This is one of those yaoi that’s not necessarily bad but it’s the sort of pairing/setting combination that I’m not personally into, so I didn’t enjoy it very much. For one, I dislike the ‘perfect in every way’ character type in yaoi. The one on the cover who would be Hitler’s wet dream except for the fact he’s gay is Prince Willis – rich, royalty, and impossibly good looking – and, to me anyway, incredibly boring as a fictional character. I know this is supposed to be like the ultimate female fantasy or whatever but it’s just so uncreative and overdone to me. You could probably throw a dart blindfolded in the 50 cent romance paperback section at Goodwill and hit a book that stars this exact character without even trying. He also looks too much like a woman for my tastes, but that is secondary to his other qualities. And who does Prince Willis chase after in this literary flight of fancy? A completely normal and even more boring ‘regular’ guy who is totally below his level – a type of pairing that I can’t stand. So, not off to a good start here.
This story takes place at a posh university in what is meant to seem like the UK. Eugene Ratliff, a totally normal and studious boy and the object of Prince Willis’ affection is no less annoying – he is an utterly plain with the personality of a wet blanket, and for some reason gets pursued by multiple men besides just the prince because I guess they needed something to actually happen in here besides Prince Willis hanging around brooding with his weird blonde eyelashes.
Similar to Hashida’s other work I just reviewed (‘Waru’) there is not much sex here and when there is you can’t see anything, so keep your expectations low in that department. Also like Waru there is a touch of meant-to-be-funny-but-are-mostly-just-cringe hijinks that break up the monotony, but they come off as obnoxious because I didn’t like any of the characters. One of these is Willis and Eugene getting stuck in Willis’ family masoleum when he goes to visit his mother’s grave, and Willis decides this would be a great time for some noncon. This is even weirder when paired with the detail that Willis’s interest in Eugene was sparked because he looked like his mom.
The rest of the book is fairly typical rom-com fare. Love rivals come and go, accidental kinky bondage happens, penises are drawn on faces in non-erasable markers. If you’re looking for plot, look elsewhere . But if you’re looking for yaoi hands:
If you like this sort of prince-pursuing-pauper story or these types of characters in yaoi, you might like this one more than I did, but I was very bored by it overall. The art is about the same as Waru, pretty, with more kissing than sex.
I totally did not think that this was in any way early 00s Prince Harry x Harry Potter fanfiction, but I guess some people did, because there is this disclaimer in the back of the book. At least, I assume she is talking about Prince Harry here, although even at his best-looking he was a very far cry from Prince Willis. I’m sure there is “Harry x Harry” fanfiction out there somewhere, but I don’t need to google it, I trust you internet. (Also Malfoy’s dad x Snape are the best Harry Potter fanfic couple, change my mind).
TL;DR: A formulaic royalty x commoner yaoi set in a posh UK university. It wasn’t without effort and a couple zany touches but I’m always bored by the perfect-handsome-royal-guy-pursuing-unremarkable-normal-guy thing. Every character felt like a cardboard cutout from a Harlequin novel and every gag was more annoying than funny