axelmania's manga / #shoujo(276)

this series blew my mind in its utter disregard for the romance as the center of the plot despite being a shoujo. you think youre finally seeing a relationship development moment, and then suddenly theyre attacked or someone is killed and they have to enter another martial arts fight. its like the level of romance in korean manga lead by men! the chinese setting instead of a european one is so charming, as is the shy bottom male lead. the protagonist isnt very special but the investigations she gets to go on are fun and so is the exploration of her guilt as a regressor. i wonder how all your bodily fluids turning to poison affects sex!

i guess i should record that i read this. im not a fan of het, but i figured id try some anyway, and the premise of this sounded really good. however, the transition from enemy to friend and the romantic development went way too quickly, even if the action part of the plot was interesting. very much has identity-less female lead syndrome, and obstacles to her are quickly and easily overcome. points for a female villain, i guess.

what draws me to this manhwa is the relatively deep psychological motivations of each major character, especially the two female leads. even while the narrative makes you side with the empress, rashta is deeply sympathetic, and you can see her patterns of behaviour from when she was a slave reflected in her current self. the contradiction in the emperor, in love with the empress but only if he can completely possess her, yet knowing having this would hurt his reign and making no active move to change things, makes for a great villain. and the protagonist the empress has a sweet, unique personality, with her deep sense of duty and respect for herself and others leading her into the wrong decision repeatedly until shes pushed to stand up for herself. a lot of shoujo has essentially the same simple stand-in for the reader to place themselves into, but not this one. the weakest major character is probably the love interest, but he certainly has his charms in his failure to keep up his cool facade and how much he wants to be controlled by the empress. the reason for the mixed rating is how flawed i find the world the characters inhabit, which makes cheering for any of them difficult. slavery existing is a travesty, and rashta is a victim of the imperialists who made her one. if you have absolute power you can make anything a crime, and they dont even stop slavery at one generation. some people will be bothered by the humor in making characters more beautiful the more power they have that features here as in many court stories, but honestly its as charming as the rest of the lavish decorations to me... though, beware of awful 3d generated bushes, lol.

i was excited to read this because its a shoujo that places importance on relationships between female characters, but the protagonist acted so unrealistically mature and overpowered that i just couldnt get past more than a few chapters.

if you completely erase the dynamic that made the story appealing by the end, its not a good romance, its completely cookie-cutter and just sad. character growth is not a straight line into being as perfect and normal a person as possible

this read like the author wanted to capitalize on the villainess trend without actually writing a villainess story. their protagonist is so blindingly pure it gives her no personality and yet we have two past lifetimes worth of trauma that should have shaped her into something complicated... very stereotypical and boring. of course, the one potentially interesting character, the genius doctor whos supposed to be elises teacher, is not the love interest and exists only to support her like the other characters. the medical side of the story was what kept me reading, a series of events where the protagonist finds novel ways of keeping people alive. as youd expect its unrealistically optimistic about the state of modern medicine, but the surgeries are engaging, and its quite funny seeing all the characters having medical issues where they never do in other stories in this genre.

in some ways, this is better than other works in this genre with its lighter touch in warming men up to the protagonist. theres a progression thats actually enjoyable rather than quick superlove. the best scenes were "overcome his face and dont become a villainess", and the introduction of doppleganger doll. i was excited by mystery of the original novels protagonists behavior only to be disappointed it ended in an infodump at the end rather than with more drama. while the comedy was sometimes great, the fatphobia and to a subtler extent racism really sucked. why are villains mostly "uglier" than the nice people, cant you be a little more mature?

i should reserve judgment until this is closer to finished but so far this is the best work in the pure villainess genre ive read

that awkward moment when the author develops the female leads more than the male leads so shipping them together is more compelling than placing them with the male leads as intended