Poison princess Raffy and the heroic knight Loren should be desperate enemies, except they’re now married in an act of diplomacy. Raffy’s natural poison keeps her at a distance from everybody, but Loren’s affection might solve the problem. His immortality probably won’t hurt either.
I’m really having a week for silly marriage stories and this one might be the silliest. Not in a bad way - it IS 4-koma after all - but it isn’t exactly brimming with depth or anything.
But it’s occasionally dead funny, which helps. Poor Raffy has a habit of spewing poison when she gets flustered and, if you couldn’t gather from the cover image, she gets flustered a LOT. Especially over how much Loren adores her.
For his part, Loren is immortal, but he can still die really easy. He just comes back to life in the nearest piece of clothing, which is the perfect dumb idea for a litany of goofball running jokes. The carp streamer in particular is so daft.
Throw in Raffy’s puppet attendants, one of whom is very taciturn and the other of which is a catgirl puppet who speaks in nothing but cat puns, plus a dodgy ghost butler who is obsessed with Raffy in cosplay and getting our leads to do more than hold hands, and you have yourself a manga.
It’s all very ridiculous and possibly a smidgen repetitive, but a lot of 4-koma fall into that trap. There are still some zany gags and plenty of enjoyment to be gleaned - I won’t ever tire of jokes dunking on chainmail bikinis and the one here is very choice.
You’ll be following the traditional relationship beats, but I wouldn’t think you were here for the narrative anyway. It’s an excuse for the ludicrous dialogues and drawings and you’ll get that in spades. The revelation about the demon lord at the end of this is delivered very, very well.
It’s got cute art, sometimes aggravating side characters, but more good, strong jokes than I was honestly expecting. There’s more than enough to recommend it if you want a laugh. The way the common people react to Loren is perfect, just perfect, and he and Raffy are a great match.
3.5 stars - I could see myself giving this a four at some point, but it’s definitely the type of story where I want to check a second volume out to see if it can maintain the good bits it’s started with.4