somnia's manga / #Interesting(164)

It's really nice so far. A refreshing perspective from the pov of a court jester. No, after reading so many shoujo webtoons/wanhwa which often star borderline if not full on Mary Sues, this is hella refreshing. Honestly, It's lowkey genius. You get a bit of every perspective and can grasp the characters personalities better because our MC is powerless and compassionate... and he does so without giving the vibe of a dumbass. Overall, there's a tragic undertone to the story- and lord knows I can see this becoming a tragedy in no time- while it has bright moments (mostly thanks to our MC being a literal jester) the overlaying tone is defined very clearly. Props to author for sure. I also like how clear cut the characterization of MC is. He's so dependant on/dedicated to playing the jester that we don't even know his name yet. He's only a jester for now, but he's slowly trying to fulfill a bigger role.

The pacing is nice, the art is really good and the story/worldbuilding is solid- like, you have no doubt this all takes place within the world of a girly otome game. I mean just look at some of the names lmao. I had to wheeze when I first read the ML's name. Like, it stays VERY true to a cliche japanese otome game from somewhere in the mid 2000's. Petals and sparkles everywhere, the kingdom(s) are basically glittering magic fairtale castle towns. When you see FL and ML being lovey dovey, it is the pinnacle of S-tier kitsch, especially when you recall them being like 14-15 years old. Have you ever seen a 14 year old boy proclaim their love and actually mean it in rl? Probably not, most 14 years olds are dumb and don't realize they are until they've had a few years of cringe and disappointments behind them. Honestly, their age kind of makes me uncomfortable sometimes. Like, I totally buy the og FL being 14 on both a mental and spiritual level since she is such a menace with minus 10 lightbulbs to her name, as well as FL because she is still so fucking insecure after being showered in her fiance's kisses for the 100th fucking time that day (that was a bit of a tangent) but with the rest it's like .

The fairy tale crossovers give a really nice kick to the story, the plot it's all building up to is also not bad at all. Love the little twists and turns in the story so far. Though I'm dead tired of female mcs who act naive af when it comes to romance and lose everything from their past lives besides these very specific memories about xyz thing they read. Still, really love the story and where it's going. The only thing I'm really muffed about is the lack of explanation when it comes to magic, the origin of witches and that kind of more worldbuildy exposition. I guess just not really touching on that goes hand in hand with the fairy tale theme, but after some time I started to question where the witches come from, how they were yeeted into existence and such. Really excited to see if that's gonna be touched on in later chapters.

Honestly, so far it's very good for a harem type reincarnation story. The translations are mid. If you're shoujo harem trash like me you'll have a lot more fun with the story on another site with better translations (mangadex for example). The lore in the story itself is also not bad. Really like the idea of holy guardian type dragons that basically work for god type of setup. Though I do not understand how the hell this whole descendant thing works for the guys of the church. (I guess this is a spoiler if you haven't read this yet, but honestly this kind of stuff is very on the nose in shoujo isekai, so let's not act like it's a real spoiler) How come the Duke's family and the Imperial bloodline inherit their dragon ancestor's characteristics, but with the church it's like "whoever has the biggest holy magic dick works." Eh? Maybe it's still gonna be brought up or I misunderstood something, but for now that's a plot hole in my book. Adding onto that a few cliches in this type of shoujo, such as the famous: "I met this important character during their childhood days, or before the novel began, and made an important impact in their life, so later we have a base to build a relationship on"- but this time around it's literally all the important characters, aka FL's entire harem. That's just one of the typical tropes I was kinda well-well about. Honestly, I'm just thankful that FL isn't a total Mary Sue. Well, she at least doesn't feel like one because you always see her struggling, injured and anxious about her sister.