Dokuhime

I'm also surprised that Kait won at the end, holy moly, I thought Mao was going to be the sure-fire winner because his type always wins. Not that I particularly hated Mao, but I really liked his off-screen death and the 1 page he got that implied his death. I also really liked the prophecy and all the flips they did to try to keep you guessing which kid was which.

The prince of Ichita. He seemed like a strong, intelligent and kind type of guy but he just blew it. In his deathbed, his father told him to be a good king and maintain the good relationship with Glandol and the first thing he does when he becomes the king is to declare war. Why? Well, because for some unknown reason he chose to believe in the prince of the ex-royalty, that had ALL the reasons to lie and plot against the current royalty! Not only that, the prince that came from the same royalty that caused a war because of the water. It makes perfecly sense to chose that kind of royalty than the one who brought fortune to his country, since they specially made waterflows to there. He even had the guts to say it made his country "weak". Talk about being ungrateful.

   First of all, the Poison Princess come from Mitragyna. His father must have told him about the incident between the Queen and the King of Glandol.  So it is pretty obvious the two (nor his heirs) would hardly make an alliance against everyone, not to say the MOST loyal ally of Gladol, Ichita. The ex-prince just told him there was a Poison Princess in Glandol. So what?  What proves that it is true? Even if it was, they must have had a good reason behind it. However, the prince of Ichita didn't even investigate it. He just baseless assumed it was true the nonsensical theory the ex-prince kindly presented to him. Even the true identity to the king wasn't cleared. He declared war based on nothing.

  Because of that, all that talk about he knowing the value of human life is pure and utterly bullshit. One does not simply declare war on a whim. He should've known that thousands of lives would be lost on a war and the lives that were saved thanks to the actual king of Glandol. As a king, he should've thinked about his people in the first place, acted in a diplomatic manner and thinked carefully about his next steps. Even if he was enraged about his father death, as the king he shouldn't have acted as a spoiled prideful prince.

 

He is a disappointment in every aspect. If his father were alive, I think he would have felt ashamed to have such a useless and manipulable son.

So that bastard was proving what she was by killing the maid. OK, that's really stupid on his part--"Hi, I'm a badass, I'll prove it by making you hate me and giving away a big piece of leverage on you. You'll for sure co-operate with me now, right? Well worth an unexplained death with obvious connections to you that might make someone suspicious." Really. Even if he really wanted to test it, why on someone she cared for--indeed, far as he knew perhaps the only person in the kingdom she cared for? How does that gain him an advantage? It's dim. But OK, maybe he's just that much of a bastard, whatever.
But also, OK, so the test was obviously going to work. Rather than just say "No, don't do it!" is there any obvious plot or character reason why she wouldn't just say "Yes, fine, you got me, that's what I am, no reason to kill the girl to prove it now"? Sure, possibly he would have killed the maid anyway, just to be a bastard or for security reasons or whatever. But is that a reason to just sit still for it?
Meanwhile, those princes know she's a poison princess, and that bastard apparently simply let her go after using her to murder an innocent in cold blood and earning her hatred. Why doesn't she just go to them and rat him out? He seems not to completely realize they've identified her, so he might think she'd keep quiet, but why should she?
The whole scene is full of gorgeous pathos but as soon as I thought for two seconds it made no damn sense.

It's a sad manga also the Poison Princess are supposed to be killed after doing their job aka Assassinating their target