Ludwig Revolution

Ludwig Revolution is an idiosyncratic take on classic fairy tales, told as only Kaori Yuki can. The central story is about the flamboyant, narcissistic Prince Ludwig as he travels across the land in search of a suitable wife. Accompanied by his trusty manservant Wilhelm, Ludwig encounters a diverse cast of fair maidens from various fairy tales. Snow White, Cinderella and many more are completely retold, and the resulting stories are sometimes unexpectedly hilarious, while at other times cruelly twisted.

Tropes used in Ludwig Revolution include:

• Abusive Parents: Check.
• Ambiguously Gay: Oh, boy. Just take a look at Ludwig's wardrobe. It gets to the point where Cinderella borrows his slippers to attend the ball.
• Anachronism Stew: Its delicious combined flavors will melt in your mouth, not in your hand!
• Anti-Hero
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Subverted as many of the names Kaori Yuki picks actually exist in reality.
• Ax Crazy: How Lisette became a Self-Made Orphan. She's by no means the only character who's Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
• Awesome but Impractical: The prince goes everywhere in full visual kei regalia. Lissete works as a mercenary in a plastic/leather dress and high heels.
• Badass Grandma: Her name is Babette and she is awesome.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted with Snow White. The eponymous princess here is a cruel slut who seduced her father since age 7, and is much more evil than the queen, mocking the queen that she can never be as beautiful as her.
• Bifauxnen: Queen Almaberga, who is identical to her son Ludwig. You can argue an inversion and say that Ludwig looks feminine.
• Bishonen: Ludwig himself, Wilhelm, Julius sort of.
• Blood Knight: Queen Almaberga, baby.
• Break the Cutie: Lisette, who was tricked into slaughtering her family, as well as Hansel and Gretel, who had a poor abused childhood made much worse by an extremely deranged and savage experience, which turned them into cruel killers.
  • Lisette probably loved killing her parents, as they forced her into prostitution as a child.
• Crapsack World: What do you expect with Kaori Yuki taking already dark fairy tales and making them worse???
  • Most notably Hansel and Gretel though. She actually mentions in a sidebar that she finds the original story so horrifying that she couldn't bring herself to make it the slightest bit funny.
• Cute Shotaro Boy: Julius. With one slight twist for flavor. Again, this is Kaori Yuki.
• Dead All Along Maid Maleen.
• Dead Older Sister: The reason that Julius hates Ludwig so deeply is because he caused this with a great war. Only... it was Lui's mom.
• Did Not Do the Research: Petronella's fatal mistake. If you want to become Queen by marriage, make sure your predecessor is ACTUALLY DEAD.
• Dojikko: Cinderella.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: One of the side-effects of Ludwig and his mom looking exactly the same.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Among all the cruelty inherent in Kaori Yuki's work, some lucky characters actually get one of this.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita
• Everything's Better with Princesses: Ludwig is on a quest to search for a princess to be his bride, and meets plenty. Probably subverted as not all of them have it easy or are pure, however.
• Fairy Tale Motifs: Uh, duh.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: Dorothea has to go all over the world collecting gold for her master. Most of the time, she ends making herself hated by everyone and every time she dies, she is revived in another body and has to do it all over again.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: Even more of a no-brainer than the above.
• God Save Us From the Queen: Everyone is absolutely terrified of Ludwig's mother Queen Almaberga, who is still quite alive. Also, Petronella's plans are for the sake of becoming the new queen.
• Gold Digger: the Cinderella chapter is full to the brim with them.
• Grimmification: See also Crapsack World.
• Handsome Lech: Ludwig is the most overt example of this ever for a Kaori Yuki protagonist, picking and dumping women based solely on the size of their breasts.
• Heel Face Turn (Dorothea, Lisette, Hansel and Gretel, Julius)
• Heir Club for Men: The indirect reason Ludwig needs to find a bride.
• Hello, Nurse!: Dorothea again.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Dorothea sacrifices herself to revive Ludwig. However, she's revealed to be in a cycle of reincarnation, and thus not truly dead.
• Karmic Death Some people do actually get it.
• I Love the Dead
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Prince Ludwig has quite the fashion sense.
• Informed Ability: Cinderella's feet doesn't look the size they are announced to be....
• Identical Grandson: Ludwig and his mom are IDENTICAL, to the point where Julius tries to kill Ludwig repeatedly for his mother's genocidal crazy.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ludwig acts incredibly obnoxious towards people, but he puts himself in danger to save his friends.
• Mummies At the Dinner Table: Julius has no problems with talking to Ludwig's (supposedly) dead body or with making out with it. Also Ludwig's "hobby" at the beginning of the story...
• Meido: Dorothea dons in a sexy maid outfit, also true maids like Inga.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Petronella, the poor maids outside her window got scarred for life because of that.
  • They thought it was her - it was actually Julius.
• Offing the Offspring: More than once with Snow White, Hansel and Gretel.
• One Steve Limit: We got two girls named Albertina, actually a plot point.
• One-Winged Angel: Petronella
• Otaku: A prince, no less! His name is Christo.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Dorothea
• Scaled Up: Petronella's One-Winged Angel act. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't help.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money: I'm not just some disgusting "otaku", I am an otaku celebrity with money and power!
• She's All Grown Up: Gender Flipped, Prince Silvio is all grown up at the end of his story.
• Shout-Out: Ludwig and Wilhelm are the names of the original Grimm brothers, Dorothea was the name of their mother.
• Spell My Name with an "S": As you can see, there's some confusion as to whether Ludwig's mother is named Amalberga or Almaberga. Amalberga's a real name, at least.
• Theme Naming: The names of Dorothea's pets are "Damian", "Jasoon" and "Carrie".
• True Love Is Exceptional: It is very heavily hinted that the princess most suited for Ludwig is Idike, who doesn't have large breasts...
• True Love's Kiss: Subverted. It wasn't the kiss what revived Idike, in fact it didn't revive her at all
• Tsundere: Lisette, Rapunzel.
  • Ludwig too, toward Wilhelm. Especially strong during the little red riding hood story.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: One does wonder what Amalberga sees on her husband...
• Vain Sorceress: Subverted by Dorothea, as the reason she looks youthful is her curse.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Julius
• Wicked Stepmother: Petronella, by marrying the King. Shame the marriage is void because his last wife was still alive.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Dorothea thanks Ludwig after he breaks her out of her reincarnation cycle.
• Woman Scorned: Petronella.
• Yandere: Julius.