Choujin Koukousei-tachi wa Isekai demo Yoyuu de Ikinuku you desu! - Vol. 3 Ch. 23 - What we Lost, What we Gained

[MangaDex]

 

[fiN]

Hey I like this development

Always refreshing to have a nice human being on the opposing side

 

[Aretheus]

I should have known that no appealing-looking female characters could ever be evil. Oh well, I've accepted that this story isn't going to flip my mind sideways. So yeah, whatever. I'm really not a fan of this generic "Sticking it to the man", "Yay commoners, boo aristocrats" narrative that's typical in these stories.

I was really happy when I found Kusuriya no Hitorigoto and Isekai Yakkyoku that treat aristos like real human beings too. So I guess both ends of the spectrum are getting some sort of representation, so that's fine I suppose.

 

[ultimatehaki]

@Aretheus are you for real? Almost all villainous woman look sexy in manga and anime. Almost all woman period for that matter regardless of how high thier morals are.

 

[Aretheus]

@ultimatehaki Well, there's a pretty clear difference in the way that friendly and antagonistic characters in fantasy (particularly isekai) stories are drawn. This manga is certainly no exception. I was thinking that it was pretty cool to see a beautiful, stoic, proud knight as a primary antagonist instead of a fat, greedy, beady-eyed caricature of a human being.

There's no way that you could not know about this cliche if you've seen even a quarter of the isekai manga that's come out the past few years. Sure there are good novels like Moon-led Journey that have charismatic female antagonists. But those are the needles in the haystack. I'm disappointed that this knight character is an ally now, but it really isn't shocking.

 

[Kisato]

Boooo, this reeks of a trap doesn't it?

 

[Ifrittuccia]

Of course it can be really cruel this work, I did not expect to read something like that.

 

[zetsuravez]

i'm still bothered that she knows about ninja...

 

[ultimatehaki]

@ Aretheus I'm gonna ignore the second paragraph since you're getting into their personality and we were just talking about looks. No matter how you try to explain it, facts are the gorgeous female antagonist is as cliché as the fat beady eyed male. There are plenty of shows that have gorgeous males as antagonist too. Its all been done thousands of times.

Edit:Just to sum it up, EVERYTHING is cliché, it's all about execution.

 

[Aretheus]

@ultimatehaki Mmm...but that's not true though? The only word that describes a character's personality is "charismatic", but even that can be applied to someone's looks. And I'm going to stand by what is said there. If you look at every isekai manga from the past decade or so, you will find that 90% of villains are disgusting men. You can mention exceptions, but that's all they are, exceptions. Beautiful female villains are not nearly as mainstream and overdone.

But let's humor your notion for a second and assume that you're correct that both are cliches and it all comes down to execution. It still would have been a surprise here since the last noble that got mopped up was a fat greasy dude. Now, the villain in this arc is going to be the exact same fat greasy dude. It would have subverted some expectations if the villain were a good-looking swordswoman.

This might have allowed for some nuance to the villains. Maybe there's something here after all. Perhaps there's some reason for their actions. What if it's just a small sector of the nobles that are corrupt and there are still good people up in the heirarchy. But no, she's a third-party infiltrator so that she doesn't have to associate with them and we, as the viewer, still don't need to think.

 

[mage_goo]

@Aretheus I'm just gonna mention that gorgeous female villain is the shit in most JRPG. Like, pretty sure every single FF features one.
Can't remember many isekai from the top off my head since they all just blurred out inside my mind, but pretty sure the bitch from Shield Hero counts. And I can hazily remember a couple isekai that features some kind of four general of demon king that always have one beautiful female there.
Though I guess that one general always turns into the hero side, but whatever.

I agreed that it's kinda disappointing that the knight turned out to be an ally though.
You just know from her looks that she'll get a decent screen time and I'm kinda excited to see some development from the empire side.
Maybe that best magician ain't a bad guy, maybe the empire is just doing their best, just a tad mistaken in their approach. Maybe we'll get someone from their side with actual motivation to clash their ideal with the MC side. Maybe it's not so black and white after all.
Then poof, she's actually on their side and the empire is just a generic evil empire.
I guess having someone from there actually trying to do their best is neat, but the opponent is still the clear cut generic evil empire. Can't have tension in your story when your opponent is just your average bad guys after all.

 

[ultimatehaki]

@Aretheus I don't know why you're limiting this to isekai genre but whatever, even in that case a beautiful female antagonist is not the exception it's still a cliché. Shield hero, Arifureta, Bleach, Digimon and Youjo senki just to name a few off the top of my head. If the fat male has been done 1000 times the hot female has been done 900 times, just because its been done less by comparison doesn't mean its not cliché.

I'm not getting into an argument over whether it was well executed or what could have been done to do it better cause I really don't care and it wasn't the point of this debate, this story specifically is just popcorn entertainment for me like a fast and furious movie. It doesn't warrant any deep thinking or analysis.

 

[firosahoge]

I guess it's too hard to make an evil cute girl lolll

 

[welcome2atlantis]

This chapter has caused me to become discombobulated.

 

[thedestroyership]

UNO reverse card

 

[chusetto]

Yeah, it was strange that that type of character was evil xD

 

[tgb089]

I should've know a cute, young girl was working for the good guys.

 

[HOOfan_1]

She almost killed a little girl just to keep her disguise? I mean, not just that, but when her guards told her they should stop beating the girl, she told them to continue.

Sorry, not buying it. Even if this isn't a double cross, the woman is screwed up in the head.

 

[rlackbabbit]

She could have pretended not to see the dirt on the girl...

 

[Phelix]

Oh fuck off, at least stick to what you write. The bitch selected and nearly killed a child on her own accord.

And I'm not trying to act like the cute little girl's savior, but there's no lvl of turning my brain of that the bullshit detector becomes completely inept.

Just another Cute Girl freebie.