Really... I read the prequel and thought "hah, it was somewhat amusing even though the shoujo elements turned me, as a guy, off, let's try out the sequel"... No, just no. The shoujo parts intensifies and it becomes a story that takes itself too seriously with too much drama and fighting and not enough comedy, or maybe I'm just blind to this sort of humor. Made it through a dozen or two chapters before I started skimming... and yeah, it the shivering is real. I wonder why I even kept skimming towards the end. It's a typical shoujo manga with all the common elements and sugary, overdone relationships with princely male characters and worthless princess-esque female characters that just gets saved by their big, loving prince with a wide back. I can see how female readers might get turned on by that, but for me it's just disgusting to say the least. Worthless women who can't do anything but cry and get saved is not attractive for me in any sense of the word, and it's not supposed to be since it's a shoujo manga female readers are supposed to self-insert themselves into the story and imagine them/the female mc getting saved and taken care of tenderly by the overly caring, bordering on transvestite, males. Urgh.
Yeah, I was certainly not in the target range here. I was tricked by the shounen tag that should be removed altogether and exchanged with a shoujo tag. The prequel is not the same as this at all, so don't read it for that, and "normal" male readers should steer clear, it's not worth the mental anguish you'll get from reading this. I remember enjoying stories like this, such as fushigi yuugi that I read when I was around 10-13 years old in the library, because it was some of the few manga that was available there, I guess it was because I had been exposed to such a small amount of manga/novels/anime at that time, actually barely any at all, and that I was younger and not yet mature and I wasn't bothered by stuff like relationships or who screws who. However, now when I look back at it, I never want to touch that book or any of the other shoujo manga I read ever again. I remember the story and I agonize over how I once enjoyed them, it's like that dark history that people talk about all the time in japanese works, stuff that you now find extremely embarrassing. I remember the stories and now I judge it all to have been so utterly horrible that I am ashamed of ever having thought it was good, and this includes some shounen manga too.
So, yeah. Give it a shot if you're a girl(or guy) that likes shoujo manga(not saying everyone does), steer clear if you hate shoujo manga. For me it was a horrible experience, not only because I considered the relationships and character personalities as creepy, but also because the story was generally badly done and the jokes didn't appeal to me.
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