"The treasure of a thousand years" — The Seven Princes and the Thousand Year Labyrinth

[spindizzy]

A young man, Ewan Juno, awakens to find himself imprisoned in an unknown place, surrounded by stone walls and seemingly endless corridors. Ewan learns that he is one of a group of individuals, all sent to this strange place — the Thousand Years Labyrinth. Each of them is a candidate to become the country’s next emperor, however only one can claim the crown. If, as a group, they do not decide, the title will fall to the last man standing, and it appears the labyrinth has methods of its own to achieve that end. A series of puzzles, trials, and deadly traps stands between life and death, and appears to mimic an old legend about an emperor and his seven lords—who were all lost in the very same maze.

Will the chosen candidates find a way out or will the labyrinth claim another seven princes in its search for an emperor?

It turns out that there's something about vaguely gothic fantasy manga full of queerbait, dramatic declarations of loyalty, and murder that means it just skips over the rational critique part of my brain and goes straight for my id. Which isn't necessarily a problem, it's just – not what I was expecting when I picked up The Seven Princes of the Thousand Year Labyrinth. Like, I didn't want to write a review of it while I was reading it? I wanted to grab it and wave it at people while yelling "LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL DISASTER! EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE AND I AM GOING TO SHIP THEM HORRIBLY AND WAIL ABOUT EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT APPEARS TO DIE OR TURN ON THE PARTY WHILE KVETCHING ABOUT ALL THE THINGS THAT I KNOW WOULD NORMALLY PUT ME OFF!”

Ugh.

But yes, I really enjoyed The Seven Princes of the Thousand Year Labyrinth! Our Hero, Ewan Juno, wakes up in the bottom of a dungeon, only to find that he and six other people have been kidnapped and thrown into a legendary prison, where they must choose one of them to become emperor and the rest to be the emperor’s loyal advisers... Except that someone in their group has decided that the most efficient way to become emperor is to make sure that there's no competition, and there are a lot of death traps in this labyrinth.

This is exactly what I’ve been in the mood for, okay, so I ate it up with a spoon.

(This review will have spoilers I’m afraid!) It reminded me a little of Pandora Hearts in its aesthetics and tone of cheerful murder while dealing with the fallout of decisions made before any of the characters were even born. I liked the characters – they’re tropey, but the manga does a good job of giving you enough information to make the characters likeable and understand why they were chosen! (I am not kidding about the tropes, seriously; one of the characters is a blind singer who can see the future, because what else would he be.) I’m actually a little sad that we didn’t get more time with the characters before the labyrinth – I completely understand why we didn’t, because tension and pacing and the mystery of ~who is the traitor~ relies on the characters being relative unknowns to the reader. However, it’s a repeated point that there needs to be reform and new direction in the country; the implication is that there are great divides between how the rich and the poor are surviving, and the several of the characters are actively involved in that reformation, but because there’s so much focus on what happens in the labyrinth itself, there’s not much space for the background that would explain how much of a mess the country is in now. Even when there are flashbacks to the characters’ backstories, the experiences are so wildly divergent that it’s hard to get a coherent picture.

(It doesn’t help that at least half of the drama is around whether an inherited monarchy or an oligarchic-elected leader is better for the country, and I’m not sure that anyone’s objections are fully resolved to anyone’s satisfaction beyond "This emperor. We like them.")

The first two volumes are quite tense, as the characters try to work out why they’re in a death trap – especially one that wasn't supposed to be trying to kill them – and who among them is trying to kill the others or who shouldn’t be there, with plenty of red herrings and actual on-screen murder attempts scattered around to make sure that you can suspect everyone if you want to! The fact that the villain is revealed to be a third party is just a complete deflation of that tension! Like, I was relieved I wasn’t going to have to cast one of the characters from my affections, but it was such a let-down. The fact that the villain is explicitly queer-coded and obsessive about it was also not a good look, and frustrated me a lot. Like, I can’t say for certain whether the series is full of queerbait or if it’s implicitly queer and assuming that I’ll trust it enough to accept that, but the way the villain was written is sure making me lean towards the former. It didn’t help that the story didn’t really recover from that; the story arc about the characters after their escape as they try to protect each other and dodge assassins, the police, or both is crammed into one volume and it doesn’t work. I understand why it was done like that – the labyrinth is in the name, of course most of the time and attention should be spent on the labyrinth! – but the narrow focus meant that the reveal of the overarching villain had absolutely no impact. We get introduced to the villain with a handy label on them the practically says "I am the bad guy" and five pages later they are indeed revealed to be the villain. It was honestly anticlimactic, so I feel like it needed a little more space and time for it to have any weight at all.

But for all my complaints, I really enjoyed The Seven Princes of the Thousand Year Labyrinth! I liked most of the characters, I liked the high drama and puzzles, and honestly I just wish that the series had been a bit longer so that there was enough time for it to breathe. Wishing there was more of a series isn’t bad!

[Connection disclaimer: I do know Ysabet McFarlane, who worked on the adaptation, and she is great.]

[Caution warnings: child abuse, murder and death traps, mentions of off-screen torture]

Comments

[umadoshi]

I'm a disclaimer! ^_^

And I'm really glad you enjoyed the series so much.