"O Sinless Soul, stricken down in a manner most foul. From this day forth, you shall be my loyal servant. I am the Torture Princess, Elisabeth Le Fanu. I am the proud wolf and the lowly sow."
The seventeen years and three months of Kaito Sena's life have not been pleasant. Abandoned by his mother, savagely beaten by his criminal father, it finally ends with his father choking the life out of him in a drugged rage.
Moments later, he awakens in a new body, his soul summoned to another world by a strange young woman in a Stripperiffic black outfit, proclaiming herself Elisabeth Le Fanu, the Torture Princess. She has crafted him a golem body for a vessel out of clay and her own blood, to be her manservant. An infamous noblewoman who gained great magical power by torturing to death every human being in her family's demesne, Elisabeth was finally captured and bound by the Church. She is tasked with slaying fourteen demon princes and their mortal contractors.
Once this mission is complete, she, too, will burn at the stake, forsaken by all of creation.
Torture Princess: Fremd Torturchen (異世界拷問姫 Isekai Goumon Hime, "Torture Princess of Another World") is a Gothic Splatter Horror Light Novel series written by Keishi Ayasato and illustrated by Saki Ukai (Black Bullet), and very much not for the faint of heart. It was published in Japan by MF Bunko J from May 2016 to February 2020, and translated to English by Yen On beginning in May 2019. The first volume was adapted into a 15-chapter manga by Hina Yamato in 2017, which was published in English as a single omnibus volume.
Not to be confused with 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess.
Tropes in Torture Princess:
- Almighty Janitor: The Butcher. He is able to supply anything, "so long as it is meat", and easily evades attacks. He was the Suffering Saint's acolyte, and supplied the demon flesh that was used to both summon the fourteen ranked demons and to create the Torture Princesses.
- Anchored Teleportation: In order to teleport to a destination, Elisabeth le Fanu either needs to be familiar with her destination or have a teleportation circle drawn in her own blood at the endpoint . This is exploited by Kaito Sena in volume 1: he has her carve the design of her teleportation circle into his stomach (his golem body was animated using her blood), and since he remembers any information carved into his flesh, this lets him get her places she's never been.
- Artistic License – History: Drawing and quartering
was a fairly well-known historical means of Cruel and Unusual Death, but it wasn't done the way depicted in volume one. Drawing and quartering consisted of partial strangulation by hanging, followed by disembowelment and castration, followed by beheading and dismemberment ("quartering"). What Elisabeth refers to as "drawing and quartering" when she inflicts it on the Knight, is actually a dismemberment by four "horses". - BFS: While she mainly fights with summoned chains, spikes, and torture and execution implements, Elisabeth can also summon the Executioner's Sword of Frankenthal, a blunt-tipped zweihander with the words of her geas emblazoned on it.
- Blood Magic: Demon magic is essentially algemancy, generating power by inflicting pain. The Torture Princesses tortured innocents until they essentially became part-demon themselves and developed the ability to generate their own mana. For his part, Kaito figures out in volume 3 that he can generate mana to cast spells by torturing demons.
- Blunt "No": The protagonists responding "Hard pass" to other characters' demands becomes a bit of a Running Gag by book five.
- This is Kaito's initial response to Elisabeth's command to serve her.
- Kaito and Elisabeth respond this way in unison to Jeanne de Rais's demand to become her subordinates.
- Boxed Crook: Elisabeth was taken prisoner by the Church after fighting her uncle Vlad and the Kaiser, and is under a geas to slay the other thirteen ranked demons and their contractors. Once that task is complete, she'll be executed.
- Burn the Witch!: One of Elizabeth's execution devices is a conjured burning stake, which she uses against Vlad. She herself is also sentenced to die this way, but Kaito interrupts her execution at the end of volume 3.
- Catch-22 Dilemma/Unstable Equilibrium: In volume 2, the Grand King sets a trap for Elisabeth that caps her ability to use magic. She could break it if she destroyed the Grand King, but the curse prevents her from generating enough mana to do so. Kaito breaks it after forming a contract with the Kaiser, the only demon more powerful than the Grand King.
- Chicken-and-Egg Paradox: Demons must be summoned into the world using a ritual that involves demon flesh. It takes a while for anybody to notice the contradiction this raises: how did the first demon get summoned? This is answered in volumes 4 through 6: the Butcher delivered the demon meat to summon the "first" demon from the hands of the Suffering Saint, who had created the world via a contract with "God" after destroying the last one with "Diablo"—respectively the natural forces of creation and destruction, the latter of which demons are fragments of.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Elisabeth herself. An ill girl, her uncle Vlad Le Fanu, the Kaiser's contractor, fed her the heart of a demon. This healed her body, but caused her to be wracked with pain unless she tortured innocents to death. Eventually she came to accept it, and killed so many she became able to generate her own mana without it.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Church is very Catholic, built upon a mythology of a female Suffering Saint that took on all of mankind's sins; her statue in the capital's central square weeps tears of blood. The Church is more powerful than the secular king and maintains a holy order of paladins, and even has a Pope—with the absurd name of Godot Deus—who was responsible for placing the geas on Elisabeth (the eponymous Torture Princess). The Church is overall theoretically a force for good in this series, but is riven with corruption that gets worse after Godot Deus is killed in the demon attack on the capital.
- Death Seeker: In public, Elizabeth openly and proudly welcomes her death sentence, even telling a priest praying for her at her execution pyre to can it, feeling it is the right of the people of the world to demand vengeance for all the innocents she slew. In private, she just wants her hellish life to finally end.
- Demon Lords and Archdevils: There are fourteen "ranked demons" in the world: the Knight, Governor, Grand Governor, Earl, Grand Earl, Duke, Grand Duke, Marquis, Grand Marquis, Monarch, Grand Monarch, King, Grand King, and the Kaiser. At the start of the story the Kaiser has been captured by the Church via his contractor Vlad Le Fanu, whom Elisabeth fought to a standstill. Elisabeth has to slay the other thirteen.
- God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Of a sort. God is initially described as the force that creates the world, and Diablo the force that destroys it. Volume 4 reveals that this is the only thing either of them is: they're literally just natural forces that the Church's mythology has incorrectly personified, and neither one is actually good or evil. They simply exist.
- Golem: Elisabeth crafted Kaito's vessel from clay and her own mana-rich blood.
- Gratuitous German: The subtitle inexplicably means "foreign torture".
- Inconsistent Spelling: In the English translation, the first couple of books spell the Pope's name "Godd Deus". In volume 3 it changes to "Godot Deus" without explanation. Then it becomes "Godd Deos" in volume 5. Make up your minds!
- Last-Minute Reprieve: After the last demon contractors are slain in volume 3, Elisabeth commands Kaito to take Hina and go into hiding, while she goes to her execution: few know he's the Kaiser's contractor and the Church likely won't pursue him because he's killed no innocents. Out of loyalty to Elisabeth, Kaito instead interrupts the execution, publicly revealing himself as the Kaiser's contractor and declaring himself the enemy of mankind, knowing the Church will be forced to stay her sentence in order to have her kill him, too.
- Naked First Impression: Hina is chained up nude when Kaito finds her in Elisabeth's treasure room.
- Neck Snap: In the prologue, Kaito's neck mercifully breaks before he can strangle to death.
- Nipple and Dimed: In the manga, Elisabeth is always drawn with pokies through the straps over her breasts. Hina's nipples are on full display throughout the chapter where she's introduced.
- Noble Demon: Elisabeth in the present day. She knows full well she's beyond any hope of redemption either in the world's eyes or God's, and firmly believes that the world has the right to demand vengeance by killing her once her task is complete.
- Nuckelavee: The first demon that Elisabeth slays on-page is an underling of the weakest of the fourteen ranked demons: a being that takes the form of a skinless horse and rider and charges through the wall of Elisabeth's castle to attack her. She effortlessly slays it with her Iron Maiden.
- Robosexual: Kaito's primary love interest is Hina, a Ninja Maid automaton that Vlad built for Elisabeth in her childhood. Elisabeth reveals in volume 3 that she's even fertile.
- Sinister Minister: Clueless Ray Faund coolly informs Kaito that when Elisabeth goes to her death, Kaito, too, will probably be tortured and vivisected by the Inquisition—he shows off a torture chamber beneath the church to convince him—and offers to kill him painlessly if he poisons her. He's actually the contractor of a demon.
- Spotting the Thread: In volume 1, the Knight's contractor comes to Elisabeth disguised as a Church paladin because the human actually was one, the brother of Grandmaster Izabella. He offers to take Kaito to safety after he kills Elisabeth, but Kaito wants to ask him one question beforehand:"Why are you looking at me like I'm your next meal?"
- For her part, Elisabeth doesn't fall for it either: the knight claims to be a survivor of a unit Elisabeth destroyed at the Plain of Skewers, and Elisabeth is certain she didn't leave any survivors.
- Stripperiffic: Elisabeth's customary garb is a black dress reminiscent of a domme that leaves her bust unclad save for strategically placed straps.
- Summon Magic: Elisabeth mainly fights by summoning fanciful torture and execution implements out of Hammerspace (it's not explained exactly how she produces them).
- Teleporter's Visualization Clause: Elisabeth uses a teleportation circle drawn in her own blood that can get her to anywhere she's either familiar with or that has a matching circle on the far side. Since his body was made with her blood, Kaito is able to have Elisabeth carve a teleportation circle into his stomach to summon her into locations she's never been: first to get her into Clueless Ray Faund's torture dungeon beneath the central cathedral, then, after recreating the circle from memory, into Vlad's castle.
- Their First Time: Kaito loses his virginity with Hina in volume 4 while they're staying in the beastmen realm.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Elisabeth has a taste for organ meat, and is appalled at Kaito's Lethal Chef-level inability to prepare it. In Kaito's defense, he'd never cooked anything more advanced than a custard pudding before his death, and it proves the only thing he can make that she actually enjoys. Thankfully, Hina the automaton proves a very capable chef.
- Trapped in Another World: Enforced. Kaito's soul is summoned by Elisabeth into her Gothic Horror Überwald world from modern-day Japan. Per the afterword to volume 1, the isekai element was an excuse the editor came up with for why anybody would willingly follow Elisabeth, and has little further effect on the story: Kaito has no desire whatsoever to return to the horrible life he lived on Earth.
- Troubled Toybreaker: Title character Elisabeth Le Fanu was the neglected, Delicate and Sickly daughter of aristocrats in an Überwald setting. In a flashback, she's shown shredding her stuffed animals even before her Evil Uncle Vlad feeds her the heart of a demon, beginning her transformation into the Torture Princess.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: In flashbacks, Elisabeth certainly took a level in cruelty after eating demon flesh, but she's mentioned to have killed cats and shredded dolls before that.
Throughout Elisabeth Le Fanu's bloody life, she was accompanied by a single foolish servant.
