somnia's manga / #Nobility(44)

Mel Sloppy (PFFF) is taken to the Heaven Dukedom because the demented family head mistook her for his long lost daughter. She makes a deal with her "brother" Damian - or more like is threatened - to play the part of Bleria Heaven, the lost daughter, to preserve the Heaven family reputation. And so begins a chain of what you can already imagine is a whole lot of angst for FL over her position. Her new fiance (aka ML) is taking advantage of her insecurities, using the truth of her identity as leverage to make her his obedient "doll". SPOILERS: Just like the title says the "real" Bleria is gonna show up at some point. But turns out she's just another fake who was prepared by an enemy of ML, to mess with his succession plans. Bleria is basically the key to inheriting ML's family's duke title of Allnight (l cannot with these names). And while ML &co are kinda aware and sus of the new fake Bleria (while becoming colder towards Mel - woops I rolled my eyes on accident there), Mel is left in the dark and convinced that she's gonna be exposed/disposed of. She fakes the suicide with, I think, Damian's help? Not sure about the details there, sorry, but she doesn't actually die. ML seems to be very hated by novel readers, he certainly earns it because in the first half of the story he's gonna be exploiting FL. He's gonna be more in love with how useful she is at first and have a more twisted-ish affection for how he made her the "real thing". After she fake-dies he'll realize he really loved her though and it gonna be begging at her feet for foregiveness when he finds her alive and well. He's recycled garbage, basically. There's a lot of tropes here that if you can't write and portray them well it's gonna start feeling cheap. BUT WE SHALL SEE!

A simple cute story, 10/10. Alexei lives with 'Pie' for 3 years during his childhood, a green skinned frog-like young woman with a heart of gold, and came to love her only to see her be killed by the knights who came to rescue him from the supposed cursed forest. He returns to his position as prince and then Emperor, heartbroken by what happened and gets a cruel reputation as "the demon Emperor". 20 years later he meets Pie again as Eleonora, daughter of a Marquis and recognizes her thanks to her affinity for beasts and her destinct accent. The plot is simple and doesn't beat around the bush, which is increasingly rare within the shoujo genre. You're here to see Pie & Ham reunite and be cute together and that's what you get. Every plot point or point of interest gets closure like Pie's reincarnation, her green skin, the forest, and Eleanora's family. I wouldn't mind more chapters with ML and FL being cute together or more lore about the forest, but I appreciate how concise it all is none the less. You can read the whole thing in an hour and walk away with a wholesome, warm feeling your empty heart.

It's a bit confusing sometimes bc some panels bug out or simply seem disjointed, but it's bearable and worth ignoring. The rest of the whole shabang? SO. GOOD. There's humour, drama, some very moving moments. It does it's own thing with the isekai trope, commits to its characters and delivers in this oversaturated genre. If your only critique is that you don't like the art: skill issue.