sadslime's manga / #Historical(54)

After a war between clans, the clan leader's son, Heuk, is sent the daughter of the losing clan's leader as his bride to ensure peace between them. Little does he know, the bride was replaced with her twin brother, Jayeon, who has instructions to kill Heuk. Although his clan doesn't trust Jayeon, Heuk can't help but pity the poor child when he sees how young his bride is, and his pity touches Jayeon's heart, so that he wants to stay there forever. The only problem is that their clans still intend to go back to war, so if they really want to stay together, they can't stay there. Also Heuk still doesn't know Jayeon is a boy. Trigger warnings: abuse, child bride.

Ayame lives in a ninja village but sucks at being a ninja, and her one solace is watching her secret love, the future village chief, Shoma. But when she hears he's getting married, she decides she needs to step it up and move on with her life, so she asks to learn seduction techniques so she can work as a ninja. To her surprise, Shoma herself is her teacher on the night of, and the next day, he asks her to marry him! Ayame is under the impression Shoma loved someone else so he was forced to marry her, but really he's been in love with Ayame for a long time. Had some cute moments, but honestly, Shoma is a red flag. I lost interest and stopped reading around chapter 30.

Sayako is an ordinary girl dreaming of happiness with her beloved Takahisa who assures her they'll be together soon. But when she comes home and finds that her family has lost everything, the only way to save their finances is for her to marry Count Kijoin. Sayaka gives up on her love and goes to be married only to find her husband is in fact a demon called Lord Amenoi who only wants her to bear him a child. However, if she can do that, he promises to set her free, and perhaps she can reunite with her beloved. So far no reason to really like any character, Sayako isn't strong or particularly interesting and Amenoi is obviously coercing her into sex and doesn't care. But it's still early enough that it could be interesting to see how their relationship develops. Trigger warning: coercion (buying a wife).

The prince Shin has always had his servant Lia by his side, so when he wakes up to find Lia gone one day, he immediately decides to track him down. He finds Lia in a village dedicated to the phantasmagoria religion seeking help for an "illness" that turns out to be recurring dreams of murdering Shin. In trying to take Lia back, Shin steps into the holy pond and gets a "curse," or possibly a bacterial infection, on his feet that could cause him to die, and yet Lia still refuses to return with him due to his conflicted feelings. This one had potential, but it feels like it failed to bring it all together in the end, and I was left with a lot of questions and things I'd have liked to have seen (like the curse on Shin's feet is just never mentioned again? Even though they specifically said they had a treatment to slow it, not a cure. And what was up with the shaman, what did he want? Why was he the way he was?). Still, I appreciated the interesting setting and depiction of cultural differences. Trigger warnings: murderous/suicidal ideation(dreams), abuse, homophobia.