July's manga / #Fantasy(145)

A fashion designer is isekai'd to another world by summoning, and it turns out that he's found himself in a royal palace where his old lover from a previous life is waiting for him to return. The art is very nice, and there is an efficient use of webtoon panelling. There is isn't too much of a plot yet, besides the male lead wanting to go back to his own world, and his male love interest wanting to break the chains that connect the two of them together. It doesn't make sense how he's so good with makeup though, since he's a fashion designer, and not a stylist. Just because he's a genius in making clothes doesn't mean he's also good at using makeup, because those are two different jobs. Update: The translation no longer makes any sense, and I have no clue what is going on.

Not a typical isekai, the female lead is sent to another world, but she doesn't want to be a hero or stand out at all. What she really wants is to have her own book cafe where she greets the customers and makes food for them while they read the books she has. Her first customer turns out to be the captain of the knights, and they quickly begin to develop feelings for each other. It's done in a cute but convincing way, so I approve of this relationship. The art is great, as with most manga.

There's way too much going on in the first chapter alone. Even without googling, I can tell this was a light novel, because the pacing is so off. It may have been good in written form, but it doesn't work in this manga, due to bad execution. The female lead fought a war, met her first love, and got married all in one chapter. Then the second chapter, everyone dies. In the third chapter, she's reborn in another world, and she's going to school, and she meets her loved one again. Like what the hell? Give some space for readers to breathe! Also, even though she is Queen in her past life, she said she hasn't eaten good hot food in ages, what? Did she starve as royalty? I'm so confused, because obviously her previous father, the King, loved her very much and spoiled her. Yeah, nothing makes sense. The art is good though.

Two girl best friends are isekai'd to another world where they're regarded as saints and saviors of that world, because of their ability to purify demonic miasma. They feel too stifled by all the people who worship and hate them, so they leave on their own to journey around the new world, while trying all kinds of delicious food and most importantly, alcohol. I feel the two girls' personalities are lacking, but their friendship is nice. One is more assertive while the other is passive. The art is good quality, as typical of most manga.

I'm a little confused why the female lead can remember the "memories" of the current body she's in because it's 5 years before the previous owner of her body died, so unless this is a do-over + isekai, that doesn't make sense... Maybe if this was a novel she read instead (like basically all other isekai webtoons), it would make sense why she would know her current body's end, but that doesn't seem to be the case, either. Well, ignoring that weird plot hole, the art is quite nice, although I don't like how the males are drawn. Her father is supposed to be handsome, but he's ugly (because he's older?), but his son that looks like him is also ugly, so I don't know. The girls are beautiful though, and the attention to background and detailing of the various ornate patterns is remarkable. I don't like the fact that the female lead seems to be OP, she's some rare type of magician who can melt all the fat in her body instantly by breathing Mana... If the original owner was able to do that too, why was she so fat, even to the point up to when she died? Why was she so pathetic to the very end? I guess she lacked the resolve to live because she was so unloved. I do like the sass of the current owner of her body, so that's a plus in my book. But honestly, the title should not be "I Became the Ugly Lady" because she's not ugly, not at all. She was only "ugly" as in "fat" for a couple chapters, and that was resolved easily. Now she's perfect, powerful, rich, and adored by her younger, equally perfect little sister. Yawn. Wish there was an actual isekai webtoon with a honest, deep focus on real ugliness that doesn't fat shame, because not everyone is born beautiful, and being fat doesn't necessarily make you ugly. Well, I still have hopes for this, so please don't disappoint me.

The manga doesn't do a good job introducing the characters, nor the proper set up of the overall story and the world-building is poor. Honestly, I thought the female lead was a guy until she said her name in the second chapter. Here I thought this was a shounen ai or something, because she immediately likes the wounded boy that they saved in the spirit realm. There's no chemistry between the two main characters. Other manga have done much better in execution of first meetings in just as many chapters, so it's not exactly impossible. I honestly don't give a crap about either of them right now, because they don't seem appealing. Both of them are human, but live in the spirit world. The girl was raised there since she was a kid, and she goes back and forth between the human and spirit worlds. The injured boy is from a family of exorcists, and he needs to stay in the spirit world for some unknown reason. Bleh. Motivations are weak and flat. The bookstore of the title doesn't seem to be the main focus at all. I'm disappointed. Also, the art is kinda below average for manga. There's a lack of screentones and for some reason, the noses are all drawn with circles when the characters are facing frontally, that was incredibly distracting for me. The chapters get worse and worse, with no proper plot nor pacing of events, it flows very unnaturally.

Ugh, another mediocre shoujo isekai webtoon. None of these ideas that have been presented so far are interesting nor original, and some of them are plain nonsensical. I have so many problems with the first three chapters of this webtoon, and I doubt that this will get better, but we'll see. I always give what I read the benefit of the doubt, but they let me down 99% of the time. Anyway. The female lead isekai'd to a novel she read or was reading, so it's not even clear if she knows the end of the novel beyond where her current body dies at the age of 12. It's not stated whether her character is the main character of that novel. The webtoon likes to info dump its readers without proper pacing, just does whatever it pleases, instead of letting the story flow more naturally. Basically, every time we encounter a new character, we learn of it as we go, as if it's completely new information to the female lead herself, with the way it's presented. This is because there's far too many male characters in this webtoon, and it's not feasible to do it like this. Not to mention, it introduces the reader to all four of them in some stupid pretend tea party thing, then backtracks to meeting them one by one. This essentially makes the initial chapter useless. Why were they even introduced that way to begin with? It's poor storytelling. The female lead is supposed to be really smart, but she acts like an idiot. I don't like her. She behaves like a child, and thinks like a child. Her previous life was spent doing pointless research that obviously wouldn't make money. What super string reincarnation theory? That sounds like a load of horseshit, it's not even scientific sounding at all. And she got that idea from playing too many otome games, so why isn't she isekai'd to an otome game? Why a novel? Then there's the weird setup of having four daddies, which is impossible and it's not even interesting. Just one is fine. Why change the reverse harem concept to something that cannot be executed properly? It's obvious that like all the other isekai webtoons out there, she's going to age super fast at some point to skip to romance. Also, knowing how important heirs are in any world, there's no way four powerful men would share her as their kid. She can only have one father. Another thing, if she's a princess, it should be clear who her father is, so what is the fuss about? Unless they're her godfathers or something. It hasn't been made clear yet. But it's dumb the way it's been presented in the useless initial chapter. Then there's the incredibly stupid magic going on. What are magic clothes that knock people out if they don't possess royal blood? In that case, if the magic is so advanced, it should be easy to make some magic clothes that can find her father's identity easily, if that was the point of contention about who her father is. Then there's that OP ribbon + gem combination that magically appeared in the second chapter. If the original owner of her body knew about this accessory, there's no way she would have been killed by the uprising at the age of 12, because it makes her invisible and changes her appearance. Why are you creating plot holes for yourself, author? Lastly, the descriptions are... So... Cheesy... Ugh.... "His beautiful cold hands were like jewelry made from ice"... What. I've never heard people describe hands like jewelry. Maybe eyes but definitely not hands. Perhaps if you said like a statue or like alabaster, I would buy it. Jewelry hands? Hahahaha! The art is alright though, and obviously the author paid special attention to make the female lead stand out, because she's drawn with most detail. Everyone else is drawn with lower quality though. Update: Each new chapter gets stupider and stupider. Now the ribbon + gem also have separate powers of explosion and protection. OP much? How the hell did she die at 12 with such powerful magic items at her disposal. Also, I just realized that the queen who is her mother supposedly slept with all four men, hence why no one knows who her father is. That's just dumb and I can't even suspend my disbelief at that. What makes the queen so powerful that she can have four of the strongest men sleep with her willingly, because none of the guys so far seem to have even loved her, or even have the capacity to love, such as the dark-haired one who has zero emotions. This again shows how poorly thought out this webtoon was. And why hasn't one of these four men stepped up to rule the country when the queen died? Technically, that should be possible. Instead, one continues to serve as a lowly knight and the other one just dances in an empty palace. There's even inconsistencies in the story itself. When she got kidnapped, the dark-haired one said he knew it was coming, so that's why he feigned an attack on the blonde-haired one, but then when I scrolled back to double check it, the kidnapper didn't even appear before he sliced the blonde guy's neck, so you lying. Also, if you were actually her father, you wouldn't let your daughter get kidnapped, dumbass. Ugh. This is so freaking bad, I can't believe that people actually like this bull crap.

It's decent so far, it really reminds me of Sincerely:I Became the Duke's Maid, but I think I like this more, because the webtoon went downhill after the cursed duke grew up, where it became a typical romance webtoon. I like that this is not isekai, because sometimes it's better when it's two inhabitants of the same world who understand each other's difficulties, instead of it being a one-sided affair. I hope it spends more time exploring the relationship between the cursed children, instead of jumping right into romance. Not sure if it will go towards romance yet, but seems highly likely. The art is about average for a shoujo manga.

This promotional one shot was alright, it did make me feel like I wanted to read more, and wasn't crammed with all the confusing details of the novel, like other promo webtoons usually are. Art is very average, it's not standout in any way. I would be interested to read this if it becomes adapted into a webtoon. Update: It's been serialized! The art is worse in the series compared to the oneshot, it's too pastel and the colors too muted for my tastes. None of the characters are remarkable besides the girl and the two key men in the story. The girl is a dumbass as she's died 40 times despite the blue-haired man, Amor, giving her the cheat sheet to surviving. Only AFTER dying so many times, she finally remembers she knows the answers to the questions she's asked. He even told her how to behave in front of her murderer, Castor, and she conveniently forgot that as well, and has to be told again. This is 40 times of trying! Jeez. Give her some brains, I don't think she has any. Also, I'm confused why the two guys and the female lead aren't related if they're siblings. Amor says she's not related to them after she becomes an adult. Yeah, no, that's not how siblings work. It's not even how DNA works. So what the heck. Story makes no sense. It's obvious she's going to end up falling for her killer, typical. That's why it's set up so she's not blood-related to them, for some unknown reason that was not clearly explained. If she's a princess and he's a prince, then they must have the same father, right? Unless she was adopted. Is that what it is?

The first chapter had some strong elements, but overall the plot is a little ridiculous. The agreement between the gnomes and the humans makes zero sense. Obviously, they should have just have humans and gnomes work together in translating all the texts. And I don't buy that gnomes can read every single one of the human languages. Then what language do the gnomes use? Also what language do the humans here use? The world building is so off. I can't believe that two kids can translate 20,000 books basically by themselves, because the old gnomes didn't accomplish that despite how many of them there are previously. Don't explain it away by saying the kids are geniuses, because it takes a crap load of time to translate stuff. And pshhh, Oda Nobunaga is the most inspiring hero in all of past and future humankind that the author could think of? Seriously? And why was the castle so poorly guarded that two kids could escape so easily? But I will say that I'm curious where this would even lead, although this hasn't been updated in ages. Perhaps I'll never know.