[DeepL Translation - needs review] Book 1 Introduction: Ionia, the knight who once defended his country at great risk, is reborn as Leolino, the fourth son of a frontier count, who is as beautiful as an angel. In a dream, Leolino traces Ionia's life and remembers his love for Gravis, the king's younger brother, whom he had locked away from his heart because of his status. He even recalls his memory of being killed by an enemy informer, and confronts the traitor on the day of the memorial ser...
This has been translated into English as, “You Can Have My Back,” if you want to look for English reviews purely about the plot, or use it as a reading tool.
The protagonist Leorino is improbably beautiful and it’s a big issue, especially after he suffers a severe injury to his legs that leaves him permanently frail. His overprotective parents are worried by the way other people look at him, and wonder what’s going to become of him in the future. Leorino himself is frustrated, and remembers a previous life as a young man named Ionia, who was a tall, strong, and ruggedly handsome soldier. Which he is definitely not.
The story opens with a short prologue showing an unpleasant (but not graphic) non-con scene with age gap and large strength difference. After that the book gets into the real story, the life of the protagonist leading up to that point, and for the rest of this volume it’s a perfectly nice fantasy BL book with occasional battle scenes. The difference in tone is jarring and I’m somewhat confused as to why this prologue is even there. I can only guess it’s there to be included in free previews and is supposed to serve the purposes of 1) being bait for readers who want something spicy, and 2) being content warnings for readers who hate that stuff so they can nope out immediately. Volume 1 doesn’t actually reach that point in the story.
This first volume has a lot of time/viewpoint changes. Leorino grows from child to youth, while experiencing flashbacks to Ionia’s memories from 12+ years ago.
It’s a long book. 479 pages, trade paperback size, text in 2 rows to get more on each page like a magazine. There are 4 illustrations in this volume, and an illustrated 2-page spread showing the main characters. However, the cast of characters is much larger. I ended up with a rather long character list, with notes about family relationships and other affiliations. Some characters who seem minor at first reappear and become important.
The grammar isn’t hard but the vocabulary was a larger challenge for me. There’s a lot of political stuff, a few infodumps explaining the background of something or other, as well as some fairly detailed battle scenes.
I liked reading this but took a long time to get through this first volume. It’s a long book, and there were times when I wasn’t up for dealing with new vocabulary. The English translation came in handy to refresh my memory of what was going on after taking a break.