I Tamed My Ex-Husband’s Mad Dog Volume 1 Review

Reinhardt Lincke is a noble and the former crown princess. However, after crown prince Michel Allanketh causes her father’s death, he breaks off the engagement to favour his mistress, and Reinhardt finds herself withering away in a duchy far away from the imperial castle. Well, at least until she finds herself fifteen years back in the past on the day of her father’s funeral.

When she realises that she’s in the past, she decides to take control of her own future this time and ends up revenging herself on the crown prince by stabbing him in the leg (her aim isn’t that great). Exiled to her mother’s county in the North, in the mountains where people usually end up freezing to death, her journey there turns out to be more productive than she could have imagined. In the middle of a snowstorm, a young boy saves her life, and this boy turns out to be Will Cohlonna, the crown prince’s ‘mad dog’ in her previous life. Everyone knew who Will was and that his loyalty was toward Michel, so the dog’s accomplishment became its owner’s—he was the winner in every fight and battle he was ever in.

Now that she found him, Reinhardt won’t let Will become her ex’s trophy, especially as she’s aware that Will is the illegitimate child of the current emperor. However, the present boy doesn’t have a name, is 16 years old and can barely speak, so Reinhardt has her work cut out for her to turn him into a formidable weapon. She calls him Wilhelm and dotes on him, at least until her childhood friend Dietrich comes to her castle. Dietrich is a former soldier of Reinhardt’s father battalion, and Reinhardt’s first love. This doesn’t go down well with Wilhelm who is completely smitten with Reinhardt, so when Dietrich starts training him in the art of the sword, he doesn’t like it but suffers through it to become stronger.

I Tamed My Ex-Husband’s Mad Dog might seem at a first glance to be a romance, but the story is darker than I originally expected. The artists don’t shy away from violence, abuse and even sexual assault (nothing happens but the intention is there). There is more than meets the eye going on with Reinhardt and Wilhelm, and the protagonists aren’t the usual heroes. Reinhardt is planning revenge for the death of her father, and she’s not above using a child to achieve it. Wilhelm might be considered the poor boy who will be taken advantage of by Reinhardt, but he’s not as meek and naïve as it seems. He doesn’t like Dietrich and he’s not afraid to go against him nor even shed blood when it’s time to take part in his first hunting competition. The only ‘nice guy’ so far is Dietrich, who left his post to join Reinhardt in the North. He gives the vibe that he has feelings for her, but that might be too early to tell.

The illustrations are pretty detailed, and the artist uses a dark colour palette to show the macabre and dreadful setting of the story. Bruises and stab wounds are shown with no censorship. The narration flows fluently and there is no need of translation notes. The main characters are introduced at the beginning of the volume with a short bio, so the readers get into the story already knowing who is who. It’s a short volume, but there is a lot to unpack for readers, provoking questions which will hopefully be answered in the upcoming volumes. The one thing though that I wished was clarified straight away was the ‘ex-husband’ part in the series title. It seemed that Michel broke off the engagement with Reinhardt in both timelines, so that would mean they were not married. So where does the ex-husband part come from?

I Tamed My Ex-Husband’s Mad Dog is written by Jkyum, illustrated by Jagae and adapted by CMJM. It started as a web novel before being serialised as a digital comic on TappyToon. The print edition is published by Ize Press with TappyToon’s translation. Volume 2 is already out.

Our review copy was supplied by Ize Press.