The Villainess Want to Marry a Commoner!!
This was so fucking adorable. And not just (or mainly) in a romantic way. But in a way that cute things are just bound to being cute!!!!!!!! I love love loved how cute it was. It was forever and always adorable!! Aside from being cute, it got unexpectedly dark-ish lol. Not actually anything dark, but def “dark” respective to how cute it was. Ursch is one of my all time fav MLS a breathe of fresh air, I love him. I’ve always been into the tankers trope but him giving palatable yandere-light wrapped up in his adorable appearance is TO DIE FOR!!! Behold, an actual arrow was shot straight through my heart when I saw him: hahaha. Ah, he is too cute in appearance, so fun and fresh with his baby yandere shit and ultimately just super fucking cool because of how OP he is! He had loads more personality than so many of the actual adult MLS in this genre and that’s sad lol. The MC is cute and fun to watch and behaves in unexpected ways. Honestly, she makes a lot of choices that most would consider wrong, but it’s so alright because there isn’t that much at stake and she isn’t like other MCs in the genre in that sense. The author very purposefully set up a goofy vibe for the story so that everything the MC does no matter how silly ends up being okay! This couple was so amazing for me. They treated each other so previously and with respect and had a surprisingly adult air to their romantic partnership. Also I very much appreciate how the MC is obsessed with Ursch and he responds to her obsession with obsession of his own! It’s a splendid dynamic honestly, and I was DYING to see more of it . Which brings us to the main reason for my sorrow tonight and the main reason I cannot give this the fantastic score if like to give it…. the author dropped the webtoon before she finished it! And not just before she finished it, but literally sooooooo early on. If I had to guess, I’d say this story would have been at least 100 chapters if it ever got completed, but we only got 16. it’s honestly sick and twisted and sad! such a beautiful 16 chapters. I would legit by this entire thing if she wrote the rest of the webtoon bro, because the art style was sooooo darling precious! I’ve been talking about the art and the main characters and how cute and likeable both are, but I should also mention that the plot is also very interesting!!! I like the video game set up and being able to use your game powers from the real world in the game. I liked the status checking and inventory and all of that. But what was by far the most interesting piece is what we set up in the very last chapter at the very end of everything: the idea the Ursch from the future brought the MC into this world to turn her into the Demon King!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It’s actually fantastic. It made me light up to hear. And so the stark contrast to me discovering the main plot and then immediately finding out they won’t be finishing the webtoon had me . From characters (main and side) to art to plot, to freshness, this story actually had all of the making of being one of my fav in the genre. Horrible news that it will never finish. If this webtoons was finished and kept up the same level of quality I, seeing now, I’d see myself giving it a 9.5. Regardless I adored these 16 chapters that I read, so I’m giving it a 9.45! P.S.: me never getting the chance to see adult Ursch is a mother fucking CRIME
BL Motel
Overall, the art is the biggest pitfall of this story. The author knows this and mentioned it in her creator’s note at the end. It’s such a shame because her story writing skills are so so sooooo good and her art isn’t even in the realm of catching up to match it. I am all for giving this author grace though, because this is her debut! More than grace, she deserves huge props because this was super good for a debut and I just KNOW she will come back with more work in the future that is even better because her art will have improved. Over the four years she was working on this story, her art already improved so drastically, so I have faith that she’ll only keep getting better now that it’s done . Worst part of the story was the art, but the best part of the story was the characters. This author killed it with these characters and made it look easy!!! They’re entirely too enjoyable and make you never want the story to end! In particular Jiwon and Dongho are now some of my favorite BL characters of all time! They were both absolutely adorable and dynamic and cheeky and killed in every category!!! Bad bitches the two of them for sure! I don’t have as much love for Jaewhan, but I’d be totally lying if I said he wasn’t well written. Byul is the least well written of the bunch and has the least dimension. But it’s in a way that’s like if you put Byul in a different story he would still be good and well written. It’s just that since the other 3/4 main characters here are exceptionally well done, that Byul who is only averagely well done sticks out as the weakest link. That imbalance is sad and it coupled with the fact that the first couple doesn’t really get enough screen time towards the end made me a bit sad. (Thankfully the second couple had MORE than enough goodness to keep the girls happy!!!!) overall though these four characters were good, and the two couples they made up were great! These couples modeled gorgeous communication skills that every other BL couple should really be taking notes on lol. Such normal happy and healthy love went on in the story it was seriously so good in that sense. Now… sex. The sexual scenes and dialogue and build up themselves were not phenomenal. But the vibe? The essence? The concepts? PHENOMENAL, and shockingly so! The art is subpar and this her first story, but her intentions and vision for these sex scenes and everything surrounding them really truly shine through the cracks in the best of ways!!!!!! I am patiently awaiting the day that she has worked in her craft and gotten her skills strong enough to give me some sex scenes that accurately portray the near-perfection she has in mind for them! Lol, that sounds so extreme, but I mean it! She and I?????? We certainly think alike . The number of times while reading this I stopped and remarked to myself about how much of a “true woman of culture” the author was? The answer is MANY! lol. This manwha was really good and one of my new favs. I wish I could give it higher if a score than I will give it. If this manwha had averagely good decent art, instead of quite poor art, I would have given this a 9.55. If 1) it had good art, 2) was more tight/concise (at least 30 chapters shorter), and 3) Byul had more character development to make him a more interesting and likable character by the end of the story, I would have given this a 9.6. Alas, because of the art and those other two biggest problems, I’ll have to settle on giving this a 9.5 P.S.: this is a story I will 1000000000000% come back and re-read in the future (maybe more than once even!) because of how genuinely good it was and how little of its goodness I was able to capture in the first review alone. I’ll def follow up in my second review with more dissecting of the many moving parts of this piece that awed and inspired me as a reader and a writer myself. P.S.: I barely touched on it in the main review but….. DONGHO IS MY EVERYTHING. He’s the baddest bitch. He’s the cutest baby. He’s the slyest brat. He’s the most assertive lover. And Al of this at his YOUNG AF age?!?!?! I thought this multiple times while reading but, that kid is going to have the entire world eating out of the palm of his hands one day if he continues to get better and better at the exponential rate he is going right now. It’s honestly insane. I was so UTTERLY OBSESSED with him by the story’s end, that it is remarkably hard to believe that I found him a bit annoying when he was first introduced!
The Boss in the Bedroom
So………………………………………… wow. I woke up this morning kinda period horny and looking for a little bit of fap material. I found this baby on the Infamous Yaoi P-List and thought, sure let’s see. But then, I thought “okay, I’d like to actually understand the context of this scene” and… ended up reading the whole thing, all 40 chapters for about 4 straight hours– in the morning! I…. don’t think I’ve ever started a BL in the morning let alone started and finished one in one sitting. And to do all of that with one that was so X rated? Goodness gracious, what is the world coming to hahahaha. Anyway, now with the ~unusual~ backstory behind this BL out of the way, let’s get into the review. I liked this so much. I may even say I loved it. I was not expecting to do either, and yet, here I am. It was unlike anything I’ve read before in many ways. And ultimately……. It reeeeeeeeeeally caused me to examine myself and my desires which I don’t think I understand as much as previously thought I did? I’ve always said I liked being degraded, but this man here? Hyunwoo? Yeah…. He made me think maybe what I want isn’t as simple as degradation. When he gave Young-jo instructions on things to do for self care and rewarded him “for being good” when he had done them? That truly floored me. Not the scene, but just how much I liked it. I was shook lol. And then for that reward to be punishment? Hmmmmmmmm whew. Wow. Then the full extent of the play these two characters got into and how… not turned off I was by any of it also surprised me. Things that I previously thought I wouldn’t be into, through Hyunwoo, I have now realized I was be VERY into as long as it was with the right person. (I never thought I would drink coffee that someone jizzed in or allow someone to urinate on my face but……………….
Solo Leveling
The actual storyline for this manwha was very generic and average/nothing special. I wouldn't say that’s a bad thing though. In my opinion, there are two things that can qualify something as “peak fiction”. One thing is a work of fiction that is doing something that no other work of fiction has done before. The other thing is a work of fiction that is doing something that has been done before, but has reached a level of perfection at doing the thing. I am not saying Solo Leveling is peak fiction, but if I was to say that, I would say so on the basis of it being in the latter of the two categories. Solo Leveling didn’t do things that haven’t been done. Genres like isekai are usually super heavy on recycling tropes. It’s partially part of the appeal. But something that can make a good isekai to me is one that combines many tropes to create an outcome with as many good things as possible and as few bad things as possible. The more good you can have while avoiding the bad, the better. Solo Leveling avoids a lot of the mistakes that exist in this genre while still letting you pay with lots of the liked tropes. I simply don’t really have too many complaints. It was not innovative, and perhaps many people who hate on it were expecting it to be. How few bad things the story has, to me, is the best thing about it. The second best thing is probably the well-drawn and directed action scenes. I am not even an action person when it comes to manwha like that, but even I can tell this one was good. It made me feel excited while reading it. And you can tell a whole lot of work went into it. Overall it just gives the manwha such a qualityyyyy feel, you know? That’s the two best things about it, but here are some other main ones: A likeable main character who is neither a goody two shoes, nor an overly morally grey edgelord. Sung Jin-woo has a good temperament and ethical-inclination for this kind of story. Lack of fanservice or harem despite this being in a fanservice and harem heavy genre Nailed a solid ending, then came back on top of that and gave over 20 full chapters of post-ending story that left readers beyond satisfied An unexpectedly wholesome air about the whole thing despite darker themes (on top of the wholesomeness/what adds to the wholesomeness/an example of the wholesomeness is the relationship the Sung Jin-woo has with his shadow soldiers
A Villain Is A Good Match For A Tyrant
I had a marvelous little time. This story was very good, but not in a chaotic and playful non-chalant,fun way as opposed to a “genuinely good” way, you know? It was a silly & chaotic hodgepodge of many things. First off, it gave HEAVY This is an Obvious Fraudulent Marriage vibes all over from the plot, to the characters, to the art style. Then it also had much more subtle but still extremely noticeable Sailor Moon/general magic girl influence written all over it. And for someone like me who really liked This is an Obvious Fraudulent Marriage, and adores Sailor Moon, I was livingggggg for it all. This story really did combine a bunch of my favorite things. It was super funny. The romance between the main couple was super cute. The level of spice was soooo teasingly yummy, lol. I actually can’t remember that last time I wished something had genuine smut scenes in it. (I’m lying, I can remember easily: it’s Why Ophelia Can’t Get Away From the Duke lmfao). Anyway, good little baby PG-17 level of spice in this story. An ending that was rushed and thrown together but waaaaaaay better than the majority of stories in its weight class of this genre are lol. All these positive things I just named about the story are pretty par for the course. But here’s something this story did that I have never seen the others do: the side characters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every single female side character is a good and interesting enough of a character to warrant them being the female lead in their own story in this genre and they all end up with male leads that fit the bill as well!!!!!!! Like seriously, how great is that! If any single one of these side couples had their own story, I would absolutely read it without a single moment’s hesitation. And for the author to have done this with THREE entire couples? how generous! These side couples all get to have their happy and romantic moments and kiss scenes and everything and these scenes aren’t throw away scenes just to say she gave it to them no, I was INVESTED for all three!!!!!! Also the couples were established so early on that it was sooo fucking satisfying to see. Then I didn’t even mention the fact that two of these female side characters started off as antagonists/villainesses who had it out for the relay female lead! What a lovely and unexpected turn around we were given for real. Without these side characters being written as wonderfully as they were, there’s no way in hell I would have had nearly as good of a time as I did reading this. So truly hats off to the author for that. If writing side characters is this author’s greatest strength, their greatest weakness is writing fight scenes lol. It showed baaaaaaaaad hahaha. No one’s too mad about it because no one came here for fight/action scenes lol, that’s not what the genre’s about. But that being said, damn these were really bad. Like notably so. Enough for me to have to mention it here. Other than the bad action scenes, the other downsides aren’t too notably bad. Like I said earlier, the ending wasn’t very good but in a genre is notorious for having endings that aren’t good, this one was far better than most. Also, something that happens often in this genre that the author of this one fell prey to, is the whole “lost track of the original premise of the story” situation. I don’t mind at all because I had fun with where the story ended up going, but still it makes the story seem hella disjointed lol. The last bad thing I will say is that there were many many aspects of the story that the author simply didn’t lean into enough to have them really stick. And I do mean MANY. The entire story should have been a bit more heavy handed when it came to the plot to round out the edges of how chaotic and silly and mildly anticlimactic it all was. Examples: author should have leaned way more into the idea that the evil Cecile didn’t want to destroy this world out of spite for her world not surviving, but that she wanted to make Estian suffer for leaving her. It would have made the characters seem way more unhinged, but had it all make way more sense. Another example is the whole thing where the world keeps repeating and rewriting itself all because the creator of the story never finished writing the ending. Anyway, there plenty more I could talk about this, but there isn’t much of a need for that. The story was such a good time. I had a ball. It gets a 9.62. P.S.: This would get a bit of a higher score if it wasn’t for its ever-so-slight cringiness/cheesiness factor as well as how disjointed the plot was. P.S.S: This is one hell of a knit-pick, but I didn’t like that Cecile left Estian for 3 years to go fix the stories of the other Ceciles. Why would it need to take 3 years? Why would she even need to go visit their worlds to change their stories when all she needed to do was have the author rewrite it in a notepad in some space time pocket? Like huh? Especially when Estian begged her not to go and she completely blew him off…. It wasn’t super duper “practicing what you preach” of her, because she’d never let Estian do some shit like that to her. If she came back after those 3 years to find that Estian had slowly gone mad waiting for her, the. What would she do? Like don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have saved the other Ceciles, but the way it went down wasn’t right to me. At the very least, given how powerful she is, there was no reason at all for her to need to go save the other Cecile’s right that very second when Estian clearly needed some form of aftercare from the big fight lol. UPDATE: I just finished reading all 9 side stories, and they were positively perfect. I will bump up the score on this for how beautifully unambiguous of an ending the author gave. Every single loose end tied the fuck up, and added many pre-smut scenes to boot! I’ve decided ringtones is apart of the appeal tbh. This is one of the most perfect balance of “super fun” and “super complete” in the genre that I’ve read so far. It now gets a 9.63 (which puts it on the same level as Crimson Karma)
The Lord of Sun
This was a very, very good time. Nothing crazy innovative or thought-provoking. Same old tropes and plot points and cliches rampant in this sub-genre, but sooooo much more enjoyable than so many others I have read prior. I’ll list the two biggest highlights: I love Bayan so fucking much. I don’t know why, but I felt a love and connection for her quite unlike what I usually feel for my MC’s. It’s a bit hard to describe what makes her different tbh. She just is super adorable to me and holds a special place in my heart (honestly, it may have to do with her toothy grin and prominent aegyo sal!) ML is obviously hot, yes, and we like him loads and loads (we do!) But Bayan is literally Bae-yan
I Raised a Black Dragon
Just finished this story and I'm literally shaking right now from the excitment. It's 8 AM and a I am shaaaaaking. Wow, like I am literally alight with the enjoyment I've felt from reading these 74 chapters. This story was so good. IMO, for sure one of the best I have come across in the OI genre so far. If I could describe this storry with two adjectives that come to mind, they are "soft" and "profound". I have a very long list of what I would consider highlights for this story, and even so, this list feels inadqeuete and incomplete: - an abnormally soft and dreamy art style that at first masks, then later serves as (delicious) contrast to, the story's underlaying dark themes - a real and true honest to goodness, irredemably evil "villainess" (who is a sociopathic genius scientist, magical witch girblboss + femme fatale to boot!) - representation for domestic violence wherein a woman is the psychological and physcial abuser - an underrstanding of and well-exectued portrayal of concepts like co-dependecny and trauma-bonding in an abusive relationship - a very powerful, very capable of violence, yet soft, non-cunning, simple and cute and a good deal incopmpetent, MC that's got some very relatable modern trauma and diagnosed depression - the exitensce of (and more importantly, the normalization of) queer main characters - well-done dark skinned characters This story is giving progressive af. It's giving post-modern feminism, it's giving diversity, it's giving LGBTQIA+. I love that. Also, I know that complexity is often praised in stories in this genre, but more than that this story has balance. It knows when and where to be dark vs light in terms of subject matter, complicated vs simple in terms of characters and their motivations, serious vs silly in terms of visual story-telling and tone, etc.... It's so well-balanced and sturdy, but yet seems delicate and precious. More than everything I have just said, I think the thing that impresses me most of all about this story, and something that you do not see almost ever with other stories of it's caliber in this genre, is it's tightness! It does all the things I have listed above and delivers a submine story in no more than 74 measly manwha chapters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It takes multiple breaks from the story to add in cute, fluffy domestic moments with the baby, and loads of comedy, but it still told it's entire well-laid out story all in 74 chapters. I am floored by the thought of this. How wonderful. Not a single frame of waste in this. It was done so well you would surely thing that the entire story was drawn-out and edited as a whole before being dropped in one go. Ironically enough, I know that this very aspect of the story is something a whole lot of people have complained about: the story's pacing and how abrupt and disjointed the visual and literaray story-telling comes off to them due to the story's unusally speedy pace. I know this is what has lead to it not having a great score and people dropping the story because they get too confused with where it's going. And yet, it is one of my very favorite aspects of this. I say this decently often in a good number of my otome isekai reviews, but moreso with this than almost anything else: I feel this is a story that I would not have enjoyed nealry as much if I had to read it as it came out as opposed to binging it all in one go like I just did. I feel so relieved that I waited to read it until it was complete when I read the comments of people who did not like it. It was honestly such a treat that I can't imagine missing out on in that way. Before I close out this reviwew, I will make another list of highlists that aren't all profound or unique to this story, but that very very seriously added to my love for this story: - not a Victorian society era time setting, but a spy family time setting instead which is unqiue in this genre and very flavorful and fun!! - an adorable baby character that brings a steady and consitent supply of cuteness to the story
Cold-Blooded Beast
I honestly feel blessed to have been able to read this story. Blessed. This was so beautiful. So fun. So great. So hot and steamy. So many twists and turns. Lovely little characters. So many sad moments and happy moments and complex emotions. Such a huge air of maturity surrounding every aspect of the story. It was incredible. The plot was… wild, lol. I can truly say I’ve never read anything like this. Like genuinely unpredictable as fuck. At no real point in time did I know what the next course of action would be for these characters. If you told me on the earlier chapters that we would end up here where we are at the end? I would’ve barely believed it. Chae-ul is one of my all time fav BL MC’s. He was such a lovely little dumpling of a middle aged man. He is such a darling dear with an extremely pleasant demeanor. And yet, he’s also such a freaky guy! Lol. I loved that for him much. And unlike ho wither stories would’ve handled it, it wasn’t like he stopped being lovely when he became freaky and vice versa. You know? It wasn’t like flipping a switch to two separate sides of his personality. He would simultaneously be equal parts lovely sweetheart and mischievous freak-a-leek! I love love love that for him so much. It made him so unique to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it in an MC. Chae-heon was such an intensely sexy and respectful lover. He was sexy. He was respectful. He was sexily respectful. He was respectfully sexy. Lol. But for real though, his every single breath was a sexy one. His every single thought concerning Chae-ul was a respectful one. With this much sexy and this much respect, what more could one ask for in a man? Not to mention his two dicks, iridescent snake scales under his skin, billions of dollars saved up in the bank, openness with his affection + emotions, and wonderful resting deadpan facial expression? Girl hell yeah. My goodness, I cannot remember the last time I saw a fictional couple as mature as this one where both parties treated each as tenderly and with as much respect as these two did one another. Their communication skills were phenomenal to the point of seeming other-worldly. I just- everything about the way they interacted made it abundantly clear that they truly CHERISHED one another. Crazy good chemistry between these two men. Talk about a damn otp. The sex scenes were good good good and I will surely be returning to this story many a time to revisit them lol. Like true “woman of culture” quality going on here. Top tier premium shit. It feels like nothing I say in this review can do this work justice tbh, so I’m going to just go ahead and wrap it up now. Let’s see quickly what else might I have missed? Okay mart was great, side characters were great, story structure & writing were great, humor was nice and fitting. I loved this so very much. It was so impressive. I’m giving it a 9.7. P.S.: the title is really you look back on it when you’ve finished reading the story. Like it obviously fits because of the subject matter, but also it’s so funnily unfitting of the wholesome ass vibes.
Miss Not-So Sidekick