Duck Prince Vol-1: Transformation
Story & Artwork by: Ai Morinaga
Pages: 170
Published Domestically by: CPM Press
By: Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

What happens when you take a classic fairy tale, update it for modern audiences and sprinkle it with the elements that typically characterize shoujo and bishonen manga? One possible result would be Ai Morinaga’s Duck Prince, a tale of beauty, magic and love in a cruel ugly world.

Let’s head right into the first book in this series and see what this Duck Prince is all about and whether a new spin on a well known story can still catch our attention.

Story

" In reality, an ugly duckling could never become a beautiful swan. However, when a short, ugly boy makes a wish to be reborn beautiful, his wish is granted, and he becomes a gorgeous hunk. All the girls fall for him, but this is just the start of his troubles." -- CPM Press Duck Prince Page

Review

Meet Reiichi Swan, he is a junior high school student with a big problem, he’s considered an ugly nerd and a detestable loser that no one would want to be associated with. He’s the ugly duckling of the school’s lake. Unfortunately as a diminutive, introverted young man with a strange hairstyle and awkward social skills Reiichi doesn’t seem to have anything going for him, except for one thing, a passion for gardening that brings him closer to the one person that seems to like him, the beautiful Yumiko, the girl who has won his heart.

Can a person like him ever hope to find love with a girl like Yumiko? Unlikely, that is unless something magical interferes with fate and that’s just what happens to our strange protagonist. On a fateful day after learning that Yumiko is moving away to America he is recruited to help find her dog "Mister", who is missing. Reiichi manages to find him, but in the process of recovering him gets hit by a car. In a state of mild consciousness after the accident he learns something truly amazing, Mister is not really a dog, he is in actuality a prince from a faraway land that has been transformed into a dog by an evil sorcerer. As a token of his appreciation he grants Reiichi one wish, whatever he wants. Reiichi’s wish is to shed his ugly duckling shell and be reborn as a beautiful swan.

Many months later he wakes up from the comma state he’s been in to learn of something that will change his life forever. His wish came true, he is no longer the ugly duckling he’s been his whole life, but in fact a handsome looking man, whose looks are second to none. Now, with a second chance at life and another shot at Yumiko’s heart who just happens to attend his new school. Will his new looks affect the person he was before? And what about Mister? Who is this mysterious prince turned canine?

For a book I really had no real expectations for Duck Prince turned out to be a extremely fun read. The story, which has a very universal appeal to it, combined with the comedy and bizarre nature of the characters added up to title worthy of being part of any manga reader’s collection. The setup of the story is fairly predictable even from just reading the first page or two, but it’s the way it’s developed and narrated that make it entertaining and add that unique flavor the title has.

Having Reiichi as an underdog who has spent his entire life being made fun of for his looks turn the tables on everyone proves to be an entertaining premise, but it only succeeds because on the inside he is maintained as the same individual that he was before. This makes for an interesting take on the fish out water setup, with this particular fish being out of water in his own body, not knowing what to do or how to carry himself properly, which leads to numerous comedy bits.

In addition to this akward and sometimes comedic situation you also have a very strong romance angle to the story that materializes whenever Yumiko is in the picture. She is for all intents and purposes the princess of the story. Beautiful, compassionate, personable, intelligent and caring, Yumiko plays the role of the love interest with ease. With this first volume in the series their relationship is initially established as one of acquaintances who both happen to have a passion for plants, but eventually begins to transform as Reiichi takes a more decided and direct approach to sharing his feelings with her. If only the spell didn’t wear off whenever he does…

Every hero must have some great Achilles' heel to contend with after all. It would seem that when Mister cast his spell on Reiichi he incorporated a special layer to it that cancels out Reiichi's new looks whenever he gets to close to Yumiko since Mister has an interest in her too. This adds another interesting aspect to the story and the necessary layer of conflict that is always needed to make stories like this one interesting. Does he admire her from afar and enjoy his physical appearance or does he risk it all and confess his true feeling to her? It’s a hard choice either way.

On the production side of things the artwork by Ai Morinaga is on the energetic side with many of the panels in each page jumping out at you with a level of frantic energy and movement that is not often seen in titles of this nature. There is a nice variety to her characters designs with each of the main players living up to their fairy tale counterparts in terms of visual personality.

The book itself is well together and looks sharp as far as art reproduction and ink levels. The orientation of the story is presented as it was in the original from right-to-left and it looks like most sounds effects were left intact, subtitled on the side. The translation of the story and dialogues read well and was easy to follow.

Conclusion

With volume one Duck Prince is off to a good start with a premise that while somewhat predictable still manages to surprise and capture your interest. I enjoyed the cast of characters and the way the story is setup and developed through each chapter. If you enjoy shoujo or bishonen manga titles you can’t wrong with Duck Prince. Give it a try you will be very surprised at what you find here, I know I was.

Good Stuff!

Jeffrey Couto