The Nippan Group’s digital publisher Funguild announced on Wednesday that Hokuhoku Yakiimo and Kusabi Kurokawa’s Saved By the Ice Cold Prince’s Embrace (Migawari Reijō o Sukutta no wa Reikoku Mujihi na Kōri no Ōji no Ai Deshita or literally, What Saved the Stand-In for the Aristocratic Daughter Was the Cold-Hearted, Cruel Ice Prince’s Love) manga is inspiring a “light anime.” The anime will premiere on the TV Kanagawa channel this July.
Image via PR Times
●黒川くさび・やきいもほくほく・ファンギルド/「身代わり令娠」製作委員会
Kurokawa drew an illustration to celebrate the light anime news:
Image via PR Times
●黒川くさび・やきいもほくほく・ファンギルド/「身代わり令娠」製作委員会
The MangaPlaza service releases the manga in English, and it describes the romantic fantasy story:
As the illegitimate daughter of a count and his maid, Katrina was born into miserable circumstances. And now that she’s lost her mother, the treatment from her stepsister and stepmother the countess has only grown worse. One day, her stepsister receives a royal order to move to the northern outskirts due to her unseemly behavior at a recent party. There, she is to learn proper conduct under the tutelage of the resident prince, rumored to be a cruel man. Not wanting to subject her daughter to such punishment, the countess decides to send Katrina instead. Katrina arrives in the north shaking in fear. But contrary to the stories, the “merciless and cold-hearted” prince is kinder than she believed. Might the pure-hearted Katrina find love in the wintry countryside?
Yakiimo first posted the story on the Shōsetsu ni Narō service in July 2023. Kurokawa began adapting the story into manga under Funguild’s isekai fantasy label Comic Spira in January 2025. (Funguild describes the light anime as an adaptation of the manga version, as opposed to Yakiimo’s original text story on Shōsetsu ni Narō.) Funguild published the manga’s second compiled volume on January 19. The story has garnered over 1.5 million downloads.
Dai Nippon Printing coined the term “light anime” in 2022 to describe its process of producing an adaptation in less time with fewer costs than in traditional animation.
Sources: PR Times, Comic Natalie
