Agathe

Ok, the girl got some spunk, the guy is awkward cute and a good green flag, the are both so obtuse to their feelings, it can be sweet and fun for a while as it is

But why does he have yo be the duke of the north, brother of the emperor
And her, the missing daughter of the duke teacher mentor of the emperor (obviously)

Man seriously ?
Not even talking of her archetypal evil « abusive «  family, there was plenty enough to make a fun story with all these heavy titles
Don’t you grow tired of the same setup ?

Having worked professionally in the comics and the press industry, i am quite sensitive to plagiarism : but aren’t these comments lacking verification ?

Many mangas and webtoon are the efforts of a team.
There is more than one Japanese author who will gladly admit that they are doing the paneling and the story, but some assistants are better than them when it comes to to the art or design of their characters (GTO author is one of them, there’s no shame in that)
Paneling is a very complex task, as well as writing a story. An assistant job can be way bigger than one might thing.
Not all assistant will stay as assistant for life, for many, it’s a school to learn and grow, before becoming independent with your own title. When it happens, mentors are often helping their mentees, sometimes, even playing assistants for them.

Mangas being released in the press have an incredible deadline pressure.
I accompanied three mangaka ladies in a signing tour. All were recognized authors, and they were obviously long time friends, who they shared their strengths to keep their deadline. At the exhibition hall site, they would have their respective title pages going from one hand to the other, between signatures. Inking, shading, black parts, their three works were going back and forth for the greater good. As soon as they came back to the hotel, they were up to work : a team of giggling middle aged ladies in their frilly pyjama, with a glass of milk, the express envelopes ready to leave in the morning. They were incredible ! I never met more busy people !
This might seem very strange, but some team (like clamp ?) chose to put a common name forward as the creative process is vastly shared.
Basically we can’t know what happens in a studio ?

Now drawing with a style looking like another artist can be the product of working side by side for years: it’s hard to change the style you developed, and it’s not like you should stop working because your friend or mentor died ? Changing can only be a process, but on still need to eat ?
It’s might also be hard to know if the so call style is the produce of one, or the result of sharing passion and insight as a team, bringing betterment to all ?

Drawing like someone, can also be considered an homage, in some cultures. Obviously not in ours, but even so, some artists are mandated to work like their predecessors (Asterix, the smurfs or Lucky Luke european comics survived their creator for example, and without sticking to emblematic characters, some publications were choosing artists with the same visual vibe for their magazine)

Lastly having met some disputes between authors about their artwork, they were definitely less about the art style (rare to truly imitate), than entire paneling sections (camera angles, succession of framing, etc)
In this case, webtoon are problematic : paneling has lost immensely and is very poor, so gimmicks and look alike sequences are more systematic

I am not saying there’s no issue here, but there really might be none. And if there’s none, it could be very harmful to the author of this title.
But even if there is, it’s obviously much more complicated than we might ever be able to comprehend.

The assistant of a deceased author probably suffered way more loss and grief than the readers we are. If you imagine the author was a decent human being, they not only spent lots of time together, but also shared creative process and endured deadlines with lots of tension, as a team. There’s no way people who shared such strong moments would not build strong bonds together. It must have been devastating.

My knowledge come from Japanese Artists, but I believe the workflow might not be too different.
Peace