Can anyone recommend mangas or novels that criticize and challenge noble society? There ar...

I don’t know if you’ve read it, but I think “A Returner’s Magic Should be Special” is a good recommendation for what you may be looking for :)

The MC in May I Ask For One Final Thing literally beats all them up for their bullsh*t. It's quite satisfying but... only 10 chapters out rip

My problem with this story is the superior ML! No matter how powerful Scarlet is, for some specific reasons she is powerless against that bullying tsundere prince :(
I don't understand why the author give that ML such special treatment/plot armor.........

Thanks. I also like to recommend Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear.

Sorry, my bad. I already did ;)

ahh loved empress of another world and light and shadow too!
My suggestions for series may not be finished but should have enough to read and enjoy for now hopefully. They also may be more loose with your requested suggestion for commoners making change.

(writing this after looking at my read list for awhile and realized there really isn't quite as good of a match to what you suggested unfortunately sorry D: I'm sure they're out there but partial problem is some I have an idea to suggest, but without knowing the rest of the story idk if it would really line up. also sleepy oops)

Arte (now former lower noble to apprentice starting female artist trying to make her way+paint her noble clients/getting to really know them in/out of their noble bringing)

The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass (A true villain in a sense lady mysteriously goes back in time and aims for revenge. Using future knowledge of events, she decides to change her fate & image but she's still the same cute terror on the inside. NOTE: she has to change people's perceptions of her as a bratty spoiled commoner to that of just some poor girl who had a rough start in life. Very loose on your suggestion so idk if really counts.

JK Haru wa Isekai de Shoufu ni Natta (NSFW/SEXWORK/DUBCON[?] WARNING: it's not as large scale to challenge noble society but I guess just society as a whole with how differently females are treated there. Kinda deep perspective of MC in the industry where she strives to be as independent as can be but please be warned of above warnings and its kind of depressing sometimes.)

more light reads below

Sengoku Komachi Kurou Tan! (girl somehow travels to older Japan and accidentally(?) changes history and change preconcepted notions of females taking charge of new things. Mostly gets carried by nobunaga in terms of changing other's notions.

This Mage Desires Mediocrity
(girl gets isekai'd and challenges other nobles here and there on their playing field.)

Thank you very much for the recommendations.
To be honest, I ve read most of them already except Haru wa Isekai Shoufu ni Natta.
And what I find very frustrating about Sengoku Komachi Kurou Tan! is that the MC is constantly the getting "whipped" by asshole Nobunaga. She has all the knowledge and power to change things but she is so powerless against and scared of him! Even though she has the equipments/invention to overpower him! Nobunaga himself admitted that she is valuable and dangerous. But she is so dense that she can't even stand up against him :(
She is practically his slave.

CAUTION ...coz she is not op from the start, and if her mana surge too much she will explode (it will be explained how later)....

Maoyuu Maoyuusha.

np and yeah looks like you've been trying hard to find good reads as well.
and aghhh yeah you're totally right with the mc in Sengoku Komachi Kurou Tan!! She's making changes to the system but its more by the whim of Nobunaga so it's a major loss.

You know it would have make a great difference, if she pretends to be weak in front of Nobunaga and has ways to taunts him... But all she does is crumble in fear everytime Nobunaga shows his dominance. It's is always cringy when she has to bow down and plea "Please don't kill me my Lord"!
Why did the author make her such a whimpy pushover even though she has such great potentials???

that would have been cool but I think they were might have been concerned with over shadowing some big historic figures so might have been a little touchy topic.
They really could have tried pushing for a bit more backbone for her though.

It strikes me that the historic figure Nobunaga is always always portrayed in a glorified light in any Japanese pop culture and grenres.
Just search any movies, mangas or animes that involves Oda Nobunaga.... Even if he appears as a villain, he is always portrayed as a popular proud powerful cool dude.

By the way, the MC/Villainess turns out having magical royal blood from another country...
So she doesn't really count as a commoner since her biological father is a prince or king .
It annoys me to see that trope again and again: Make the MC's background more special than she actually is by revealing she is the hidden lost unknown princess of a foreign country... How many times did you hear that twist already?

o that's the full idea? I vaguely saw some spoilers but darn.
Does feel like a bit of a cop-out where we need a whole big backstory to explain the mc's run in with 'magic' transportation/timetraveling when we can easily say it was an odd phenomenon and leave it simply as that like Empress of another world when we already have so much juicy substance to go off of anyways.

Iris - Lady with a Smartphone has also a very similar plot twist: She is not the biological daugher of her current baron/noble household, she is not a blood relative to her brother and the King from another country has the same red eyes... Yeah, you can already guess the revealation...
This trope also reinforce the idea that family members would never deliberately harm their own unless it turns out they are not blood related! I ve seen this also in many Chinese novels/manhuas - There are of course few exceptions.
Empress From Another World does feature a commoner as a MC who is very intelligent, couragous, adaptive and quite competent.

Iris - Lady with a Smartphone has also a very similar plot twist: She is not the biological daugher of her current baron/noble household, she is not a blood relative to her brother and the King from another country has the same red eyes... Yeah, you can already guess the revealation...

I recommend Beware of the Villainess ヾ(☆▽☆)