If you’ve played hundreds of video games, you’ve probably played the generic one: princess gets captured by bad guys, and the hero must rise to save her. So for this particular manga, the princess has been captured by the demon king, and the hero and his comrades embark on a harrowing journey to rescue her.
Meanwhile, the princess embarks on a harrowing journey to build herself a bed in a demon castle.
Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle combines video game tropes, RPG-like qualities, and HGTV shows to present you this manga. A manga where Princess Aurora Syalis Goodereste is bored at the demon castle. With no attendants or things to do except stay in her cell, she escapes multiple times and builds tools to help her sleep better. Like a pillow. Bedsheets. Or famously pulling a shiny, demon slaying, hero wielding sword out of a slab in the middle of the forest for…
Sunlight. Yes, sunlight.
Anyways, rather than seek any way to get out of the castle, she does whatever she can to sleep better. For a young girl like her, sleep is good.
…But about escaping the castle…?
Honestly, the only problem with this manga so far is can this level of quality continue? With it firmly set in not taking it seriously and being a comedy with such a simple plot, it can easily fall into a work that gets repetitive over time. Like does this girl even want to leave the demon castle (spoilerNO)? Reunite with the hero (alsoNO)? If not, then it’s got to be super fresh and creative with how everything’s depicted. And I assume, by faulty logic, there will be a volume that will falter humor-wise.
…That’s about it for my criticism of Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle!
Needless to say, the humor is astounding. You know the logic regarding damsels-in-distress? Well, it blows that all up by focusing on the Princess. Telling the hero’s journey in a meager 4 pages. (Maybe a little more, but maybe a little less). Instead, it focuses on the many demons of the large castle, which range from absolutely harmless to irresponsibly incompetent. Rather than actually be a frightening situation for Syalis, she’s essentially a kid at the candy store with pockets knee-deep in cash. Also she’s the one who eats demons for breakfast. (This actually is not a joke.)
Some good examples, of course, take place in the very first chapter. She hates her pillow, which is nowhere near good quality. So she resolves to make herself one. How do you make yourself one like hers? By tricking teddy bear demons of course (just brush their skin after almost stabbing them with a knife and they’ll follow you forever), roam around the hallowed defenses of the place and pick things out of demons, then put it all together, and voila! A soft pillow that instantly makes you go to sleep!
Other examples are far more subtle. If you’ve played any of the Legend of Zelda games, you might catch a joke. Any RPGs (Dragon Quest, Pokemon) you’ll understand immediately. It admittedly didn’t come to me that this manga would reference video games a lot. And in fairness, it also delves into role-playing tropes as well. But in a scene that made me think back to the time in Wind Waker which involved using the wind, I can’t help but think this manga is somewhat of a callback to those times.
The characters make it stand out as well. Some stand out because they, in theory, should seem and act more powerful than the princess (the Demon King, Great Red Siberian) but don’t, while others are completely bizarre (the Michelin Man Tire Demon, “Toothpick Men”). But the princess is key to everything. There’s no other character I would expect to embrace death because its benefits (sleep) apparently outweigh, ya know, the most important thing (living) other than Syalis. That’s a testament to making her stand out, by supplying excellent dialogue. She’s a welcome delight.
And so’s this manga. Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle is fantastic. I already explained one worry, but one more worry: this could be a work that might stump those who aren’t too much in the know regarding games. But I think overall, between the art and comedic timing, this is one manga you’ll want to start adding to your shelf quickly. Definitely one of the best manga debuts of 2018.