Is it strange that I love these two more than og couple ?
Zagan as Character is like, a slight improvement to the typical shounen, slave buying, Isekai MC. He has all the qualities that make the narrative try to explain to you how buying a wife is totally legitimate. With the benefit that he actually freed his wife (god I still cringe at the scene where she put that fucking collar on again, girl plz-), so no biggie there.
Barbatoss has the benefit that the narrative doesn't really try to excuse jack shit. He's the cocky second rate villain that got a sorta redemption and now pops up from now and then as we watch him get a redemption arc, kicking and screaming. We are here, with popcorn, watching.
Nephie has the fatal flaw that nothing about her is unique or deep.
-She has a sad past
-She shows her trauma in easy digestable and non confronting ways, which lead to the viewer not having any confused feeling about the way she processes her emotions
-She has all the qualities that make such a nice uwu girl
-I'm pretty sure that the reason the collar was put on her again is simply because outside of that, nothing is truly outstanding about her character design, it's hot elf babe number 1624 shy edition.
-she's like a 5/10 character, but in the way that 4/10 would make her actually more compelling
Chastel also doesn't have that much depth
-She is second girl who get's paired up with her own prince "charming", because otherwise readers would feel sad
-Her character design has the benefit that it can outlast her first introduction, instead of having to put the collor back on again to stay recognizable
-At least the joke that she's actually competent in opposite to what others expect of her is genuinely quite funny (see: this chapter)
-She goes through an interesting character arc where she has to unlearn everything the church has told her.
- The "lovers on opposite sides of the war" dynamic goes hard as fuck, especially when compared to "you ever wanted to buy a wife? don't worry it's wholesome!"
tldr: Chastel/Barbatoss has the benefit that the main title introduced them as side characters which resulted in them not having the typical traits that JPManga protagonists usually have. Which makes them way more fun characters.