Yes! It’s the reason why I left this to sit for a while until today. The art is freaking gorgeous, but whenever Melissa starts monologuing I scroll all the way down just to see how much of the chapter it will take, so I don’t get impatient thinking we’ll move on.
I love her character, I just think it’s the writing that makes it more tedious than it should be. One punch man said it well: “20 words or less!” We already know how shitty the male characters are, you don’t need like 8 pages worth of Melissa’s thoughts to tell us that when we’re already 30+ chapters in! (╯°Д °)╯╧╧
Hm I actually like her monologues? They break down and analyze a lot of the contradictions in those cliche villainess, heroine, otome plots. I appreciate and agree with all of her inner monologues which basically reflect all her thinking and morals and values. To me that coupled wih her actions presents her as a more grounded character. She has a good understanding of where everything stands and based on that can make decisions. Also considering the entire story is basically centered around calling to question the existance of all these characters and how theyre presented; I think it's nice that she really does call out all the fundamental flaws that exist (Which is basically everything from plot to characters lol. You have a narrative which is centered around a "good" heroine and the suposedly attractive male leads and yet their actions seem to say entirely otherwise).
Anyway TLDR: I think the story is basically a deconstruction? critique? of the stereotypical otome game plot so I think it's to be expected that theres a lot of dialogue and analysis lol
Agreed on this as well. The series itself is poking fun at other villainess plots with slapstick humor. She's been very clever and thinks through everything well which isn't bad, in fact I appreciate that over a naïve hasty protagonist, but it's just taking up the majority of every chapter.
My critique is that there's almost no "show," but rather, it's almost all "tell." The cast has been proven to be colorful/diverse because they do not fit the same persona the protagonist herself remembers. I just wish the author had allowed more interactions within this colorful cast without a Melissa monologue because not everything needs to be a one-sided analytical breakdown sometimes. It's feeling hard to enjoy the premise of the story when the tone of every panel is akin to like, sitting through a research seminar. Not to mention the series itself is victim to the very clichés it pokes fun at.
An example I'd like to compare it to is the Villainess Reverses The Hourglass series, where the protagonist is fighting for survival AND still has her monologues to showcase her thinking; however the author quickly incorporates the rest of the cast that gets fleshed out (shows interactions/dialogues from the antagonists and side characters excluding the protagonist entirely/partially). By no means is it the perfect writing, but you as the reader get to experience more from the different perspectives because of how the author utilizes the cast. Beware's cast is equally lovable and colorful, yet they're all treated like characters with zero presence because Melissa just takes up the majority of every panel every chapter.
TLDR: Yes the series pokes fun at villainess tropes in other stories, but the constant analyses are starting to feel like you're attending a lecture with a curriculum instead of enjoying a funny, sarcastic story. For example, instead of Melissa just monologuing about how the antagonists will react, the author could show the events playing out then have Melissa react and be like "well I was prepared for this," like when she introduced Nine as her personal butler to Jack.
Am I the only one who thinks it suffers from a "monologue" syndrome of sorts? I love the slapstick humor, the memes, the art, the character cast, and the story, but every chapter until the latest chapter was literally just 3/4 of Melissa monologue. Any portion that wasn't Melissa's monologue was very short-lived.
Nothing ever progresses without the Melissa Monologue TM. For 50 chapters straight. To the point where I feel like it's getting stale. We finally get a peek into Yuri's mind to learn more about the cast without Melissa's internal thought bubbles 24/7 and we finally also get a peek into Nine's background. Things are looking up, hopefully it doesn't relapse back to Melissa's monologues.