Daughter of the Emperor Volumes 4 and 5 Review
Princess Ria is slowly growing up inside the castle walls as the only daughter of the bloodthirsty emperor, Caitel. As she has memories of her past life, she has managed to survive so far, but only just.
Caitel seems to be opening his heart to Ria, but he still cannot let his guard down because his enemies won’t waste a moment to strike him. Or in this case to strike Ria, just to hurt him. Thankfully, she has the strongest knight of the empire by her side: Asisi. After receiving permission to retire from the war frontline, Asisi has been assigned as Ria’s personal knight due to his request. It was the first time Asisi requested something in his life, so Caitel granted it for him. Caitel and Asisi have known each other since they were children, and Asisi was next to Caitel when the latter seized the throne. Their relationship is difficult and it’s not completely clear on how they become close—but I’d dare even say they could be friends.
In this volume, we see Ria growing from a toddler to a seven-year-old. She knows the true character of her father and of the people near her. At the beginning she tried to win them over with her cuteness, but now it seems that what started as a way to survive has become her personality. Perdel, the empire chancellor, is obsessed with her, and his obsession doesn’t diminish even now that he has twins with his wife Silvia.
Daughter of the Emperor continues to be a slow-paced story. In just two volumes, Ria grows by a few years, but she’s still a kid. The series has a slice-of-life theme as we see the characters developing, thanks to their interactions with Ria, but also, we see the little princess’s day-to-day life. In Volume 1, I got the impression that the goal of the story was for Ria to survive and live freely away from the emperor. However, as the story develops, the goal seems to have changed—to what I’m still not sure exactly. Ria has many people who protect her and care about her, even her father. He’s still a tsundere, but the people closest to him can easily recognise how much he loves his daughter, even if he continues to stubbornly call her his offspring instead of daughter. Small steps though, right? I’m still hoping for a plot twist that will push the story forward.
In these two volumes, we get multiple points of view other than Ria’s and Caitel’s. Perdel is a weirdo. He loves Ria so much that he wouldn’t hesitate to adopt her as his daughter—if only Caitel wouldn’t kill him for even daring to look at her. We get to know more about Caitel by how much Perdel recognises the emperor has changed since the arrival of his daughter. We also find out more about Asisi and his personality. The rumours about the knight are so horrible that they can only be compared to those about the emperor, but there is more to Asisi that meets the eye. He wants to end his life, but when he sees Ria, her cuteness makes him want to protect her. For the first time he has a wish: to serve and protect the little princess for however long his life will allow him. He’s been scarred by an abusive childhood and years on the battlefield, but Ria brings light to his life.
Compared to other manhwa series in the same genre such as Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke’s Mansion, Daughter of the Emperor focuses more on the relationship between Ria, her father and the people around her, instead of finding a love interest. I’m still not losing hope though. I’d love to find out who the poor man who’ll fall for Ria will be—it will be quite a sight seeing him dealing with Caitel’s jealousy. The series is word-heavy, and most of the story is conveyed by the characters’ thoughts and not their actions. The viewpoint is omniscient, so we know what the characters are feeling at any given time.
While Volume 4 delights us with a folded illustration of the characters, we lose this with Volume 5. Both volumes though have some bonus scenes at the end that give the readers a little more insight into random events in the story, and a letter from the author.
Daughter of the Emperor is written by Yunsul and illustrated by Rino. The English edition with Micah Kim’s translation is released by Yen Press. Volume 6 is slated for release in January 2024.
Our review copies from Ize Press were supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
