire to deal with the drama of concubines.  Indeed, he's all too ready to give up his right to polygamy the moment Liddy voices her objection.  That doesn't make up for the fact that he forced this ridiculous magical seal nonsense on her without her consent (as it requires having unprotected sex to complete it; thank goodness she thought far enough ahead to get magic contraceptives).  The fact that it causes a ridiculous frou-frou blue rose to show up on her tit as his "mark" makes it even worse, a declaration of ownership she never asked for and cannot remove.  It definitely doesn't forgive him basically streamrolling her into an engagement despite her vocal objections.  The end of the volume should fill me with excitement or intrigue, not concern that the heroine is going to get gaslit into becoming a princess.

ART:

I do wish the art was a little more inspired.  Like Fire In His Fingertips, the smut itself is drawn quite competently, but the character art is so boring.  It's the same sort of vaguely historical, slightly over-designed otome game-style designs you've seen in countless other stories like this.  Their paneling isn't any more inspired, as it's mostly kind of messy and very workman-like.  The curse of the light-novel-to-manga pipeline strikes again!  At least this one is published at a slightly larger than normal size, so the art has some space.

PRESENTATION:

There's a snippet from the light novels (which are currently unlicensed) about the prince after the final scene in this volume.  It doesn't add much to him or the story at large.  The prose and translation itself seems fine, if equally unremarkable.

RATING:

I feel like there's a way to combine smutty josei with isekai in a way that's compelling and attractive, but I'll Never Be Your Crown Princess isn't it.  It's simply too mediocre and not concerned enough with its heroine's welfare to rise beyond its novelty.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 10 volumes available.  2 volumes are available and currently in print.

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