Saved By the Ice Cold Prince's Embrace Chapters 1-19 Manga Review

Once upon a time, there was a count. He had two daughters, one with his wife and one with a maid. The daughter of the countess was treated with love, affection, and care – probably too much. The maid's daughter, on the other hand, was treated with cruelty and harshness, made to live with her dying mother in a cold attic, and overworked. When the countess' daughter was told to marry Clarence, a deposed prince feared for his ice magic, she refused, and the family instead sent the maid's daughter, hoping that if she didn't die during the journey, the prince would make short work of her. And wouldn't that have been a terrible story if it had come to pass?

Fortunately for us, it's not quite what happened. Saved By the Ice Cold Prince's Embrace, based on the novel series of the same name and soon to be a light anime, is a difficult story in places, but it's not an unrelentingly grim one. It takes its opening cues from a combination of sources, most notably the Cinderella fairy tale and centuries of Gothic and Sensation novels. In its folkloric elements, it's actually rather more faithful to early recorded variants of the tale than many retellings. In Cendrillon, the 16th-century French version of the Disney film took its cues from Cinderella's father, who is, in fact, alive, and either indifferent to or an active participant in his daughter's torment. That's precisely where Katrina's father lands: he does nothing, and occasionally helps facilitate his wife's abuse of his child. While he later descends into alcoholism, his effective absence from Katrina's life enables her stepmother and half-sister to heap abuse on her. Their decision to foist her off on Prince Clarence as her horrible sister, Cheryl, is a plot point used in many an overwrought novel throughout history.

Despite treading this familiar ground, Saved by the Ice Cold Prince doesn't feel stale. In part, this is because it never downplays the abuse Katrina was subjected to. By the time the Sashebal coachman is told to dump her in the snowy outlands rather than taking her to Clarence's estate, she's so accustomed to mistreatment that she barely registers it. It's just her life; if she can't accept it, she can't possibly go on living. Like many survivors, she goes into every encounter assuming that people are going to hurt her, either physically or emotionally. People have to work to earn her trust, demonstrating kindness again and again, and even then, she has a hard time accepting it. But on the other side, mild cruelties don't even register as unkindness – when Clarence's servants, assuming Katrina to really be Cheryl, serve her terrible food, she's thrilled because it's still so much more and better than she's used to receiving. Katrina's life has been so horrible that her understanding of people and the world in general has been skewed.

To say that this upsets Clarence might be an understatement. At first, he, too, believes her to be Cheryl, but as he observes her and her obsessive need to work and please him (so he doesn't beat her), he begins to realize that this isn't a spoiled young woman, it's a scared one. When he observes her happily eating substandard food and she waxes eloquent about how good it is, he suddenly realizes what's going on. That's the moment that Katrina's life really starts to turn around: Clarence sees her for who she is and lets her know that what happened to her is not okay. While there is a certain amount of saving that happens, the most important thing he does for her is to make her understand that she deserves kindness and happiness.

Of course, he also takes care of her horrible family in a more concrete way as well. It's honestly rather cathartic; no matter how cartoonishly awful they are, seeing bullies get their just desserts is worthwhile, especially Cheryl and the countess.

These nineteen chapters, only available on Manga Plaza as of this writing, cover two complete story arcs and the start of a third. The first, which is also the longest, is the best. This is the arc wherein Katrina and Clarence meet, fall in love, and her family serves as the antagonists. It's well developed and thoughtfully written; Hokuhoku Yakiimo understands what they're writing about and doesn't pull any punches. The second arc introduces the requisite no-chance rival, in this case Lady Elizabeth, a noblewoman who thought she'd marry Clarence because she also has an innate form of dangerous magic. (Lightening, in her case.) This is substantially shorter and less interesting, in part because having seen Katrina be freed from her family's predation, a romantic rival just doesn't feel as dire…and is also a bit annoying, because can't she just be happy now? This carries over to the third arc, wherein inexplicably French twins Jérémy and Eugénie show up with obviously shady designs on both Clarence and Katrina. It's fine, but technically unnecessary, as if the original novel was meant to be a one-shot and Yakiima had to keep going.

Still, Saved By the Ice Cold Prince's Embrace is a good story, especially in its first arc. The art ably supports the writing with its lovely designs and details, and the translation reads well. Cinderella stories are enduring for a reason, and this one does a good job of showing us why.