Tricky Prince
Story and Art: Yukari Hashida
Published by the Juné Imprint of Digital Manga, Inc.
ISBN-10: 1-56970-607-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-56970-607-7
Review by Linda Yau
Eugene is an impoverished scholarship student at a university, where it just so happens that Prince Willis is also a student at. One night at a holiday bash, Eugene’s classmates decided to play a joke on him, and he ends up getting the attention of the prince. Upon their first Cinderella-esque meeting, let’s just say that Eugene’s life has not been the same again, as Willis tries to get his attention to the point of kidnapping him. Is there no end to suffering Eugene?
Eugene is not pleased with the attention that Willis showers on him, and there are funny scenes. The comedy reminds me of another Yaoi graphic novel, I read last year, Happiness Recommended, where the pursue-e publicly denounces the pursuer, but underneath it, let’s face it the pursue-e are softies that will give up at the end.
This book was decent in some parts. I really liked the various kissing scenes, and how they have a bit of a running joke with the paparazzi always snapping that picture of Willis kissing Eugene, and they have a field day with questioning who is the mysterious woman, when in reality Eugene’s a guy.
There was also one part that had me think of fan service, as Willis asks Eugene to either dress up in either a nurse, maid or negligee outfit, his dead pan response had me chuckling for a bit.
I actually thought that the rating for this book was once again incorrect. Juné overestimates the sexual maturity of this book, this time. This was a book I would have actually rated for 16+, whereas for Sea View I would have said for 14+ or so. This is a book for readers who want to read every English translated yaoi novel that there is.
Also similar to my review with Sea View though, I didn’t feel that there was closure, by the end of the book, so I wonder if there is going to be a second part or not? There was an author’s note at the end, calling this book a work of fiction, so unless if my guessing is off, this is possibly a recurring character set with Yukari Hashida-sensei?
