Responses
If I'm going to be honest I don't really know if my answer will help you in any kind of way but I myself haven't read Dark Lady and I'm still enjoying the story.
Yes.. ofcourse there are some things that I don't like about this but you'll always find things that you don't like in everything. So I don't pay too much attention to them.
Is this fully enjoyable without ever reading Dark Lady? I kind of have no intention of reading that one, but this Origin sounds super interesting.