The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

The Boy I Loved Became the Jaded Emperor

What's It About? 

As a young boy, Prince Alexei was rescued from certain death by a friendly monster, and the two of them spent blissful days in the forest. But tragedy struck when Alexei's royal destiny caught up with him again. Now a young man, Alexei has taken the throne, becoming Emperor and vowing revenge. Little does he know, the creature who saved him has been reborn as the daughter of a duke--a taciturn young lady with a secret. When fate throws them together at the imperial court, will they recognize each other, or will their jaded pasts keep them apart?

The Boy I Loved Became the Jaded Emperor has art by Ii Oshikawa, a story by Bekio, and character designs by Mitsuya Fuji, with English translation by Jan Mitsuko Cash. This volume was lettered by Dietrich Premier. Published by Kodansha Comics (September 24, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

There are some definite issues with the premise of this one. It's a reincarnation story, more similar to the BL novel series You Can Have My Back than any isekai title in that one-half of the main couple dies and is reincarnated swiftly afterward in the same nation. The person in question originally went by the name of Pie – yes, like the food. She was a nonstandard human who fled her village at age twelve after being ostracized for her odd, saggy green skin, never having been given a name, and that means she's in the right place to save six-year-old Prince Alexei when his stepmother attempts to have him killed. But then three years later, Pie is killed by the royal knights, and, blessed with Alexei's powerful magic, she quickly is reborn as Eleonora, daughter of the Purpleus dukedom…but with her atrocious lower class accent intact. As far as reasons for a character to embark on a Cinderella storyline go, that one feels fairly lame.

Ostensibly, this is a story about Pie/Eleonora and Alexei (who went by the name of Ham while he was with Pie) finding each other and getting married. It's a bit questionable, however, when Pie was very much Ham's parental figure for those three years in the forest, or at the very least an older sister. Their love was strong but platonic, and now that she's eighteen and he's twenty-seven, the story wants to change that. (It doesn't hurt that she's exquisitely beautiful.) There's something just a little awkward about the set-up, and even though I do want to see them reunited, I'm not comfortable with the reunion taking on a romantic edge. Still, it's hard to argue with the fact that losing Pie had a terrible effect on Alexei; he's become cold and angry, taking a minister's statement that Pie died because Alexei didn't have enough power to heart. And that's not the only terrible experience the poor man's had: before her death, his mother “blessed” him with the ability to return to life after being killed, and before he met Pie he'd died and come back at least three times. That's the kind of experience that can mess someone up, and the story does appear to want to acknowledge it, even if developing it doesn't seem to be on the table.

Issues with the premise aside, this isn't a bad book. It ends on enough of a cliffhanger that I want to read volume two, although I admit to thinking that the original light novel is probably a better version of the story in terms of information and the fact that obvious narration works better in prose than comic form, in my opinion. The art is beautiful, too, so if you can get past Pie and Ham's relationship and how it turns into Eleonora's and Alexei's, this is a nice read.

Reincarnation narratives have become divisive, haven't they? Nowadays people will respond to them in one of two ways: either they're an automatic draw, or an automatic “no thanks.” They're so trendy that they seem to play into almost every fantasy manga published these days, even when it doesn't add much to the narrative. I don't care much for them; they rarely explore things I find interesting, like the recontextualization of relationships, or the contrast between having the memories of a much older person in a still-developing brain that doesn't know how to contextualize these things.

The Boy I Loved Became the Jaded Emperor does explore the former a little, but in a way, I can't help but be slightly thrown off by it. Years ago, when Emperor Alexei Glacies Weldes was a child, he survived an assassination attempt but was left abandoned in the forest. There, a kindly old outcast took him in and raised him for years, but she was killed when the royal guard came searching for him. She was reincarnated as a beautiful young noblelady, and now that Emperor Alexei is searching for a new wife, the two are reunited.

It's a perfectly acceptable manga. Good, though not great. The storytelling is competent, and the art is skillful, even if the style is fairly unremarkable. It takes place in the same overused regency-style setting as every reincarnation manga that comes out these days. Ham/Alexei's relationship during the flashbacks is sweet, but we also get not just one but two evil stepmothers. It's very readable.

But man, I can't quite get past the overtly Oedipal nature of the relationship! When asked to describe what he wants in a bridal candidate, Alexei describes… the woman who raised him from ages nine to twelve. You know, the one who is explicitly depicted as a maternal figure. Even if she's been reincarnated into a young beautiful woman, she's retained her memories of her son figure. Unless this story is going to do something surprising, the two are going to get married. And that weirds me out. But hey, gentle reader, maybe it won't weird you out.