Maddies Manga

The title of this one is a little longer than my usual reviews: １０年間身体を乗っ取られ悪女になっていた私に、二度と顔を見せるなと婚約破棄してきた騎士様が今日も縋ってくる

We can read it as: Juunenkan Karada wo Nottorare Majo ni Natteita Watashi ni, Nido to Kao wo Miseruna to Konyaku Haki Shitekita Kishi-sama ga Kyou mo Ottekuru

Links to sample at the bottom!

Author

This series is written by Botemaru (X), and Kotoko (X).

Check out the other series by Kotoko that I’ve reviewed here!

Genre & Tropes

Aristocrat romance, body swap, villainess, fantasy.

Info about this series (ongoing)

There are currently 7 volumes released, only in Japanese.

TL;DR rating

I found this to be a rather unique body swapping manga! The story including a small community of people being forcefully body swapped gives it an element of mystery, allowing it to not just be a standard romance.

What’s this series about? (Spoilers)

Sadie and Rufus were set to be engaged at a rather young age. Sadie, a beautiful and kind girl, was the ideal fiancée for Rufus. Likewise, Sadie found herself very happy to be engaged to a boy who was sure to grow into his fierce magical powers.

Just as she was starting to grow up though, young Sadie bumped into someone while at the market with her parents and passed out. When she woke up, she realized she was now in the body of someone tens of years older than her actual self. She began experiencing abuse before she could even gather her bearings, and quickly learned that she, and everyone else in the facility, were slaves.

For ten long years, poor Sadie worked while she starved on this compound. She wasn’t alone, as all of the other people trapped in the compound with her also had their bodies forcefully swapped, just like her. While all of them were born into blessed lives, they all had those lives stolen from them. So while they can all relate to each other, it’s not exactly an easy thing to cope with.

10 long years later, Sadie wakes up back in her original body, as she’s having her engagement publicly broken. While she takes a moment to appreciate the fact that she’s finally returned to where she belongs, she’s quickly snapped back to reality. Those 10 long years, her body had been possessed by an incredibly wicked woman. For 10 long years, :she” did her best to torment Rufus into breaking up their engagement.

Sadie, ever the kind person, apologizes for all of her wrongdoings, and promises to stay far away from Rufus. He notices the sudden drastic shift in her personality, and starts to gain an interest in her. He finds the notion of body swapping to be pure fantasy, but when he looks into her eyes as she tries to explain what happened to her, he can’t help but want to believe her. Though he’s the one who originally requested Sadie to stay away from him, he now just can’t help but seek her out…

My thoughts on this volume (Spoilers!)

While I’m already a fan of body swapping stories, I really liked the added twist of a whole community of body swappees. While Sadie seemed to be doing relatively fine once she finally returned to her original body, we can only see her truly at peace is when she meets up with a fellow body swapper. I hope the story will go on to follow them on their journey to find the rest of their friends. As the only information they were able to share was their original names, I’m sure it will take quite a while to find them all…

I’m a little confused about why so many people refused to believe that she did indeed have her body swapped. Especially once it was revealed that magic is a very common occurrence in this world! If a person can easily set a house ablaze with just their mind, shouldn’t the idea of switching two people’s bodies not sound all that crazy? Surely there has to be more taboo types of magic, or even experimental magic!

Perhaps once enough of the people that returned to their original bodies find each other and can verify their stories, more people will believe them? And then from there they can begin researching just how such a feat was possible. How awful it must have been…

I really wonder what happened to the people that took their bodies for all those years once the magic wore off. Were they all originally slaves that banded together to possess a bunch of aristocrats? Were they demons who were pulling some sort of prank? I have so many questions!

You can check out this series for yourself below! (JP)