The song lyrically depicts a sense of being trapped and unable to escape the intense emotions of love, highlighting the complex nature of relationships.

"Prisoner of Love" received positive reception from most music critics, who praised Utada's vocal performance and production and noted the song as a standout from her vast discography.

[5] Incidentally, the lyrics for "Prisoner of Love," as well as "Celebrate" and "Heart Station" were written in a family restaurant during a span of about three or four hours.

[7] Meg from JaME World gave the song a glowing review, praising Utada's vocal performance and asserted that it was an excellent theme choice for Last Friends.

[8] Retrospectively, Neil Z. Yeung, who contributed in writing the biography of Utada at AllMusic, highlighted the song "Prisoner of Love" as some of her greatest work.

[16] In December 2008, Oricon named "Prisoner of Love" the 95th best-selling physical single in Japan that year, with 81,626 copies sold.

[19] "Prisoner of Love" was the third most downloaded song in Japan during 2008 behind Greeeen's "Kiseki" and Thelma Aoyama's "Soba ni Iru ne.

[23] This pushed the tallied sales volume for the song to 2.182 million, making "Prisoner of Love" one of the best-selling multi-format singles in Japan.

[27] This was Utada's idea, and almost all of the items in the video, including the various equipment, lyric notebooks, work table, sofa, etc., are her personal belongings.