The Prince's Cactus · review
The Prince's Cactus is a short story about a very feisty and headstrong heroine and her trysts with an elitist Adonis of a Greek "Prince" when she visits Santorini for her sister's wedding. What sets it apart from the plethora of drama romances oozing out of your MAL/MU account is the characters, the bite to their snarky dialogues and interactions, the art and the overall doki doki you experience as their affair unfolds. Let's start off with art since it's one of the primary reasons one would read light shoujo fluff. Well, it makes you weep! It makes you have a mini orgasm in your rotatingchair. It makes you inhale deeply while your index finger hovers shakily over the (Next) arrow button, as you're unsure if you really want to stop looking at what's currently on the screen in front of you!
In short, it DELIVERS as far as breathtaking art goes. I think this is important not just from an aesthetic standpoint here, but because the story revolves around royalty and class differences to a certain extent and the style of art, expressions and background adopted really helps emphasize those aspects.
The story and characters are beyond reproach in this one. The only contention I can imagine some readers experience is that the tale wrapped up far too soon and they wanted to experience it unfold over many more volumes rather than two short ones. I agree!
Both the heroine and the bishounen are confident and acerbic in their approach. Their no-nonsense attitude clashes constantly and makes for very amusing banter, physical chemistry and palpable romance. The dialogue is either well scanlated or very well written and would make me squeal or reach for a cushion to cover my face because I couldn't possibly imagine the mortification the other party would experience when faced with such audacious repartee! In summary, you cannot put down this story until you've inhaled each and every beautiful chapter as fast as your internet connection will allow!
The short eight chapter are well paced, have a hilarious one panel omake at the end which makes you snort milk/your beverage-of-choice out of your nostrils, and extremely satisfying, whetting your appetite for further high quality romance reads. The Prince's Cactus plays off a bit like a Harlequin Romance, with the leads at loggerheads initially and warming up to each other over the course of the story with sufficient conflicts thrown their way to bring them together, but it's far from a corny cheesfest.
Overall A: I highly recommend this title, both for shoujo romance and clever character-centric comedy enthusiasts. It will be over before you know it, and if like me, you get hooked to the artist's style, well then... Welcome to the dark side! We have romances to make your pulse quicken!