Neneko is a spy blessed with catlike charms. Her mission? Seduce the ace assassin of a rival organization and expose his weaknesses. The problem? She's blown her cover before learning a thing! But rather than dispose of her, the target makes an indecent proposal: marry him and take their relationship to the next level, since he can't keep his hands off her body! Is his clinginess an act, or could there be genuine love behind his murderous gaze?!

Assassin & Cinderella has story and art by Yuzo Natsuno. English translation by Mei Amaki and lettering by Effie Colton and Dietrich Premier. Published by Square Enix (March 11, 2025). Rated 18+.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

There's a reason why they say you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Assassin & Cinderella is desperately trying to prove that aphorism wrong, but its attempt to combine sexy with fluffy just isn't quite working – it feels as if someone looked at creator Yuzo Natsuno's adorable story about a cutesy girl and a stoic boy and said, “Okay, but make it sexy,” only the story wasn't really designed for that. The result is a story about a cute girl who is inexplicably a spy and a stoic boy who is an assassin, for some reason, and their unusual relationship.

I'm almost certainly making this sound worse than it is, but the overwhelming sense I was left with after reading this volume is that its pieces don't quite fit together. Neneko is quite possibly the worst spy ever, assigned to monitor assassin Omi (who she thinks is named “Mi” to her alias “Ri”). Still, he's known she was a spy from the get-go, and her skills are demonstrably lacking, as is evidenced by the way she apparently never thought to search through his drawers until he revealed that he knew who she was. He admits that he's known she was putting on an act based on what he purportedly likes from day one, and the implication is that he fell in love with her sheer incompetence because it was just so darn cute. When this all comes to light in chapter one, he proposes to her, pointing out that she can continue spying on him without being discovered by her organization. It's like the story is held together with chewing gum.

But I dare say that we're not supposed to look so closely at the plot. The art delights in making every single move Neneko and Omi make together or in each other's vicinity look like foreplay, and Natsuno's art spends a lot of time lingering on Neneko's improbable breasts and lush thighs. Clothing is drawn to make it look like Neneko's lower torso is naked, but the grasp of anatomy is tenuous at best, which in this case means that Neneko's waist is so thin it looks like she should snap in half while Omi appears to be lacking in the crotch department based on the way his pants are drawn. I do like aspects of the art, such as the sketchy quality (even if it looks like Omi is wearing furry underpants in one scene) and the way Neneko's hair expands to fill however much space is in the panel.

Assassin & Cinderella can't hold a candle to most of the Steamship's line of racy manga, and I felt annoyed by Neneko for most of the book. It's not terrible, but also not the first series I'd recommend, although I suppose if all you want is “slightly racier The Magical Girl and The Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies,” this technically fits the bill.

MrAJCosplay
Rating:

Assassin & Cinderella feels like what would happen if you took the plot of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and just replaced Mrs. Smith with a moe girl. I'm not trying to downplay the story, but that's the main thing I was thinking while reading the entire volume. The conflict here is that our female lead is trying her best to spy on an assassin by getting romantically close to him, but the twist is that he is aware of that and doesn't seem to care. If anything, he keeps putting himself in a position where he can get as close to her romantically as he can, even if it arguably comes with the expense of his job. There should be a lot of tension here, but there isn't.

The story doesn't delve into what makes this girl so special in his eyes, and even highlights the fact that he's probably not completely sane. That leads to some funny moments, but it also makes me wonder where exactly the story is going. It's hard to tell if this guy is so awkward around people that he doesn't realize the potential danger he's putting himself in, or if he doesn't think she's a threat at all. Meanwhile, our female lead comes across as more of a cute airhead than the spy I think she's supposed to be. I do like the moments where it teases a lot of the spicy scenes between the two, but the story plays it up more for misdirection. There isn't a lot of spice here unless you love pretty boys drenched in blood.

I think I either needed a bit more titillation or a bit more of a story to fully get invested. There's a premise and some funny moments, but not much else beyond that. Maybe the hints of more tension at the end of the book could lead to a stronger narrative force going forward, but I also don't think the book gives me confidence that it could pull it off. Not terrible, but not outstanding either.