July's manga / #Historical(88)

I love, love, love the art style of this webtoon. It's very stylized, like a watercolor brush painting and that makes the art nerd in me jump for joy. Story is ok, but very slow-paced. I don't really feel much love for any of the characters but it's interesting enough to keep reading.

This is on par with Feng Qi Cang Lan, although I would say the art in GCS is better. The two webtoons share a very strong female protagonist, who can accomplish anything they put their minds to. Unlike FQCL, GCS's lead hasn't struggled or fallen down yet. The story goes downhill after the Desert King arc though. The author seems to be trying to mix things up so her missions are different, but honestly, watching her make guys fall for her was the best part of the webtoon. The Venice arc was utterly garbage, and I thought the lead suddenly changed in personality. She's back to playing mind games with two guys in the Ghost arc but it's just not the same as before. Hopefully, the author finds their groove back to make this exciting and interesting again. Docking off a star due to the declining quality of recent chapters. Ugh, the cultivation arc is by far the worst arc yet, please go back to a simpler set-up.

Another strong female lead such as found in Feng Qi Cang Lan and Goddess Creation System, but this female lead is actually in love with a male lead, unlike the other two webtoons. This is a detriment to me, since I don't believe that strong females necessarily need a male to back them up, and this female lead is probably the strongest out of the three females from the three webtoons. She's smart, cunning, and well-versed in medical and martial arts. But she still always needs to be saved by her male lead... The story has a lot of inappropriate content, so may not be for everyone. Also, everyone talks A LOT. Literally, there's more speech bubbles than there is art. The art is great, it reminds me of watercolor paintings. Not something to read in one sitting.

Hmmmmm, I'm a little torn on this manga. There are some things the mangaka does really well, and some things they don't. I liked the conflict of having a father-son incest relationship seriously addressed, so the reader can sympathize with their taboo relationship, but I also feel that everything was resolved far too quickly and easily for such a controversial topic. And we never get to see how they lived the rest of their lives, do they tell their loved ones or do they keep it a close secret? I liked how time travel was a closed loop, to prevent the most glaring errors that occur in time travel fiction. Basically, in a closed loop, any changes made in the past don't affect the future because it has already happened, hence leading to the current present. Some things I don't like were: I don't understand their unfading attraction to each other, for something as taboo as father-son incest to occur, it would have been more convincing if the son loved the father for other qualities besides being cute and the father loving the son for being the only one he could talk to, it seems too superficial for me...there's 6 billion people in the world and there must be some deeper reason as to why those two are perfect for each other right? Also keep in mind, they loved each other for 22 years. So it needs to be more substantial, is what I'm saying. Because the manga tackles things like the ridiculousness of societal norms and railing against life itself, I know it's capable of being deep when needed, but it's not there. Also I don't like how much younger the father looks in the present compared to his son. It really, really bothered me. At least make them more similar in age... He looks like he's a teenager and his son looks like he's thirty something years old, when it's the reverse. I also don't like how the son calls his father by his first name. That irks me to no end. I don't care if you're in love with your father, but you definitely must follow the norms of addressing people, especially if there's a possibility of other people hearing you. It would bother me less if he didn't call him by his first name initially, and was only allowed to use it when they resolved their feelings for each other, as a sign of intimacy... Then that's better. They tried to explain it in the side story, but I don't buy it, especially for when the son just returned from the past. Still not appropriate to call your father by his first name, and you don't even know if he remembers you from the past...Anyway, this manga handled a difficult subject matter decently, so I do approve of it overall.

The art is great, and the story is sugary sweet, maybe even a bit too sweet. It reminds me of Skip Beat, but with oirans instead of actresses. I find it implausible that no one even knew the male lead was a guy dressed as a woman besides the main cast. Some things made no sense plot-wise, but it's a short humorous romantic romp, so I won't be too critical of it.

Promotional one shot for a web novel, I believe? The cover art is beautiful, but the actual art in the webtoon is average. It doesn't really make me interested to read the novel, since if you're terminally ill, you're going to die regardless of what path you decide to choose. Also, just finishing the male love interest's sentence automatically made him like her? Please.

The art is quite good, especially close-ups of the female lead, very stunning work on the details of her face. The art in the prologue is awful though, I guess they hired another artist, or the artist improved drastically from the prologue to the actual first chapter. The female lead is quite bland. She's supposed to be a strong heroine type, but I find her boring. She doesn't have any strong motivations and is very passive. She's laden with guilt, but we don't actually see any scenes of her killing someone or such to understand why she feels so strongly about avoiding happiness. The male leads who are chasing after her have no distinction in their characters, so I don't care about them. Perhaps this will get better with later chapters, but so far, it's quite average. Update: Each new chapter is useless, with lots of things happening, but it also feels meaningless at the same time. None of the events cause the characters to grow or realize something new about each other, and it's just a waste of nice art. There's practically no story, and the female lead is still as passive as ever. She just sits around, and men flock to her, but they don't confesss their love, and then they leave, only for the next guy to come along.

Art is poor, most people are drawn in lazy chibi style with little detail. Protagonist and male love interest are rather ugly, despite attempts to make them look pretty or handsome, they're not, due to lack of skill in art. Plot is bland and not compelling, she's reading a book about her future and she dies, then has a do-over like other villainess isekai, but she doesn't seem to have a strong goal in mind. She treats her step-family like trash with the excuse that they treated her like trash, but doesn't do so in way that is sympathetic to the reader, nor witty nor brutal enough to be memorable. It's all quite petty. Since the set-up is weak, I won't hold my breath thinking this will get better as time goes on.

It's only a one-shot, but the art is gorgeous. I find it rather difficult to follow the story due to panel layouts, but it seems interesting enough. There's too much going on in this one chapter, and it's not laid out in the best way, despite the beautiful art. Hopefully, this will become a full length webtoon with the same art quality but with better storytelling in the future. This is one of the few works where the art of the webtoon itself is prettier than the cover art.

A short manga about a noble lady going to prison, but she's enjoying every moment of it as she makes everyone else crazy with her scheming. It's fairly funny, and everyone is pretty stupid since they're all fawning over an overly talkative girl as their idol instead of the smart noble lady in prison. It's a short and mostly enjoyable read, but I didn't really care too much for any of the characters since they seemed like caricatures to me. Even the clever and vicious noble lady Rachel is not all that appealing as a character, despite her being the main female lead, due to lack of motivations and personality. But I don't think it's meant to be analyzed very deeply, since there is no real plot due to it being a short work. The art is great, as expected from most mangakas, unlike webtoon artists, who vary wildly in art quality and consistency.