The Boy I Loved Became the Jaded Emperor Volume 2 Review

Many years ago, Prince Alexei was sent to die in the woods by his horrible stepmother, but he was saved not only by his magic from his mother’s line, but also by a strange, green-skinned creature whom he named Pie. Their few years of peace in the woods together were ruined when the Prince’s family tried to ‘rescue’ him by killing Pie and other creatures in the woods. Alexei grew up full of hatred as he took the throne, but his heart starts to feel again when he meets Eleonora. However what he doesn’t know is that Eleonora is the reincarnation of Pie, and she has retained her memories of her past life, yet with no idea that Alexei was once the boy she saved. Can the pair figure out each other’s secrets and live happily ever after?

I reviewed the first volume of this fairytale-esque romance (based upon the light novel of the same name) not long ago. Now, as there is only a single volume of the light novel and both manga volumes cover its contents, we’ve reached the conclusion. The light novel is not available in English, so I cannot say how accurate the adaptation is to the source material, only how it works as a manga.

I enjoyed the first volume a lot, despite its iffy pacing, and I wanted to see how it ended, especially with all the different elements that were set up, such as Eleonora’s evil step-family, the use of magic in this world, Alexei’s hints of darkness and how they would be resolved, and so on. But I was sadly left disappointed, and the best way I can describe how is with this thought experiment. You, dear reader, are probably most familiar with the fairy-tale Cinderella: the poor girl who’s treated like a slave by her evil stepmother and sisters, but is rewarded by a fairy godmother with magic dress and shoes to attend a royal ball. She then falls in love with the prince, but the magic fades at midnight, only to leave a glass slipper behind for him to try and find her. Cue the stepfamily and Cinderella conflict, only for good to triumph and Cinderella to live happily ever after with her prince. Now imagine a version of that story, where instead of the second half happening, Cinderella meets, falls in love, and then just stays with the prince – and that’s the end of the story. On one hand, it’s still a happy ending for Cinderella, but all the build-up happens in the first half of the story; the evil step-family don’t get punished for their deeds, the magic set-up doesn’t have a pay-off, and there’s no conflict to drive towards the story’s finale. And that’s exactly how the second volume of The Boy I Loved Became the Jaded Emperor feels: a story with build-up but no satisfying emotional pay-off.

The first volume ended with Eleonora and Alexei meeting and sensing a connection, but unaware of the other’s true identity, so it made sense for the second volume to have the pair finally make that connection. But then nothing happens for the rest of the book. It’s all happy and wonderful but there’s no conflict or anything interesting to drive the plot from then on. The aforementioned step-family of Eleonora’s? They’re seen for two panels, sent off to prison and that’s it; we don’t get any tension between them and Eleonora, or attempt to try to stave off her happiness; they might as well not exist. There’s just one panel where the ‘narrator’ says ‘The curtain was finally rising on their days of peace…or so it seemed…’ which I took to mean that we’ll get a final conflict of some kind, but that never happens.

Next is Alexei’s dark side. He is known as the ‘demon emperor’ because of his cruel actions as he rose to power, and we saw elements of his darker side when he was a child, due to the abuse he suffered and then Pie’s death sent him down a spiral of wickedness and pain. But the people who caused all that have either been sent away or die off-page. We never see Alexei enact his revenge, and we only know what happened to them because it’s said in a throwaway line. There’s no pushback from the public or other officials about his dark past either; it seems to have been forgotten about as soon as he lays eyes on Eleonora. It’s a shame because there could have been really good conflict here; if you didn’t want to have the step-family drama, there could be tension between Eleonora – the loving, forgiving one – and Alexei – the vengeful, angry one – in the climax and them finding a way to put the past behind them and fall in love with their present selves. But it’s barely touched upon, aside from noting that Eleonora seems to call Alexei by his given name, Ham, more often than his real name, which again could have been used to explore how Eleonora’s emotions for Alexei has changed over her reincarnation, but it’s not properly explored.

And lastly there’s the magic system, or more accurately, lack thereof. Magic powers were very briefly mentioned in the first volume, only coming up when they were plot-relevant, such as how Alexei survived the Demon Woods and how Eleonora managed to retain her past life memories. But we get no tangible world building in this book; magic remains insignificant in Volume 2 which is such a shame. There’s one minor detail towards the end of the book, where the reason why Eleonora had green skin in the past is explored. This is interesting, but should have been woven better into the story to help flesh out the magic system as a whole, not a random tidbit to close off the book.

Art by Li Oshikawa continues to be strong here; the characters are very expressive and the designs of their clothing as well as the magic beasts that we do see are lovingly rendered. Jan Mitsuko Cash concludes the translation for this book and it’s a nice read that continues the fairy-tale style throughout.

I had high hopes after the first volume, but sadly the conclusion to The Boy I Loved Became the Jaded Emperor fell flat and didn’t conclude in an emotionally satisfying way. If you’re a fan of happy endings overall, and don’t mind it when stories don’t finish what they set up, you might find this book more enjoyable than I did, and considering it’s only two volumes, it’s not a huge money or time sink. But in my opinion, there’s other fantasy romance series out there that are more enjoyable overall.

Our review copy from Kodansha was provided by Diamond Book Distributors.