Jul 3, 2023
This review is both for the currently available 17 chapters of the manga and the fully translated and finished web novel.
TL;DR: It's decent. Read it if you like otome game scenarios with a male mc and a twist.
This story is your usual otome game setting, very similar to most villainess manga/manwha, the twist being that the main character here is a random male character generally unrelated to the original story. This has also been done before but not as often and therefore still feels fairly fresh in concept. It starts pretty early on in the life of the mc and it shows him preparing
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for the future by securing good equipment, skills and money. For the manga this is currently around the point where the story is, for reference chapter 17 is about equal to chapter 30 of the wn. The art of the manga is surprisingly good, it's pretty standard at first glance but it can be surprisingly detailed and it has a seinen edge to it which is quite a welcome addition. The characters are nothing special, pretty much just exactly the archetypes they are set up to be, there are some interesting developments later on with both the mc and amy (the actual mc of the otome game), but for the most part the characters are pretty two dimensional. This is about all I can say for the manga up to this point, overall it's a pretty fun read for the first 17 chapters, but also a bit preliminary to draw any conclusions from. As for the novel there is a bit more to say.
I would say that there are two major parts to the novel. The first 50 chapters or so are your average otome game villainess twist story, where it culminates in the condemnation of the villainess and the mc steps up to save her. The second part is extremely politics focused. Otome game stories aren't exactly strangers to politics, so it's not exactly outside of expectation, but it's honestly quite a chore to sit through. I do not believe that the characters were developed enough for me to truly care about many of the major developments. A few plot points are basically just thrown aside and the main character has some things happen to him that only affect him in that moment and are completely disregarded after. I think that this tonal shift falling flat is indicative of the type of story this is. It's like how most isekai manga only thrive on concept alone and that's also why you see the same first 5 chapters for basically all of the mediocre ones. It's just a gotcha moment leading up to and slightly after the point that the mc is reincarnated, gets overpowered and maybe even betrayed for the edgy ones, joins the guild or goes to school, shows of for a bit and suddenly all story direction is lost. In this case that moment would be the condemnation. And since it's built around this moment the rest feels empty and just added on the keep the story going. I must give credit where credit is due and say that the second half does not feel directionless. But the whole world, power system and the characters are just so poorly developed that it does not matter.
Overall I think that the first half is surprisingly above average, sadly the second part is not great. I do see some potential for the manga to fix some of my issues with the second part of the novel, however I honestly doubt it will even get that far, and if it does it will most likely not be translated. So all in all, read it if you like this type of story, but other than that I would pick something else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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