I received this book from the publisher on Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

What if you take Parasite (which I didn’t enjoy fully due to the art/silliness but I liked the idea) and throw in a princess who everyone wants to kill? You get this one! Meet Stella, her dad has just passed away and she is know the one to take over the kingdom + estate. As you may guess not everyone is happy with that and so we see how her stepsiblings try to get rid of her to gain control. Now that sounds like it should be easy, right? Poison? Accidental monster let loose in the castle? And sure everyone else who is affiliated with the princess dies (in gruesome very bad ways even). But Stella is just unkillable. And quite soon we figure out why. Because apparently our dear little Princess has a parasite in her, akin to Parasyte.

I really had a laugh when got to meet our parasite. And even harder because it is apparently someone isekai-ed given that he talks about him being a Japanese male. Can you imagine getting truck-kunned and then ending as a parasite in someone’s body? It must be hecking terrifying. But instead this guy is just leisurely figuring out what place he is. And then figuring out firstly what he is eating, and what to do about the hosts health (because you know if the host dies he dies and that would just suck) to him finding out he is in a princess/young girl and oh yes, someone is trying to kill her (and thus him). And so we go back to the first chapter again in which our princess eats without dying, well, let just say that it explains a lot on why the poison didn’t harm her. Go parasite! Or how that thing got defeated, and sorry, it was both horrifying and hilarious. I mean, he was just sticking out of something and using his host to fight that monster, I was just giggling. And terrified.

I do love that he is allowing his host to be his host. He wants her happy and in control. Not him. I have to say I didn’t entirely expect that as most books featuring this topic will go with the parasite taking over, so this was refreshing and I really loved the character of the parasite. He is even studying and learning so he can understand things better + get a better grasp of his surroundings.

While I am not a fan of the stepbrother and stepsister I did appreciate that the author added their POVs to the manga. We see their motives, see how at least the stepsister is both on the verge of going mad or just crying on the floor. They make for an interesting pair and I was curious how long they would keep up their efforts to kill Stella. And how far they would go (hint, very far).

The part with the assassin brigade? Oh my gosh. Best part of the book. Terrifying me. Making me giggle at the silliness of the assassins (and our parasite) and kinda want to warn them because hell is coming.

And I loved when the two of them were able to meet (how you ask, well read the manga). I am so happy the mangaka did this in volume 1 and not in later ones. The introductions are out of the way and now things can get really started!

But excuse me you cannot just end it on that cliffhanger. That is rude!

The art was fantastic. I really enjoyed the lighter scenes, the more humorous scenes (that one panel with him deciding that he needs to stay undetected and thus the princess as well and he is just sticking like a horror movie girl to the ceiling), to the scary scenes.

All in all, I wasn’t planning on writing such a long review, but this manga was just too fun. A dash dark. Fully capturing my attention. And I want more. If you want a fun manga featuring a princess and her companion parasite be sure to check this one out.