I had to push trough thick and thin to almost finish that and OMG, it was a chore! But I said to myself, I gonna to all the way to the end to give it a fair shot. And it simply didn't get any better, au contraire, it got so bad I laughed. So bad it's good (not quite, but you get the gist). Where to start? Actually, the premise here is solid and has a lot of potential. Our FL, Lesian, is transmigrated to a story into a body of a neglected, emotionally managed youngest daughter of a Marquis. She's between a rock and a hard place, in one corner she is engaged to be wed to the Crown prince to loves another women and wants to just use Lesian to control her father, the Marquis, and in the other corner, she is living with her father, sister and brother who all bully and torment her, both physically and mentally. So, Lesian must evade both of these meanaces and carve her own way, find her allies and somehow survive this booby trapped life. I can see many good plot directions this could take...
But this manhwa goes into complete over the top ridicolousness almost right of the bat. The art is appalingly bad, with so many computer generated backgrounds, basic character design and pretty bad proportion , but it only that were the worst malefactor here.
The story itself becomes APSURD and makes no sense what so ever. Like none. We are dealing with royalty like Emperor, Crown Princes and Dukes here, and everybody acts like total thwats. Like they don't have two brain cells put together. In parts that is becouse the political background was never explained, and we in fact have no idea how powerful the Emperor is, what exactly does the Marquis do, or how the royal society is even constructed. Are there any other aristocrats? If the Marquis wants to rebel against the Emperor, does he need the military or some major foregin power to help him? Nothing is explained and thus rings hollow from the first scene. And the Emperor wants to cotnrol the Marquis by marrying his son to the Marquiss' daughter, then killing the Marquiss and his daughter? WTF? Like REALLY? That was the plan you had in mind? You, the Emperor, who is theoretically the most powerful man in the Empire? ANd if indeed he is not (not that would make for a compelling story, whwere the Emperor is limited in his outreach and tried to user the ), we HAVE NO IDEA about it!
But the story just goes from bad to worse, especially with the nonsensical relationship between the Crown PRince and his alleged mistress, Narah. One moment he loves her, then he doesn't, then he forgets all about her, then she is back in the game, then he's supicious... WTF! Like quite bad. and the ML, the Duke, is such a bland char! This might be my own personal taste, but such wied, offbeat chars written to be socially awkward and shy don't impress me in the least. He and Lesian have a cute moment or two, but he doesn't leave an impression at all and that's hardly fit for a ML I should drool over. Plus he looks like he's constantly high on weed, with his low-lidded eyes and generally slow-to-react behaviour.
And oh boy, don't get me started at the secret children and identities this story stoops to in the end, like a formulaic, low budget spanish soap opera. It's beyond hilariously bad and so droll I don't want to elaborate further on it. I was hoping agaionst all reason this would turn around, but it just kept descending deeper and deeper into maddness.
But perhaps the modt difficutl part to swallow here is the extremely slow pace! If you steamlines this into sensible chapters, I thingk about 50 chapters would suffice. And the second ML is completely wasted in a small and neglactable role. I could not care less for him.
If I were to script doctor this, I would spin this into Lesian's story of how she managed to juggle her father and the crown prince while secretly building her fortress with the Duke, and perhaps make a commentary on the mental state of someone who was bullied for decades by his family. How even then, there can be a light at the end of the tunnel. How you can make your destiny without your tormentors. But, no we get a lamentable excuse for a manhwa. Avoid at all costs!
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