As our last release of 2011, we are proud to present to you what we've been doing since Christmas. After much work and toiling around, here's the first chapter of the shoujo manga Shounen Oujo (Boy Princess) by Utaku Yukihiro, who based the story on Zenko Musashino's original concept.
The story follows Albert, a poor boy living in the Queendom of Morrigan, a country where women rule over men, who have no rights. While out on the town with his friend Theodore, Albert and Theo are abducted by slave traders, but are luckily bought by the servant, Guy, of a rich noblegirl. It turns out the noblegirl is 11-year-old Princess Alexia Lumiere, heir to the throne of Morrigan, who wants Albert, who bears a striking resemblance to her, to act as her double.
As you can imagine, men are treated very badly in this female-dominated society, and it seems selling boys into slavery is a common occurrence. The setting takes much of its influence from France in the 1700s, and this is mainly reflected in the architecture, and how the character names are pronounced. Albert, for instance, should be pronounced with a silence t (same as Colbert), and Guy is pronounced with an "e" sound, as in tree. Furthermore, the currency used is the reugny (roo-ni) (pl. reugnies), which comes from a French town. As such, in lieu of using "-sama" when it came up in the text, Madam and Monsieur are used instead. Also, you may notice that the title Mimic Royal Princess comes up a few times, usually inlaid between the kanji for Shounen Oujo. This is an alternate English title to the work the author's thought up.
And here's a nice color insert from the first chapter when it was published in the magazine Sylph. It's black and white in the volume release, so enjoy.
Lastly, happy new year to every one of our readers, and we'll see you in 2012.
Shounen Oujo ch. 1: Mediafire, Megaupload
