Reviews for Princess Resurrection
Back to MangaThis is a manga I fell in love with over time. I really liked the anime and I'm sure that only fans of this manga can like the anime counterpart. As a big fan of this series, I can tell you that the two are completely different drinks in terms of the tone of the story and character development. STORY: Reading the synopsis of the manga on the back of the first volume will probably not draw many people in. If anything, volume 1 is kind of flat, mainly introducing characters and a very loose explanation to what's really going on plotwise. Mostly the beginningchapters are about Hiro, the male lead, trying to cope life as a semi-immortal servant to a seemingly heartless woman who torments him. This only really lasts for the first volume and serves as a great harbringer for what follows in later volumes. It gets so much better in volume 2, introducing new siblings into the Royal War and other enemies and alliances. While it hasn't consistantly hit a linear storyline just yet, I really like the homages to a lot of classic horror movie monsters like werewolves, vampires, the headless horseman, and even the Lochness Monster.
ART: The character designs are very detailed, especially Hime and Sherwood's dresses. There's an incredible amount of shading and lighting into their outfits, which looks really good. This surpised me, because I really don't like the goth look, but Hime is pretty sexy. The rest of the characters look good, but don't really stand out as much as Hime. Maybe Riza, who has a terrific set of abs, and Reiri the vampire girl who dons a sailor fuku, so she offers some modest fan service. The monsters all look pretty damn good, as well as the violence, the dark atomsphere and shadowy backgrounds are a welcome contrast the otherwise bright and sometimes whimsical air of some of the anime episodes.
CHARACTER: I think I geeked out over Hime enough in my anime review, so I'll try to expend a little exposure to other aspect the manga offers. One of the major gripes I had with the anime was changing Hiro from a Blood Warrior to a Royal Guard with the Flame of Life (in retrospect, the "flame of life" makes a little sense, but that knowledge is key to the plot, so I can't spoil it). Hiro as a Blood Warrior intensifies the bond he has with Hime and this is evident as he grows little by little throughout the story to want to fight for her and protect her. Early on he's there to just get kicked around, but it's hinting that he can become more of a fighter. I'm not sure, but it's kept me intrigued so far.
Riza Wildman is my second favorite character in the story, even if she looks like a female clone of Kyo in Fruits Basket. She and Reiri play well off each other, as vampires and werewolves are bitter enemies. Sherwood is a fun little imp of a sister who I wish was in some of the eariler chapters more, but I enjoy her appearances nonetheless. Hime's other siblings are introduced in later volumes, but haven't yet had much time to shine, but it will happen eventually, we're only up to volume 7 here in the States.
ENJOYMENT: I think once you get past the first volume, it's pretty easy to enjoy this title. The theme early on is kind of "Fight this monster" by the chapter and keeping an eye on the weird array of weapons Hime uses in battle. Some of the dialouge is a little rocky and conversations seem awkward. I'm never sure if it's a bad translation or if it was written that way. An overuse of ellipses can be a little jarring, but I'm being a bit technical. The fights are pretty good and well drawn and anticipating more character exposition and interaction with the other siblings has kept me interested in this title.
OVERALL: After a clumsy first volume, this one does get more interesting, and it only gets better by the chapter. The art improves significantly, and the supernatural element of the story and characters are actually pretty unique and original, and Hime is just awesome on her own to keep me reading. All in all, not a super must-buy, but if you're looking for a manga title with a really strong female lead, or maybe a good supernatural shonen title, you should check it out.
Truthfully, this manga exceeds my expectations. Once Twilight and every other possible cliché that ever existed had come to life, you kind of get used to it and start to lower your actual expectations to fantasy. Do not fear though. This is a good manga. The story is about Hiro who, I think, is a little weak and all. The major thing that turned his life around was... He died. That, to begin with, is not totally special as a beginning, but that, at least, shows that I didn't have to expect a far-stretched explanation or he wouldn't be a fantasy creature that had been kidnapped and raised likea human.
Anyway, he was revived by Hime, a princess whose blood can turn any dead being into her blood warrior. His duty being to protect her in the upcoming fight for the crown.
The plot is a little cliché but nonetheless enjoyable.
For Characters, I think many will like the girls characters. Hime, strong and reliable, is a true leader material. She has good intellects and fully succeed to charm the reader. Reiki is somewhat a 'grey' character. Not really a villain but not a gentle heroine, she is more likely to please many with her 'I am the most important' style of thinking. Finally, the werewolf, Riza. She is a polar opposite of Hime. Hotheaded, stubborn, she is nonetheless a reliable and thoughtful character. She is still cute and fragile inside though.
The only character I truly dislike must be Hiro's sister as she is a shallow character. But as her appearance is a little random and she cannot even get the title of supporting character, it is a problem one can overlook.
As this is my first review, I don't know what else to really tell. But truthfully, this is an entertaining story with flaws, indeed, but with an interesting approach.
This anime is about Princess Hime and her entourage as they deal with various supernatural phenomena. Her followers include the werewolf Riza, the vampire Reiri, and android Flandre, her younger sister Sherwood, and her blood-servant Hiro. Hime has a very cold demeaner, but she’s pretty smart and has a very commanding presence. Riza is incredibly prideful and somewhat battle crazy. Reiri on the other hand is mischievous and pretty lazy. Werewolves and vampires are sworn enemies that are fated to never get along, but despite constantly being at each other’s throats they seem to actually get along quite well. Flandre is part of an overpoweredandroid series that can only say hooba (fooga in the Japanese version). Sherwood is super enthusiastic about their family’s noble duty, keeping track of supernatural wildlife, and is constantly going on expeditions to research new or unknown beings. Almost all of them are interesting enough characters that they’re enough to make the story engaging.
The big exception was the arguable protagonist is Hiro. I think it’s very arguable because he is technically the one from whose perspective the story is primarily told. However, he really doesn’t do much. A blood warrior is someone that dies but is brough back through the blood of a royal, in Hiro’s case Hime. He’s immortal now so long as he continues drinking Hime’s blood. However, the only other ability he gets is the ability to detect when Hime is in danger. Other than that, for the vast majority of the story he’s a completely normal human. As such, his contribution to things is simply taking hits for Hime, which is important as he’s saving her life in these cases. But also, pretty boring.
His personality is also really flat with essentially no development so that doesn’t help him much either. This manga is listed in places as having a harem or romance, but it really isn’t at all. Though Hiro is surrounded by a bunch of girls, there’s like a few panels per girl where they show some interest in Hiro, and then it’s never brought up again. It’s not even a slow romance or subtle romance. It really doesn’t feel like there’s any at all. As a result of all this, despite being quite prominent, Hiro is underdeveloped as a character to the point that it kind of feels like he’s dragging down the rest of the cast.
The structure of the manga is short stories, usually only a single chapter, that show the various incidents that Hime gets involved in. These incidents generally involve some sort of supernatural mystery or fight against some sort of supernatural being. However, this isn’t really a mystery manga or action manga at all. The solution to the mysteries is generally some new supernatural phenomenon that only really matters for that story. The fights also don’t really have any depth or complexity to them. The manga is also okay with straight up skipping the climax of these, meaning, it’ll build up to a big fight, and then just skip to the aftermath. Ultimately, it feels more than anything the manga is focused on establishing horror and mystery vibes and atmosphere. And due to the fast pacing and the heavy variety to the supernatural phenomenon, it does an incredibly good job of that. However, things do get repetitive eventually, at which point the manga starts getting pretty dull. This may not have been as much of an issue for those reading the manga as it released, but binge reading it it definitely felt like it was dragging.
The majority of incidents that Hime gets involved with have very little if anything to do with any overarching plot. However, there is an overarching plot involving a fight for the throne and the secret background of Hime’s family. There were certainly some very interesting aspects to all this. But overall, this story was badly told and came to a pretty half assed ending that left a lot unresolved. I think one of the biggest issues was the pacing. The story tries to keep every incident confined to as few chapters as possible. So there would be a bunch of chapters that don’t advance the overarching plot at all, and then a chapter that advances it a lot in a pretty rushed manner. And then a bunch more that don’t advance it at all. Things did speed up eventually, but it still felt really haphazard and jarring pacing wise. There is a sequel series so maybe that resolves things better, but I can’t say I was all that satisfied with the ending to this one.
The art was a mixed bag. The quality is definitely good, barring some rough edges towards the beginning. The environments and monsters were also well designed and helped considerably in establishing atmosphere. The character art I wasn’t as much a fan of. The character designs themselves I feel were somewhat boring for the setting and premise. But more so than the designs themselves, I feel it wasn’t really using them all that well. There wasn’t really much art that made them look beautiful or eye catching, and though there was a lot of art that was meant to look cool, it was all of Hime and was mostly very similar so the effect wore off pretty quickly.
tl;dr: A manga with a mostly interesting cast and a pretty good sense of atmosphere, but pretty weak beyond that.
KAIBUTSU OUJO (Monster Princess) manga is about a guy named HIRO who after death is resurrected by a Monster Princess named LILIANE. HIRO's very main purpose as a servant is to safeguard "Hime", but because of being weak he is only capable to act as a shield to protect LILIANE. There are many other main characters in LILIANE's royal family like a werewolf, Vampire, Android Human, Hiro's sister SAWAWA. LILIANE will have to fight with her siblings for the throne. Its like a survival game. Just like the anime, every chapter here shows different events/situations for survival in LILIANE's royal life when HIRO becomesher servant.
Even though this is not a "romance" Manga, the main character HIRO tries to close this master-servant relationship with HIME. So one can find plenty of adorable moments between the two main leads which are equivalent to the Romantic moments fans want.
I like this manga because of its abundance in Characters, Clever Female Protagonist, survival aspect, special moments, somewhat ecchi moments with COMEDY.
I was captivated by the Onee-san type characters like SAWAWA & SYLVIA ; SAWAWA is my favorite onee-san in this manga.
This manga had been a satisfying read to me.
Story: A bit strange actually. Also, there's a lot of time skips too that sometimes they can cause confusion. But it was good. There might be some plot holes but it didn't hinder the fact that this manga is good. It's the typical shounen-type manga, but you'll never get bored since it has this light and comedic atmosphere that you will surely enjoy. Art: Actually it's okay. I mean, there are times that the panels are a bit confusing and the characters are drawn not so well (that I'm quite confused who they are haha) but really, it's okay. I liked how the girls are drawn more thanthe guys (haha).
Character:
I like Hiro's character development. He started as that lame dead boy fufu but turned out to be unexpectedly strong hehe. Hime's character which exudes mysteriousness (and the chainsaw is pretty hilarious) is a hit too. HAHA Then there's that vampire girl. I usually don't prefer ecchi scenes but seriously, she pull it all off.
Enjoyment:
Terrific. I enjoyed it despite of the confusion haha. Well, everything falls into place right at the end so no need to worry. But I do wish the romance element was emphasized (in truth it's almost nonexistent XD) but well.
If you're looking for a horror comedy manga (but the comedy is the best!) XD then you should try this. There is an anime adaptation too (which is quite good). You'll surely get a good laugh.
Ciao.