July's manga / #Historical(88)

It's a cliched shoujo set up where the female lead falls in love with a man while she's dressed as a boy. I only wish she was a stronger character, since she keeps making mistakes and got discovered way too quickly. It's not bad, and the art is quite nice. It's like a 3.5 for me. Basically it works, but it's been done lots of times before in stories, and better, too.

The art for this full color manhua is great, the coloring is bold like in Western comics but retains the style of a Chinese martial arts manhua. The story is non-existent for now, due to the limited amount of chapters available, it's mostly a lot of fighting, which is drawn really well in an understandable manner. I think the male lead is too unruly like typical shounen manga heroes, I'd rather read this with his elder brother as the protagonist, since he seems more calm and rational. Translation is great, which is surprising since lots of Chinese webtoons and manhua are poorly translated. Hoping to see improvement in the future chapters in terms of story and characters.

Promotional one shot for a novel I'm guessing. Too much is going on in the single chapter, and the art is so-so, it doesn't really interest me to want to read more. Pretty average one shot. Update: Looks like this got serialized. Looking alright so far, the art is more palatable now.

Berta, the female lead, is a princess but not of aristocratic lineage, and she has been married off to the king, who already has a wife that is his cousin. He's been desperately trying to have a child, even with other women, but has failed. Of course, this new female he's had sex with magically gets pregnant, because she's ~special~. Ugh. The plot is contrived and the translation is not good. I don't understand what they're trying to say most of the time, especially when it comes to important things. I also don't know if she is from a clan or a conquered country or what, because it's clear she's not royalty or of noble blood, but she's still considered a princess in her tribe or family, not a clue what is going on about that. The art is alright, as expected of most manga that is published. I don't know why she thinks she can go home after she gets married, since that also makes no sense. Once you're part of his Majesty's harem, you basically serve him for life, unless he lets you go. There's no evidence that is what he promised her, so I don't know what she's thinking. Honestly, she seems like a naive idiot. Or maybe that's the poor translation talking. Also, you can't accidentally get pregnant, unless both of you are unaware or not in your right minds when you do the deed. But nope, you two willingly and mindfully spent three nights together, so you can't pull that crap, saying "Oops I never expected this to happen!". No matter how unlikely, if you have sex, you have a chance of getting pregnant, ok?

The sex randomly happens and the male lead is completely willing to go along with it, no questions asked. He's a little too chill for me to be realistic. But luckily, there's actual story development with the histories of both main characters, and less focus on the sex. The art is alright for a yaoi manga, and I enjoyed reading the released chapters. It doesn't blow me away though, and the characters are still somewhat lacking. I'm giving it a below average rating, since the ending is crappy.

Wow, this looks promising. Even as a child, the female lead is intelligent and mature, which is rare to see in lots of other webtoons that feature small children as leads... "Pomegranate Blooms in Spring" comes to mind, where they tried but failed to make the child character appealing in any way at all. Although the female lead character in Yue Chen Yin hasn't really talked much yet, she's very outspoken in her thoughts, and she's very cool-headed and analytical, which I greatly appreciate. The art is good, but the people look a little weird due to the overly pale color palate, everyone looks anemic. But it's still quite nice to look at overall because of the darker palate of the backgrounds and objects. I'm hoping for more good things to come. By the way, I'm super happy that the translation is much better in the second chapter, compared to the previous chapters. The first translator kept too many Chinese terms and it doesn't read fluently in English, sometimes you need to have creative license when adapting into English for the reader's sake! Update: Sadly, the clever female protagonist has been reduced to a constantly blushing clumsy girl who keeps tripping in front of her crush, Garam. I preferred the crown prince of Qing more between the two male leads, but it's already pretty clear who she likes. I don't like the Korean names and terms, because it's not easy to remember, but it can't be helped as the translator is working off the Korean version. Wish it could have kept the Chinese names...

Hmmmmm, I'm a little mad about this webtoon because I feel like I was tricked in the first chapter. It focuses so much of the panels in the chapter on the red haired mage, only to have him killed at the end of it. And as the readers, we got to listen to his thoughts and see mostly his side of the battle, as if he were going to be one of the protagonists, but nope, gotcha! The sidekick is likely going to be the blue haired dude who killed him instead, and we know nothing about him, except that he's super strong (and he barely speaks in this chapter). It feels like we got traded an interesting character for a less interesting one...My feelings are mixed about this. It's like the author purposely tried to mislead the readers with the very first chapter, which is usually the chapter you want to make a good first impression on, so that people want to continue reading. Seriously, it spends so much time analyzing the mage, and he even has a backstory and some random girl who wants to save him, but it was all for a cheap shot at the readers to twist up their expectations. I don't feel that is a good move for a first chapter. As a writer, you should also want to make the readers trust you with what you're presenting them with, and instead, you've basically lied to them in the very beginning about who will be important, to make a shocking turn of events for the sake of novelty. It's not a good move to me, but maybe some other people like being hoodwinked like this because it's cool and different. I just feel it's dishonest and a waste of panels if you're just trying to shock for shock's sake like that. It would have been more acceptable later on, once the readers are more familiar with the characters, but as the first chapter, it shakes up the foundation of the story way too much. It makes me doubt what the author is presenting as a whole, if we can't even trust what is happening as we think is happening because the presentation is actually a big lie. Anyway, the art is also not my preference either. It's too bold with solid color palettes and looks extremely European in style, which I guess is what the author is going for, but I'm not a fan of this style myself. Hopefully, the author doesn't pull any more cheap tricks like this again soon. Otherwise, the overall idea and set up for a quest-type adventure is promising, but I think the explanation was a little clunky, and they could have spent more time establishing the more important characters like the princess and her family better, instead of wasting it on this unwelcome twist. Okay, after reading the second chapter, my rating has gone down even further, because the female lead is not likeable and abusive. She doesn't come off as a strong female protagonist who I would like to read about, because she is cold and uses people like pawns. Maybe it will be expanded on, but I'm not quite warming up to her at the moment. It doesn't help that no one likes her at all. The boring male protagonist we got switched up with is the basic male character you find in everyday adventure reading material, a kind-hearted boy who was forced to fight for survival, wants to have a better life, and is fighting in the memory of a loved one, etc. I really preferred the other guy in the first chapter before he was killed off, he seemed like he wouldn't be so complacent and obedient towards the princess, which would be a far more interesting dynamic. In fact, the introduction of that character was so much more compelling than the character we actually end up getting. I'm still salty about it.

Female lead gets hilariously stabbed to death by an Eiffel Tower decoration while she's eating cake. One of the most creative ways I've seen an author kill off the character for an isekai. She thinks she's in an otome game, until she learns her real name in French, which is Marie Antoinette, and then she's like "Oh Crap!". Also, her Prince Charming has dead fish eyes, and is completely uninterested in her. Nothing is going as she expected, and I'm curious how she will change the course of history, knowing that Marie Antoinette will die by guillotine during the French Revolution. The art is pretty good, basically in line the standard of manga. It's not the most spectacular manga art, but it's fine as it is, for a shoujo manga.

I think this webtoon is very promising. The female lead has good character and strong resolve to avenge herself in her past life do-over this time around. I can completely sympathize with her, just from the prologue. This is good storytelling at work. The panelling is amazing, it efficiently uses the webtoon format to convey sense of movement in time and space, I'm very impressed. The art is up there, although I feel sometimes it's slightly inconsistent in quality a bit, but not too noticeable. I'm hoping for good things for this to come.

I like this female lead, she tries hard to improve herself and is very smart. She's even aware of her shortcomings and lack of power to influence events as she is now, which is so refreshing to see. The only off-putting thing is she keeps wanting to be a villainess, which is somewhat childish of an aspiration. Although characters in otome games are divided into heroine and villainess, once you're living out your life as a character, you've become the hero of your own story. So there's no need to stick to a certain path. But maybe it's for comedic effect. The art is good and the pacing is great so far. I really like this manga, I hope it continues to be of this quality in storytelling.