This latest volume continues Rangetsu and Prince Tenyou's quest to find who killed her brother. While the two are drawn deeper into court politics during their quest, Rangetsu continues to hide her true identity while fighting against her deepening feelings for Prince Tenyou.

Although Rangetsu infiltrated the court to avenge her brother's death - the longer she is there, the more she realizes that Prince Tenyou is not the one responsible and might be the only hope for freeing the Ajin. When someone comes after Tenyou, Rangetsu is on alert - and a series of royal machinations pit her against the most likely suspect - Tenyou's brother.

I am really enjoying watching this series unfold. Although set in a fantasy world, Rangetsu's fight against systemic oppression is a current topic that will reach many readers. The art is beautiful as always.

4/5

Vol 4 of the Kings Beast by Rei Toma is another excellent addition to the series. Im really Glad we’re getting to learn more about the world, the characters, but also getting some action scenes in.

It’s really getting juicy now. Things are really starting to build up and I'm so excited. I hope all this world building is worth it. But I’m pretty sure it will be.

I love Rangetsu. They’re such a fun but awesome character. I need to see more of their badass-ery please!

The art continues to be amazing. The action scenes are still kind of confusing, but I think I’m just dumb. The world building in character development is great. I really can’t wait for more.

The plot thickens.

I've been on the fence a bit with this series, but volume four was a solid read. While the last two books have been very shojo fluff (nothing wrong with that at all), this story mixed in more of the political and social intrigue that volume one had. The story was good with fluff to balance out the more serious tons. There's still a heavy influence on the romance, but it feels like the plot is picking up more to tackle the xenophobia in the story's world, as well as the political tension between all of the Emperor's sons.

The King’s Beast Volume 4 is written and illustrated by Toma, localized in English by VIZ Media, published through its Shojo Beat imprint, translated and adapted by JN Productions, and features touch-up art and lettering by Monaliza De Asis. In the last volume, Rangetsu has to find a way to balance the vengeance she so desperately seeks with her new life in the imperial palace. So instead of blaming Prince Tenyou, she’s fallen for him, seeing him as her light. But she doesn’t just know him from a yearning sense, she trusts him, and she is set on protecting him at all costs, even if it’s directly putting her life at risk.

In The King’s Beast Volume 4, someone in the imperial palace is trying to kill Prince Tenyou, and Rangetsu has reason to believe it might be the icy third Prince, Kougai. When things turn violent on the jiju field, Rangetsu decides to confront Prince Kougai directly—and ends up as the prize in a wager between royal brothers. The last volume got more adult and seemed to confront jealousy and emotions rising between Rangetsu and Prince Tenyou, but sadly the yearning continues just to be yearning. The romance is starting to feel more like a one-sided obsession over a “both these characters are hiding feelings” dynamic that we often see in shoujo series. That said, the story in The King’s Beast Volume 4 revolves around showing Prince Kougai’s connection with his beast servant, leaning lightly into BL but ultimately pulling back.

The art in The King’s Beast Volume 4 continues to be stellar, even if the slow-burning story feels more like filler this volume than plot-driven. For example, the jiju field moments are stunningly illustrated, but it feels an additive despite pushing some tension and competition. That being said, that particular feeling might come from my near desperation to see Rangetsu and Tenyou come closer, even if it isn’t romantically immediately; I just want to see more between them that aren’t words unsaid and assumptions.



I’m not sure where this series is going, but I’m hoping it gets there fast, with Volume 4 feeling like it lacks development. One middle-of-the-road volume isn’t enough to drop the series, but slow-burning romances and mysteries need some sort of progression in each volume to make it feel like the pace is worth it. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten that here in The King’s Beast Volume 4. In fact, after dealing with more adult issues and emotions in The King’s Beast Volume 3, this volume seemed like a regression that worries me for Rangetsu’s future development.

Overall, I’m not sure how I feel about The King’s Beast anymore, let alone Volume 4. I’m sure there can be a path forward, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Rating this series as a whole, what first caught my attention with this series is the art style. I hadn't read Dawn of the Arcana before this (which I've started now) and was looking for more fantasy shoujo series similar to Inuyasha or Kamisama Kiss to purchase for my library. I love the revenge plot line and all of the different characters that are being introduced. I definitely plan to purchase the series, but like some of the other reviews mentioned, I did feel that this volume contained a lot of filler and it makes me wonder what the pacing of the series will be like.

The Story

In the fourth volume of The King’s Beast, the polo-esque competition continues between the third and fourth princes! During the match, the third prince, Kougai and his beast servant Boku end up getting a little rough, and for whatever reason, no fouls are called on them. Kougai even mentions in passing that Rangetsu did very well to detect the poison, leading him to suspect that Kougai was behind the attempt in the last volume.

After the game, Rangetsu pays Kougai a visit and sees a completely different side of “The Ice Prince.” Kougai defends himself by saying that everyone has a public and a private persona. Kougai takes a vested interest in Rangetsu and wants to make her his own. So, Kougai pays Touya a visit and challenges him to a match where Touya can pick the stipulations. If Touya wins, he gets anything that Kougai can provide but if Kougai wins, he gets to claim Rangetsu as his own.

Ririn wanted to come to watch her two brothers battle; however, she is a little too late in doing so. She mentions that she wants to gather all of her brothers together and have a bit of an affair. When that happens, Rangetsu isn’t allowed to mingle with the nobles so she’s sent to stay with the other beast servants. Touya eventually joins her and things get a little… close… between them to where Rangetsu has to put her guard up. The volume doesn’t really end on a cliffhanger but just a reaffirmation that Rangetsu must protect the secret that she’s actually a girl and to make sure Prince Touya doesn’t see through her.

Characters

The biggest development here goes to Prince Kougai. We get to understand him a bit more and while he may be The Ice Prince, he’s not as heartless as ice as people think. In fact, he’s not the one who tried to poison Prince Touya. Instead, he even reveals in private to Boku that he didn’t order him to play dirty in their polo match and wanted to know who ordered him to do so? That deepens the overall mystery of this story arc even more!

Kougai’s true intentions were that he simply wants to face and defeat Touya in competition with Touya being 100% serious. He wants to prove that he can be emperor but feels he can only do so by beating all of his competition when they are at full power. He only longed to have a true competition with Touya and, admittedly, got it… the outcome I’ll let you read and discover on your own.

All I have to say is… poor Rangetsu. Even though she is masquerading as a guy, she has found herself in so many situations where people have treated her as a girl. She received multiple comments on how cute she is and even Kougai has taken an interest to her. It makes you wonder about some of the preferences of these princes! It was still fun seeing Rangetsu get subtly hit on by a bunch of guys who think she’s a guy as well!

Final Thoughts

This was an interesting volume that had a couple of nice developments in it. While the main story took kind of a backseat, there were some interesting side plots that were set up here all involving Touya, Kougai, and Ririn.

Competition was the theme of this volume and while it was only between two princes, we know that there are many of them in the running to become emperor. I’m sure as the series goes on, we will see more of this between Touya and the other princes. Rangetsu trying to protect her secret was revisited but we all know that it’s going to get revealed sooner or later. Oddly, I can see Touya just shrugging it off and letting Rangetsu continue on as normal. He just doesn’t seem like the type of character to be surprised by anything like that. Given how noble he has acted so far, even if he discovers Rangetsu is a girl, he’s not going to care one bit.

Then again, I could be wrong and this could become a bit of an issue. Perhaps he will do his best to try and protect her secret but it gets out again and now some serious damage control has to be taken that could put his chances as the next emperor in jeopardy? Who knows… there’s a lot of ways this could go but it is pretty certain the secret will get spoiled at some point. It is this manga’s biggest selling point so when something like that takes center stage, it becomes painfully obvious that it will also be the focal point of some drama later on.

Until then, we just get to enjoy a bunch of princes squabbling with each other over who’s going to become the next emperor. Ah… family feuds… gotta love ‘em!

We’ll find out in Volume 4!

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This item was provided for review by Viz Media

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
Volume 4 of The King’s Beast finds Rangetsu looking into the third prince, Kougai, as potential suspect for who wants Tenyou out of the running for emperor. This part of the competition was a sport played between the princes with teams made up of their respective Ajin and other players. The end of the book also saw the introduction of Princess Ririn, celebrating her 16th birthday and getting all the prince’s, her brothers, to come and celebrate, as well as a reminder that while Tenyou is a far different person to Rangetsu, and the Ajin in general, there are people out there that aren’t.
Compared to the last volume this one was a bit slower and while the intrigue was still there it took a bit of a back seat.
Still an interesting series that I plan on sticking with.

The King’s Beast Volume Four focuses on Kougai, the third prince and Tenyou’s older brother.

The King’s Beast Volume Four
Written by: Rei Toma
Publisher: Shogakukan
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: November 2, 2021

The volume opens with Tenyou, Rangetsu, and the rest of their team practicing for the upcoming sports competition and being interrupted by Boku, Kougai’s beast servant. And when Kougai himself shows up, it gives the reader the opportunity to see the third prince interacting with these characters. And an aside he makes to Rangetsu makes her think that he might have been the one to try to poison Tenyou in the previous volume.

After this, this story moves right along to the sports competition. Before it starts, villagers are shown placing bets and discussing among themselves who they think is going to win. It’s made quite clear that Kougai is popular and has many supporters. This helps to establish the expectations of the people before the competition. The only match we get to see is between Kougai’s team and Tenyou’s team, but that’s expected, since this is the matchup that Toma has been building up to. It’s a pretty intense match, but in the end, I wasn’t surprised by which team won. While it would have been nice for the team that I wanted to win to accomplish that, I knew that it just wasn’t realistic.

Following the match, Rangetsu decides to pay Kougai a visit, and is actually surprised to see that he’s different in private from the public persona he portrays. After getting over her initial shock, she just blurts out and asks if Kougai was the one who switched out the tea leaves to poison in the tea ceremony in the previous volume. I don’t know if it was due to her shock, but it just felt kind of odd for Rangetsu to simply ask so bluntly like that. While Kougai says he didn’t do it, he also makes it clear that he despises Tenyou because he’s so laid-back and yet always seems to come out on top. He just wants Tenyou to take the competition seriously and says he would never stoop to such dirty tricks. But is Kougai really telling the truth? It’s hard to say, but Rangetsu seems to be taking what he’s saying at face value for now.

After this encounter, Kougai is suddenly asking Tenyou to borrow Rangetsu. She agrees, because she doesn’t want to create bitter feelings by having Tenyou turn down the request. However, Kougai keeps calling for Rangetsu more, which eventually leads to Kougai giving Tenyou a visit and asking his younger brother to give him Rangetsu. But, as I expected, Tenyou was more than willing to deny his elder brother this request. While it’s obvious Tenyou is loyal to Rangetsu, it’s just nice every once in a while to have a scene like this to remind the reader of how loyal he is.

But that’s not the end of it, because Kougai suggests having a competition for Rangetsu, with Tenyou choosing the manner of competition. I liked the competition that Tenyou comes up with, as well as the rules and conditions for it. I also liked how it was revealed at the end of the tournament what Tenyou did in regards to what he would get if he won the competition. But it also comes out in Kougai’s thoughts that wagering Rangetsu was just an excuse so Kougai could challenge Tenyou to a competition.

Once the competition is over, the reader is introduced to Ririn, Kougai and Tenyou’s younger sister. She’s come to ask Kougai a favor: a bigger birthday celebration this year that would include all of her brothers. Personally, I found Ririn to be on the annoying side, because she had her moments when she was acting liked a spoiled princess. At the party itself, Ririn makes it quite clear that Ajin are not allowed to accompany their masters, and she gets a dig in at Rangetsu for not knowing her place because she’s so friendly with Tenyou. This hurts Rangetsu emotionally, but she tries so hard to keep Tenyou from seeing her emotions. When Ragetsu accidentally says that Ririn looks cute out loud, another Ajin admonishes her for saying it. The other Ajin makes it clear that Ajin can’t have those kinds of feelings for humans, and especially not a royal.

The final scene in the volume sees Tenyou interacting with Rangetsu, and she keeps trying to convince herself that the warm feelings she has toward Tenyou are out of respect and that they’re not irreverent. But when Tenyou puts a flower into her hair, she realizes that her heart aches. In her confusion, she pulls the flower out of her hair and asks Tenyou to stop because it’s making her feel uncomfortable. She realizes that if she allows herself to continue having these feelings, that Tenyou could potentially see through her and discover that she is actually a female Ajin.

While most of the volume focused on developing Kougai as a character, I was glad to see Rangetsu’s feelings for Tenyou being addressed during the last couple of scenes in The King’s Beast Volume Four. Rangetsu does finally seem to be understanding what she’s feeling, and this is now going to cause complications going forward for her, especially in regard to being around Tenyou. This is going to provide more tension for the story that goes beyond the struggles and intrigues between the princes. I’m looking forward to seeing how this story is going to progress in the next volume.

The competition between the Third and Fourth Princes intensifies. The Third Prince seeks to make the Fourth Prince more serious about the battle for the crown. They also fight over Rangetsu.

This volume seemed like a transition, as there was less story involved. Still, the artwork is beautiful and I’m looking forward to the next volume!

I found that this volume had both more and less development than the previous ones. We got more insight into the third prince and his character, as well as into our protagonist's increasingly conflicting feelings about the fourth prince. On the other end, I feel like we saw less of the intrigue and mystery of the palace, leading to a volume that was more light-hearted in comparison. Overall however, I will still be checking out the rest of the series and how it will play out!

In a lot of ways, this is a breather volume compared to volume 3, but it's got some fun moments in it, especially if you like competitive sports. The reader gets a better feel for the icy, third prince, who isn't all that he seems to be. The siblings show an interesting interplay between them when they actually interact. The palace intrigue was something that drew me to the series in the first place. It's not as prevalent as in previous volumes, but still lingering in the background. I'm curious to see where this series will go as it continues.

Filler volume. Also not sure if it was just me but the artwork felt different this volume.... The art style looked different to me (the way the characters were drawn) I hope it's either just me or it goes back to how it was the first 3 volumes.
I absolutely love this manga series but this volume was a disappointment. I will be continuing the series!

I am continuing this series!

So I have had the opportunity to read each volume of this series, and I think it is a great series. It switches between getting the backstory of the princes and their beasts and the goal to be emperor. The only thing I dislike is that we are going further away from Rangetsu’s revenge and justice for her brother, as it hasn't been mentioned in a little, but I do know we are getting to that as it is all connected.
Also, I am so happy they shut down that weird and uncomfy statement the half-sister said because I CANNOT DO ANOTHER INCEST TROPE; high school me is still scarred from Vampire Knight.

I still do not know who I like Rangetsu with, but I do think the Prince is good!