Art is pretty and the translators do an amazing job! Buuuuuut...
ML is soooo creepy and I feel so bad for FL! I just want her to be free so bad! The first chapter was great but the recent chapters are just upsetting. If I were FL, i would be super depressed.
No one listens to her, she’s had to endure 10 years of abuse, she wants freedom but they frame it as a tantrum wtf, ML forces things on her that she’s CLEARLY uncomfortable with, ML literally keeps her locked up and they try to pass it off as romantic??? I prefer the yandere mangas where at least it’s crystal clear that what they’re doing is toxic and wrong. Will probably drop this if it doesn’t improve next chapter. Only held out this long because I’m rooting for ML to get her freedom. Thank u for coming to my tedtalk
Imagine a traditional American 90s sitcom with laugh track and all about a serial rapist who in every episode tries to rape a different woman and virtually always failing to. You can have great jokes and writing, you can have great comedic actors, you can have twists where he rapes a transexual and is disgusted by that, accidentally stalks a man and gets raped in return or meets a previous rape victim during a business meeting who doesn't quite recognize him. It still won't be funny, because the subject core itself is too twisted. It's an extreme comparison, but that's how I feel about this manga. I mean, let's look at the core itself.
A noblewoman is engaged to the prince of the country in a political marriage, sees the prince with another woman and decides to break the engagement while her fiancé desperately tries to win her back. That's how the basic story should be. Instead, it's about how her fiancé desperately tries to keep her from leaving, and that makes all the difference in the world. In one scenario, she is bound by the cultural norms in her society but is still allowed some freedom and the prince isn't allowed complete freedom. It's not equal, but there's some semblance of a balance of power. In the other, it's a master-slave relationship. She is entirely forced to do something which is entirely against her will. Not once so far has she actually showed any reluctance in wanting to escape, she clearly wants to flee. Not once has the prince himself shown any reluctance in keeping her caged, thinking whether it's moral or immoral to force her to do something against her will. No, he "loves" her and is firmly keeping her in his power, more and more as the story progresses.
Her "attraction" to the prince isn't based on love but lust and is forced in because "that's what these kinds of stories have" or something like that, it's not natural. Heck, the very latest chapter
ends with her being sexually harrassed by the prince the whole night and trying to prevent him from breaking into her room whenever he wants through a secret passage, to which he responds by just going through the front door because he's the crown prince and can do whatever he wants.
It's supposed to be played for a goof, but tonally it makes no sense.
I honestly don't have any problem with the premise as a story, it could be an interesting tragedy about the whole idea of arranged marriages. Throw in a bodyguard knight as a love interest and you could even have a good love story, ending with them fleeing the tyrant prince. No, the problem is that this is a tragedy that's being presented tonally as a comedy. The jokes and goofs are entertaining, but the core subject matter itself is so twisted that it's not funny.
So yeah, I'm really curious how the reception to this is back in Japan. Are people saying the same things we are, are they seeing it from an entirely different perspective and if so, is it the cultural lense that's affecting it? Maybe I'm giving this too much credit, maybe this is just a really unpopular sloppy mess that's been released to earn a quick buck, riding the hype of the villainess-trend. I'm genuinely curious, though.
This is downright creepy. I was intrigued by early chapters when he's basically a creep with authority but now he's a rapist too. I'm dropping this title.
I really wish I paid more attention to that psychological tag and checked the comments before reading this. Nobody in this god forsaken story would what a halfway okay relationship looked like if it beat them over the head with a goddamn crowbar.
Not to mention how rapey the prince was, especially in the newest chapter.
Honestly at this point the FL Killing herself would be a MUCH happier ending than what we all know is going to be endgame.
It was bad from the start, but that last rapey chapter was enough. The translators are doing a great job at keeping this readable.
I really wanted some kind of redemption for the shitty ML or the MC escaping him, but after that chapter I don't see it happening. I just feel sorry for the protagonist and the fact no one is sympathetic to her.
It would be less creepy if she was actually into it and this cat and mouse chase/playing hard to get was just an act. And that's what I thought this was at the beginning. But the more we see, the more we see that she genuinely dislikes this and it makes the readers extremely uncomfortable.
The fl is good, banana san too, the translation is nice. But the story is so so so creepy. The sexual abuse too, and she fainted! Not funny for me. I'll just drop
Jeez man, the quality of the art and translation for this story is great. Unfortunately, the male lead in this story is a trashy dude. Straight up stalks and kidnaps her, then waits for her to try to escape and molests her. I get that this is supposed to be a somewhat medieval story where women are basically pawns for marriage, but for someone he supposedly loves he doesn't respect her at all.
Like seriously, how braindead do you have to be to see all her escape attempts, all the time she says no and wants out, and just laugh it off like she's just playing with you? Stuff's crazy bro. This is the type of royal to force a marriage, never lets her out of her room that he keeps under constant guard, basically rapes her to have a couple of kids, and he doesn't care at all. He just keeps smiling while she becomes an uncaring, unfeeling husk or transitions to only living for her children, the products of her multiple rapes.
That's the kind of guy we're reading about in this story. She doesn't care about him at all. The only thing she's said about him so far (I think) is that she doesn't HATE him, which should be the bare minimum I think. He used her "I don't hate you" as a pass to kiss her. Like what?
I'm gonna keep reading. I'm hoping that she either escapes or dies before either being violated or developing Stockholm Syndrome and "falling" for this guy because her mind couldn't take it anymore.
If it was the author's idea to make a terrible male lead and person, they succeeded with full marks lol.