Kaibutsu Oujo Nightmare
Princess Resurrection Nightmare

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This is indeed the sequel to the original Kaibutsu Oujo manga, but most of the chapters won't make the reader feel it that way and instead may give spin-off vibes. The plot will give a small hint about its nature as a sequel around the second half to make it more obvious to the reader, and will further be supported by the last chapter.

So it was a refreshing and enjoyable read. You'll notice that the author has improved their art style, new characters were introduced, and more pop culture references (Thailand cave rescue, Xenomorph from the Alien franchise, and Pennywise, just to name a few).

It ... still had the same plot formula from the prequel of being episodic, where 1 or 2 chapters it's a mini story with a corresponding enemy and the next chapter is another mini story, with those mini stories being loosely connected. The lore was expanded a little bit regarding the royal family and their androids, but it felt insignificant.

Lastly, for the potential reader out there who noticed the addition of "Nightmare" on the title when compared to the prequel, you'll get the general idea on what the plot will be about.

To summarize, this work is not a required read at all. The plot for Kaibutsu Oujo was already completed in the prequel. There's nothing new here plot-wise. If you would like to read this for the sake of seeing again our beautiful princess wielding her trademark chainsaw and various weapons, half-werewolf tomboy, and bewitching vampire in a new art style from the same author, while also expecting new pop culture references and new monsters for them to fight, then you have come to the right place!

Princess Resurrection Nightmare is listed as a sequel, but that’s not really a good description. When things come to a close, it becomes clear that it is technically a sequel, but in a pretty convoluted way. This manga begins with the cast of the main series waking up without any memories of who they are or of their relationships to one another. They gain what memories they need as they go, but a full recovery of memories doesn’t occur until the end of the manga. Thus, for all intents and purposes all character development and relationship development has been reset to what it was at ... the beginning of the original manga. Furthermore, the battle for the throne is seemingly ongoing so the overarching plot has been reset as well. Thus, I think it’s probably better to think of this as an alternate story or side story, though neither of those fit quite right either. Still, this is definitely a series you should only read after having read the main series and thus this review will heavily use comparisons to the main series.

The cast was one of the highlights of the main series but unfortunately, the cast of this sequel just isn’t as good. They’re the same characters for the most part so it’s not like they’re terrible, but the writing is noticeably worse. Hime doesn’t pull off her regal air as well as in the main series. Riza and Reiri don’t pull off their frenemies relationship as well as in the main series. Hiro is even more useless and unlike the main series, doesn’t grow at all into becoming useful. And Sherwood got replaced by someone who isn’t anywhere near as fun or likable. Another area the writing is weak is the overarching plot, which this time is ultimately complete nonsense. The plot in the main story had issues as well and left a lot unresolved, but it was nowhere near as bad as this. It’s overtly convoluted and ties things together in an incredibly forced way. And the ending made it all feel completely pointless, resulting in it being incredibly unsatisfying.

As with the main series, this too is mostly composed of unrelated episodes of Hime and company dealing with supernatural incidents. The writing on the mini-episodes was fine, but they still didn’t work as well as in the main series. They just aren’t able to capture the atmosphere as well. I think this largely comes down to the art. The art is better in some ways and worse in some ways, but for the story that the manga is trying to tell overall I’d say it’s worse. It looks more sanitized and cleaner, which doesn’t really work well with the somewhat horrific and mysterious atmosphere it’s going for.

tl;dr: A sequel that’s more of the same but not as good.