Uno de los mejores manhwas que he leído, sin duda. Se lo recomendaría a cualquiera. Las tramas, la historia, los giros inesperados son realmente una cosa fantástica.
¡Sí, un comentario en español!
This is the kind of manhwa that make you feel alive again, the plots are wonderful and the story is so far the best I've read of all :'D
This is the best manga for girls/woman that i have ever read
With a plot of something of consequence instead of watering everything down based on flaccid relationship
with interesting idea's on philosophy, grey area's of good and evil when doing what you must to survive
and tripy plot twist
I hope this didn't get axed. It's such a good story, and it easily has potential to get even better in the future. I want to see our girl rise up and depose the useless Empress Consort and help the Emperor fully take power from the Empress Dowager.
I would tell you to think twice before restarting to read! I am warning you and virtually all readers. TUTU completely gave up on the plot. I do not know what happened, I do not know whether she is depressed or tired. But Season 2 is a catastrophe. 75% of her readership from Season 1 gave up early on during Season 2. I was being stubborn and pulling through until Chapter 63, letting her lead me through unacceptable plot holes. Her Chinese readers did not take her shit and just left much, much earlier. Some of my more invested friends believed that it had all to do with Season 1's end message. Either Kuaikan pressured her to tone down her narrative either she believed she would be able to garner more support by toning it down. Whatever the case, she did not understand that 75% of her readership was more interested in the plot than the characters. And that we either noticed all her hidden messages or considered her a greater storyteller than she truly is and saw messages where she only made artistic mistakes.
The event that pleased you is what made me just abandon completely. For one, it is nothing but a cameo. Second, it does not make sense AT ALL. It is a very cheap fan-pleaser that I find insulting. She did not consider anything about that character's words in Season 1, her personality or life. That character is actually the only one who has deep mythological and religious symbolism attached to her name, her nationality and her life. She is TUTU's take on the Chinese/Japanese Bodhisattva and Goddess of Light, Sun, Mirages and War and protector of all nations against war, Marishiten. You would have expected more of TUTU developing that character. In fact, you would have expected her to develop her, period.
This message is of course only for those who are invested and care about the plot. For those who wish to look at flabbergasting art and care about the two main characters getting it on, you should get plenty of that. I mean, if you disregard Season 1 completely, consider Season 2 as being a stand-alone work, switch your brain off where important things are said and hinted until Season 2 Chapter 46, you will find this a decent read, better than anything else coming from the Chinese market. But incomparable to The Queen Season 1, which in itself was a masterpiece of narration and art.
@Mims Would you mind what specifically turned you off besides forcing two main characters? In what sense toning it down?
I admit there is a switch in characters personalities in season 2, but I just thought it was more lively. We get to see their other side. We didn't get flat emotions anymore (but I loooooove season 1 and all the people) We saw them opening themselves in the second season. Chapter 63 was exciting due to return of Saya? It explained why Mu didn't allow her to kill herself earlier. Everything that he was doing all this time made sense to me as the chapters went by.
I do think everything worked out perfectly for them just as they planned, so I was hoping to see more explaining on how they got to that point.
It's a shame you gave up on it because you didn't like it, There are readers who still love it romance on no romance.
@Mims I wouldn't give up so quickly. Every good story will have a down time where the author is focusing on specific characters, relationships, etc. Stuff that you may find incredibly boring and stupid right now, but could potentially become important as the story progresses. I know it may seem slow and tedious right now. But, I think I'm gonna wait and see what happens in the future
At the end of the day, the most important job of a comic is to make people happy and satisfied. If the readers, even if it is ONE reader, are happy, I consider a work has done its job. You, and all the other readers, sticking to The Queen is already an hommage to TUTU's hard work (she does work hard, I give her that. Amazing artist, if I ever saw one).
Now, when it comes to why I dropped it, as a reader and as first translator, it goes back to why I picked up this work in the first place, though two English scanlation teams had already dropped it in the early phases. What I loved about The Queen was certainly not Ling Zhi. My organic hatred towards her is widely know. It was the plot. And the plot was so good that it made me completely forget the jarring FL. TUTU gave this impression of having planted certain plot holes on purpose, since they seemed too big compared to the fluidity of Season 1, for a greater purpose. A political and social purpose. Whoever discussed the plot with me knows that I developed something akin to an obsession for this story, that I would read and re-read chapters and pull the smallest details out of them. Then, with people who cared, we would discuss them over and over again, trying to understand where TUTU was leading. Because we believed she was leading to something that would transcend general webcomic and Chinese Light Novel tropes. That's what previous works by TUTU accustomed us to it. And ever since Chapter 46, she has been making mistake after mistake after mistake. Maybe she didn't reread Season 1, the words of her characters, maybe she hoped we would forget certain things. But, oof, this is really bad. Nothing makes sense. Nothing whatsoever.
(Saya makes the least sense - TUTU really took too big a bite with the politics in The Queen, she should have stuck to the palace intrigue and never have introduced a character like Saya or a country like Mirage)
At the moment, I would say that her work is a superior rendition of what I would expect to read in an excellent Chinese Light Novel. In fact, her plot of Season 2 gives me a very strong "Mei Gongqing" feel, one of my favorite Chinese Light Novels. Just that "Mei Gongqing" has less plot holes and in my eyes, the FL is likeable, unlike Ling Zhi. For TUTU to salvage the plot, she can only do ONE thing, and I am pretty sure I see where she is going with this and it does not include that one thing. Plus, it is obvious she is rushing to wrap up The Queen and move on. She lost 75% of her readership, had to put a partial paywall for her chapters, now she extended the number of chapters under the paywall per week. Artists need to eat too. And The Queen became a high risk, low return venture. Just that, in the same way her other works made her famous, her 75% drop might stick to her like a foul smell. For 24 000 of her 32 000 weekly readers in Season 1, she has become a disappointment. I personally don't know whether I will give her next work a shot. She'll have to reconquer her readership, that's for sure.
And there is also the fact that I spent a whole summer without sleeping to scanlate The Queen Season 1 by my lonesome self, not knowing what Typesetterer was, and having at best an intermediate beginner status in Chinese. So of course, the shock of seeing the background plot being flushed down the drain hurt me bad. Most die-hard fans of the plot, as I already mentioned, gave up much, much earlier. I consider my pulling as far as S2C63 a real show of my commitment to The Queen and TUTU.
Oh, the plot holes. I feel like crying so bad right now.
This really goes downhill a lot in season 2. Plot goes off rails, character that was FL friend suddenly is evil (lol?). In general it becomes flat. Dropping this story.
@Mims Thanks for explanation. I probably missed few plot holes here and there so I can't even remember tbh. I gave my share on Ling in the past and her hypocrisy, so I agree with that, but besides her acting certain way it didn't ruin it for me. Thanks for translating it for us up till now.
Humble me has a GREAT surprise for you!!! Have you guys ever wondered what plagiarism in China looked like? Have you ever wondered how someone could take an already mediocre work, copy it and produce even worse garbage?! Have you ever wondered why all dollar-store renditions of luxury goods were made in China?! Let me present Silent Love/哑奴, which you can read here: https://mangadex.org/title/45951/silent-lover/chapters/
BTW, the webcomic that stole The Queen from start to finish (even some plot elements) is a BL. Plus, they are BOTH published on Kuaikan!!! I am so dead. Enjoy!!!
@Mims I've been reading manhuas, manhwas webcomics and webtoons from almost every possible platform but trust I've never loved anything as much as I love the Queen. This is seriously the best, the masterpiece. I can't even express how thankful I'm that you translated it. I can clearly see how devoted you have been as you have provided every single minute details possible. And I know how disappointed you would be feeling right now but please please please no matter how bad the plot goes at last please at keep on translating it for our sake. I've been so devastated when I didn't find any update for the last three months. I've reading and searching any story that can be as good as this one but I didn't got any. I even planned to learn Chinese once so that one day I can read it's raw. But learning Chinese is really hard. So please I request you to keep translating it even if you take months to do so. Just please don't stop posting it as long as Tutu keeps on with this story. I joined mangadex just for this and I'll be thankful to you forever if you will accept my request
For one, Solace Translations are still updating it, though it takes some time, and are as always doing an impressive job (day and night compared to my solo work in S1 and beginning of S2). They do have one of the best Chinese translators out there helping them out. I personally do not know Sushi, the translator of S2C30 and S2C31. However, for what I have been told by die-hard "The Queen" fans who have almost torn my head off when I decided to give up on translating back in January, Sushi's translations are far and beyond superior to mine. Her Chinese is perfect and her writing style is very pleasing.
TUTU would indeed be flattered to know just how attached you are to her work. But you know, that is where the problems started. The 75% of readers who loved her work in Season 1 were not vocal. Only the 25% of readers who expected something much lighter commented. And that led to commercial pressure being applied on TUTU, her completely changing the tone of her work under what we believe to be Kuaikan's lead and losing her readership. It is our fault that we were too silent. That's tough on any artist's moral. It is even tougher when your publisher is not supporting you. Happened to the best of manhua artists. I am thinking of Xia Da who just middle-fingered the industry (after she had been driven to being hospitalized and then had the rights to her works virtually stolen from her) and started her own publishing company. But TUTU doesn't have Xia Da's standing.
I've seen pictures of TUTU. She looks gaunt and tired. She has been taking more and more off weeks, not being able to keep up with her updating schedule (which never happened in Season 1), obviously having lost her spark. Plus she has this plagiarism case that really shook her. I've actually read her last few chapters which are under paywall. I think we are about to have the ending to the story in the upcoming few weeks. And her last few chapters have given me a sort of closure. I prefer to know that she truly gave up on her own plot and is rushing to get out of this nightmare than to think that she never was the outstanding artist I believed her to be.
But at the moment, I am auto-healing from "The Queen" working on some solo-scanlation of a Korean webcomic from its Chinese translation and feel that "The Queen" is in very good hands with Sushi (at least, Solace and Sushi know what they are doing, unlike me).
@Mims Thanks for replying and explaining. You're so right. It indeed would've lowered her morale to get so low response for such an art piece. This story looks like every chapter has been created with sheer concentration and hardwork. I truly wish she would atleast get what she deserved. I was just going through Kuaikan website and found out that the Queen is really about to end. I also think that the Chinese have plagiarised the true beauty webtoon. I'm not sure though, I don't know Chinese at all but the cover of the manhua looked like so. I also saw that "Silent lover" you told us about has got a very high rank these days. It really boiled my blood to see that people don't even appreciate the real maestro. No offense but sometimes I feel that people really don't have the sense of real understanding real gems and they always want to read same old cliche storyline with some president and weak girls (it's not like all are cliché, Ive read many unique and good manhuas too but cliché plots are more famous everywhere). Boom manga also used to translate one of the best manhuas along with the queen but they have suddenly stopped updating, seems like lack of response their reason to give up too. Anyway thanks again for providing us the translations. And I'll wait as long as it takes to read this story.
PS – I don't know about Chinese but your translations were excellent too. I really loved it and I like new translator's work too
