Mahiro, the president of the disciplinary committee, is assigned an unrefusable task: ensure the chronically late Asuma finally makes it to school on time. The solution places Mahiro in Asuma's room, a situation that leaves him visibly uneasy. His concerns prove warranted when a morning wake-up attempt ends with Asuma pulling him into bed.

Asuma soon declares that hugging Mahiro is the only way he can get up, and from that point on he stays constantly at Mahiro's side. Their close quarters quickly become even closer.

A BL romantic comedy of attachment and infatuation between a laid-back troublemaker and his easily flustered, by-the-book caretaker.

The Prince's Body Pillow has story by and art by Mitsu Hashimoto. English translation is done by Tristan K. Hill. Lettering by Fuki Yagami. Published by Seven Seas Entertainment (October 27, 2026). Rated M.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

At this point I probably shouldn't be surprised by this fact, but this is not the only romance manga about someone specifically being a prince's body pillow available in English: BisouBisou released Tenten and Reiha Sawakami's I Can't Be the Prissy Prince's Body Pillow two years ago. You have to hand it to Seven Seas, they can always spot a trend, no matter how small! (Though I believe Yen Press beat them to a cakeverse manga.)

In any event, The Prince's Body Pillow is a steamy BL version of the story. Mahiro, head of the Student Disciplinary Committee, has had it up to here with Asuma, a guy who just can't wake up on time. He's berated numerous roommates (unfairly, as it turns out), and is just at his wits' end when someone comes up with the perfect solution: make Mahiro Asuma's roommate. Surely if it's so easy to wake up a sleeping roomie, Mahiro will be able to do it.

As you might have guessed, it's not. Asuma's deep sleep rivals Rip van Winkle's, and it's only by chance that Mahiro figures out the secret to waking him: if he lets Asuma hug him and then extracts himself from the bigger boy's arms, Asuma will wake up. To say it's embarrassing might be an understatement, and that's only doubled when Asuma starts napping in class (a new habit) because he knows that Mahiro can wake him back up. Before long, the entire school has its eyes wide open to watch the two of them, and the fact that the boys are falling for each other only makes everything more complicated.

It's a cute story, and the art is similarly soft. As a fluffy romance, it's really very sweet. The problem is that the story details outside of the romance don't quite get the attention they need. For example, Asuma says that he has a hard time waking up because he's a lucid dreamer, but that plot point is dropped soon after it's raised. Similarly, one night Mahiro appears to wander into Asuma's lucid dream, but like the entire lucid dreaming idea, this is also dropped the second the moment is over. It feels like an editing flub, where these bits should have been excised or noted for further development. Of course, this is only volume one, so maybe they'll come back.

Overall, this is a sweet, fun book. It's uncensored, has emotions involved in all of the sex scenes, and is just generally adorable. It's not as smooth as it should be, but I'll still be back for volume two.

Bolts
Rating:

The title The Prince's Body Pillow just screams that the story is going to be goofy. Make no mistake, the premise itself is incredibly silly, focusing on a very contrived and over the top reason for two boys to share a bed together. The opening chapters are very light in tone, going for more of a comedic angle than a realistic one which I think is where the book fully establishes a stronger sense of personal identity. There are a lot of sweet moments between the protagonist Mahiro and Asuma, with the former being frustrated by the latter's antics. However, as the story goes on, I was disappointed that a lot of the original charm of the story gradually kept getting pulled back for the sake of something far more typical. Suddenly things get a lot more dower, but not in a way that feels natural.

There are points where it feels like the story should've ended much earlier, only for certain emotional revelations to get dragged out or unresolved until the last possible moment. This ends up leaving me with a story that ultimately feels very uneven, as if the writer had gone on auto pilot after abandoning the initial premises as quickly as possible. That's a shame because despite how forced things originally seemed, there was a real charming energy to the conversations. The characters genuinely felt brighter as they talked to each other and in their expressions. Grounding a lot of the story, especially as Mahiro starts wrestling more with his feelings, felt like it sucked that energy away. It didn't feel organic so much as it felt like drama being built up just for the sake of it. If I am recommending this story, it's mainly for those opening chapters but anything beyond that I think can be left at the door.