Smile of Condemnation (Danzai no Bishou in Japanese) is an erotic drama Light Novel written by Kou Inazuki published 2013. The manga adaptation illustrated by Clione began serialization in 2021.
The story begins with twin sisters; Marika, the viciously manipulative crown princess, and Leila, who is as gentle and timid as her sister is cruel. Considered unlucky by their culture, Leila has been locked in the palace all her life, her only "friend" being the sister who demands absolute obedience from her.
When they were young, their father captured a prisoner of war, the boy prince Khalifa. To humiliate him, Khalifa was made Marika's slave, a toy to be tortured and mocked. Although he refused to let her break his spirit, he would have certainly died...except that Leila felt compassion for him. Every day, Marika would savage him, and every night, Leila would sneak in to heal his wounds and talk with him. She never revealed she wasn't Marika, for she was too ashamed of disobeying her family. Yet Khalifa came to trust Marika's "other personality" and develop a confused love for her- and a seething, vengeful hatred for the girl who tortured him during the day.
Eventually, Khalifa escaped the palace. Years later, he returned- at the head of a conquering army, eager to avenge every injury that had been inflicted on him. Desperate to save themselves, the royal family fled before he arrived...leaving behind Leila, who they strictly ordered to impersonate her sister. Khalifa brutally rapes "Marika" in revenge...revenge that doesn't feel as satisfying as he expected, since it's against a submissive young woman who does nothing but apologize to him.
The story begins there, in the middle of Leila and Khalifa's mindgames. As she struggles between her love for Khalifa and obedience to her sister, Khalifa begins to suspect he's been duped......and far away, Marika plots revenge of her own.
Obviously, the series is very much Not Safe for Work.
Smile of Condemnation contains the following tropes:
- Apologises a Lot: Leila has a habit of saying "I'm sorry" when she doesn't know what to do.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Khalifa was a much nicer kid before his enslavement. He's not entirely unsympathetic as an adult, but he is a war criminal.
- Black Magic: The titular Smile of Condemnation is a forbidden potion whose recipe has been passed down through the Masud royal family. It subjugates the subject's will to the one whose blood is used and manifests as a flower tattoo on the victim's neck, which (unknown to Khalifa) kills the victim over time.
- Cain and Abel: Leila has the heart of an angel, while her younger twin Marika has the mind of a devil.
- The Chains of Commanding: Being the leader of the revolution, Khalifa is looked upon as the next king, but he admits he doesn't actually know how to run a country and is too obsessed with "Marika" to care.
- Crapsack World: On top of the many corrupt royals, the land is largely infertile, so wars over food are very common.
- Entitled to Have You: Marika is extremely protective of Leila and gaslights her into believing she's her only friend, but on the grounds that nobody is allowed to touch her "property".
- Everyone Has Standards: Khalifa's lieutenant Redolf comments that "Marika" is still a prisoner of war, and turning her into a Sex Slave is hypocritical to the ideals of the revolution.
- Foreshadowing: Khalifa reads a report that not a petal remained after the palace was burned down and clutches his necklace bag. The flowers turn out to be the only thing that can break the curse on Leila and the bag has them.
- Gambit Pileup: The plot revolves around Leila's attempt to Maintain the Lie and Khalifa's attempt to find out what is she hiding. Marika's capture makes things even more complex.
- Gilded Cage: Because Leila was locked in the palace because of a superstition, she has no idea of life in Masud or Marika's violent nature, and can't believe it when she's told both. She at minimum knows that her father took many prisoners.
- It's All My Fault: Leila takes the rumor that newborns who couldn't start breathing by themselves are considered Doom Magnet seriously and takes responsibility for everything that happened to Khalifa, especially when speaking up 10 years ago would have cleared a lot of troubles. At present she finds different reasons to be a Death Seeker while being unable to go with it.
- Martyr Without a Cause: Leila tries to protect her sister because she believes she's a good person. Marika was actually an Enfant Terrible and has hardly changed in the present. And when Marika gets captured anyway, Leila still asks him to spare her despite her blatant betrayal.
- Memento MacGuffin: An elder informs Khalifa that the only way to break the curse of Smile of Condemnation are the flowers that only grow in the royal palace's garden, which he ironically burned down. Just as the elder tries to call it karma, Khalifa realizes Leila gave him a bag of flower petals 10 years ago, which he still carried around.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Khalifa doesn't react well to the reveal that he's been raping the wrong person the entire time and also unwittingly placed a killing curse upon her, and tries to fix everything.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The real Marika gets detained, and decides to tell Khalifa that he got the wrong person and that the curse is also killing Liela simply to get a laugh at him. Not only Khalifa realizes his mistakes and imprisons Marika, he has some time to find a cure.
- Pinky Swear: Young Leila and Khalifa made a pinky promise to escape together. Khalifa's shock when Marika sabotages his escape and claims it was all a show is an understatement.
- Poor Communication Kills: It takes quite a while for Khalifa to notice that his captive may not be Marika and about as much time to get any concrete answer from Leila, not helped by her insistence to Maintain the Lie and her partial brainwashing. Also not helped by young Marika not revealing she's not her twin when Khalifa was captive. It takes Marika herself spelling it out for Khalifa to realize he's wasted almost a year for no reason.
- Porn with Plot: Early chapters have some graphic details of Liela's new life as a Sex Slave before going more into Khalifa's backstory and being almost done with sexual violence after his Heel Realization in the middle of the story.
- Romanticized Abuse: Despite being abused and raped by Khalifa, Leila believes he's a broken and misguided friend, and doesn't object to it before and after the misunderstanding is cleared up.
- Qurac: The country of Masud and its surrounding territories have some clear Arabian inspirations.
- Sadist: Marika turns out to be a serial torturer who enjoys seeing the humiliation and despair of others.
- Sex Slave: Leila's status in the beginning of the story is being Khalifa's toy, as he believes he's inflicting Karmic Rape on Marika without knowing about the Twin Switch.
- Title Drop: The "Smile of Condemnation" is a curse mark that makes the victim obedient, and eventually kills the bearer. Khalifa places one on Leila at the beginning of the story.
- Twin Switch:
- Leila claims Marika's identity to let her escape, not knowing that Khalifa's hatred for the latter is very warranted.
- In the flashback Marika notices Leila has been feeding the imprisoned Khalifa, so she presents herself, lets him escape, then backstabs him to destory any signs of hope and trust.
- Your Days Are Numbered: The Smile of Condemnation will kill its victim once it progresses. When Khalifa realizes Leila is not Marika, he goes on a journey to find an antidote.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Khalifa has staged a successful rebellion against Masud kingdom out of spite, but considering 10 years ago Masud has conquered his Minsk country and enslaved its residents, it's hard to say if Masud's change of leadership is for the better or worse.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: When the real Marika gets detained (the evil royal who Khalifa wanted to rape repeatedly until she begs for mercy), he's too shaken to do anything to her but to put her in the dungeon. Which turns out to be a Cardboard Prison.
- Wrong-Name Outburst: Khalifa has a Catapult Nightmare about Marika, and Leila misinterprets that she move love Marika as much as he hates her.
