This ends on such a weird note, with so many loose ends that it's super unfulfilling. I was all for the yearning between the FL and the ML, and I think it's a great set up as it can give a lot of juicy drama, but so much of it just ended up.... bland, and lifeless.
We don't see what happened to Alice, she never gets ousted for *paying a grup of men to rape Karen*, Karen also wants to have her first time immediately after getting rescued by Hansel (after being jumped by the previously mentioned group of men), they never show the Prince thinking things over after the big confrontation, Hansel is (plot twist!) shown to be a prince 2 pages before the end of the manga– and to top it all of, they *chose* to make the big misunderstanding between the prince and Karen to be about her cheating on him! Why would you choose to do that when she *did* cheat on him?!?
Like, I know she was never emotionally invested in the prince, so I don't want to 100% condemn her for it, but the prince was shown to be in love with her until he thought she had cheated on him-- so this confrontation sucks now because, hey, it's not that she has been cheating on you multiple times! She cheated only *once*! And that's because, differently from you, she's never liked you all that much in the first place!!! they could've just gone the usual "framed for poisoning the ogFL (Alice in this case)" trope, or just have it so that Karen *didn't* cheat on the prince after nearly being raped--- both would've been fine options!! Just don't have the misunderstanding be about cheating when she did cheat, it just feels... bad
The characters themselves aren't all there either tbh. Karen is not the worst I've seen from otome isekai (or rofan in general) but she's definitely your usual case of "she doesn't really do nothing, things just happen to her "-- Alice was more proactive than her. Then, there's the prince, who did like Karen before the rumors starting circulating (which I do appreciate) but also could only think with his dick, apparently, because not only was he icky with Karen (saying "finally you're not resisting?" big yikes) but also he could not be bothered to use his brain and either confront Karen about the rumors or ask Hansel to check if they were true, even after he had been gullible enough to believe such level of hearsay. Hansel is... well. He's hot, I guess. I like the eyebags, since they're not usual in MLs. He's your usual non-communicative type of ML that decides he will do something for the FL's wellbeing and then just not tell her about it and just let their relationship strain instead-- which I'm not a fan of, but alas, it's the least worrying part of this whole shtick. I kinda wish they, uh, didn't mention his skin color in such an underhanded way?? Like if ur gonna use racism as a plot point don't skim through that shit like that, damn.
That being said! I did love the tension and yearning between the Karen and Hansel. The "love that cannot be" is always a juicy feast, especially when they are this close (and when Hansel is so close to the Prince too). And the art was also great! The sex was pretty ok for a series that seemed to devout to it's plot– as underexecuted as it may have been. And, uh, that's about all I can praise, tbh. It's still a fun read! But you can skim 90% barely reading the dialogues and you will have pretty much the complete experience. This is a "don't look at anything twice and it'll be fine" kind of situation.
This ends on such a weird note, with so many loose ends that it's super unfulfilling. I was all for the yearning between the FL and the ML, and I think it's a great set up as it can give a lot of juicy drama, but so much of it just ended up.... bland, and lifeless.
We don't see what happened to Alice, she never gets ousted for *paying a grup of men to rape Karen*, Karen also wants to have her first time immediately after getting rescued by Hansel (after being jumped by the previously mentioned group of men), they never show the Prince thinking things over after the big confrontation, Hansel is (plot twist!) shown to be a prince 2 pages before the end of the manga– and to top it all of, they *chose* to make the big misunderstanding between the prince and Karen to be about her cheating on him! Why would you choose to do that when she *did* cheat on him?!?
Like, I know she was never emotionally invested in the prince, so I don't want to 100% condemn her for it, but the prince was shown to be in love with her until he thought she had cheated on him-- so this confrontation sucks now because, hey, it's not that she has been cheating on you multiple times! She cheated only *once*! And that's because, differently from you, she's never liked you all that much in the first place!!! they could've just gone the usual "framed for poisoning the ogFL (Alice in this case)" trope, or just have it so that Karen *didn't* cheat on the prince after nearly being raped--- both would've been fine options!! Just don't have the misunderstanding be about cheating when she did cheat, it just feels... bad
The characters themselves aren't all there either tbh. Karen is not the worst I've seen from otome isekai (or rofan in general) but she's definitely your usual case of "she doesn't really do nothing, things just happen to her "-- Alice was more proactive than her. Then, there's the prince, who did like Karen before the rumors starting circulating (which I do appreciate) but also could only think with his dick, apparently, because not only was he icky with Karen (saying "finally you're not resisting?" big yikes) but also he could not be bothered to use his brain and either confront Karen about the rumors or ask Hansel to check if they were true, even after he had been gullible enough to believe such level of hearsay. Hansel is... well. He's hot, I guess. I like the eyebags, since they're not usual in MLs. He's your usual non-communicative type of ML that decides he will do something for the FL's wellbeing and then just not tell her about it and just let their relationship strain instead-- which I'm not a fan of, but alas, it's the least worrying part of this whole shtick. I kinda wish they, uh, didn't mention his skin color in such an underhanded way?? Like if ur gonna use racism as a plot point don't skim through that shit like that, damn.
That being said! I did love the tension and yearning between the Karen and Hansel. The "love that cannot be" is always a juicy feast, especially when they are this close (and when Hansel is so close to the Prince too). And the art was also great! The sex was pretty ok for a series that seemed to devout to it's plot– as underexecuted as it may have been.
And, uh, that's about all I can praise, tbh.
It's still a fun read! But you can skim 90% barely reading the dialogues and you will have pretty much the complete experience. This is a "don't look at anything twice and it'll be fine" kind of situation.