REVIEW: The Dragon King's Imperial Wrath: Falling in Love with the Bookish Princess of the Rat Clan (manga, vol. 2) story by Aki Shikimi, art by Akiko Kawano, translated by Minna Lin

The Dragon King's Imperial Wrath is a fantasy romance manga series. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Ruiying learns more about the Dragon Clan and starts to become closer to King Yawen, although she's relieved to hear that he isn't ignoring the other princesses. She meets and befriends the Rabbit Princess, who wanted to become a bride candidate so that she'd have the opportunity to study medicine - although the Rabbit Clan is known for its medical knowledge, women in the clan are expected to be beautiful and submissive dolls.

In this volume, we get our first on-page instance of the "dragon king's imperial wrath" mentioned in the title. There are some indications why the rule that dragon kings can't be with their fated mates exists - it's not hard to guess that a previous dragon king must have gone nuclear when something happened to his fated mate.

Although King Yawen is instantly devoted to Ruiying upon meeting her, it's not love at first sight for Ruiying. She likes him well enough, and he's handsome, and it would be beneficial to her clan if his clan backed them, but she wants to take the time to get to know Yawen. I liked that. I also liked that the other princesses aren't presented as "jealous mean girls." The Rabbit Princess is the only one this volume looks at in any depth, but it's easy to imagine that the other princesses have deeper motivations of their own for becoming bride candidates. 

One thing I found myself wondering was whether they other bride candidates could stay in the Dragon Clan's territory, even if they weren't chosen. It seemed like that might be possible. Or maybe they'd have to be concubines? But would King Yawen choose concubines if he were marrying his fated mate?

Extras:

A bonus manga featuring the Rabbit Princess's meeting with King Yawen, a full-color illustration, a couple humorous 4-panel comics, and a bonus 2-page short story ("The Ice King's Retrospection"). The short story makes aspects of the whole "fated mate" thing a bit clearer - from the sounds of things, dragons don't experience the full range of their emotions until they find their fated mate (which also means that Yawen doesn't have much experience with controlling emotions like anger).