The Emperor's Mask

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The Emperor’s Mask is a raw mess. It reads like a first draft of a story, full of tonal inconsistencies, unnatural dialogue and just a really uninteresting plot. I saw this as a completed otome isekai adjacent manhwa and wanted to read it because completed ones are a rarity… but alas, I had a hard time reading this because of how boring and dry it was. I normally eat up stories like this, even if they are shit, but god I struggled to finish this thing. And it’s only 70 chapters!

Before you proceed I should say that this review is structured but also reads like ... a rant. I started writing this thing and it just kept flowing out.

The manhwa starts with our protagonist waking up in the body of a woman in the “Rose Palace”, the place where the women who want to be the Emperor’s wife stay. She poisoned herself apparently (although this is supposedly common and the “chamberlain” is investigating the malicious potential of it) and now is this other person. The chamberlain is incredibly cold to her because apparently this is a common “attention seeking” thing that happens but in time he will find her InTeReStInG because of course he fucking does. She is so InTeReStInG, drinking poison and waking up with a new personality and without table manners. Lovely person. The FL doesn’t seem too concerned about it either, she basically wakes up, questions a few things and then decides that she wants to get closer to the Emperor that no one sees for some fucking reason.

Why does a newly reincarnated person immediately take interest in the aloof emperor? Who fucking knows, she knows nothing about him other than he doesn’t leave the palace even when the people who want to marry him are “poisoning themselves”. UGH.

In the end it turns out that Lucia (the original person who the FL possesses the body of) Father knew about the poisoning and was cool with it because he’s an asshole (he’s a father in an Otome Isekai, of course he’s an asshole). Ultimately it’s the supreme white lotus character who poisoned her (I say supreme because everyone seems to be white lotus characters and the one I will refer to later on is a different one hahahaha). This supreme white lotus character relates to the emperor’s brother who I’ll go into more detail about later.

So let’s talk about this chamberlain, this guy spends the most time with our FL and it’s pretty clearly obvious that he’s the Emperor but that doesn’t stop the manga from fucking with you constantly about it. They treat it like a mystery but also state it constantly. There is a scene very early on where this newly hired knight asks this other guy if the chamberlain is the Emperor. The guy says he is, they discuss it for a bit AND THEN AT THE END OF THE CONVERSATION THE ONE GUY THEN SAYS HE WAS KIDDING ABOUT THE EMPEROR BEING THE CHAMBERLIN. WHAT THE FUCK! WHY ARE YOU JERKING ALL OF US AROUND!

The FL constantly fucks with it too. She’ll think the chamberlin is the Emperor constantly, but seems to forget about it whenever he is actually around. She thinks it often enough to bring it up to other people and they agree and say it’s a rumour but when the chamberlin confesses that he is the Emperor she is absolutely shaken by it. WHY! YOU ALREADY GUESSED IT! She has the audacity to say “By some chance you really are the emperor” and acts like her world has completely changed, fuck off. And another thing, if the “chamberlin is the Emperor” thing is common enough why is the white lotus character making fun of the chamberlain. This thing makes no fucking sense.

Plus there is this one girl who accidentally catches a glimpse of the Emperor’s face (and by that I mean she opened his door and he was just there) and instantly falls in love with him. Why doesn’t she recognize him as the chamberlain? That guy is really well known, why does she not connect it! His face is the fucking worst kept secret of all time. Why is it even a secret, why does he need to masquerade as the chamberlin!?!?!?!? This girl also has basically no plot relevance beyond being the sister of one of the Emperor’s trusted subordinates. She barely shows up. Why did they make such a big deal out of her seeing his face and coming to the place if nothing comes from it!

And the plot isn’t even consistent with it, early in the story the chamberlain is complaining about the budget of the rose palace being too high. But when the financial advisor asks him if he will lower it he says that he needs permission from the Emperor to do it. YOU ARE THE EMPEROR AND EVERYONE READING IT FUCKING KNOWS IT, IF YOU WANT TO LOWER THE BUDGET JUST FUCKING DO IT! STOP MAKING THINGS HARDER FOR YOURSELF BY DANCING AROUND WITH ALL THIS EMPEROR MIGHT NOT WANT IT BULLSHIT. And he never actually ends up lowering the budget but instead has the “Emperor” (him) decree that the rose palace members must work to pay for part of the rose palace, this being a plot device to make the FL tutor his younger brother. I’ll get back to this later because she is such a trash teacher and it makes no sense for her to teach the fucking prince.

Speaking of the emperor chamberlin god is he insufferable. He hates and mistrusts everyone, unless they have bad table manners I guess. He also does not give a fuck about the poisonings going on, even scolding the FL when she first wakes up saying that the poisonings do not get the emperors attention (clearly they do if he is there). He’s one of those overly possessive assholes who thinks he’s always in the right and has fucked up morals but it’s fine because he was abused as a kid. What a poor poor kitten. ASSHOLE! One of her servants dies at one point and he has the audacity to get jealous of her caring about her and says “All we’ve talked about is your servants. Are they more important than the Emperor?”. What a load of bullshit.

The way the chamberlin/emperor reveals himself to everyone else is terrible too. There is this whole rebellion that randomly comes into the story around chapter 40. It was said before this guy wanted to rebel but the emperor gave him resources anyways to look benevolent. Well the rebels come and the guy leading them comes out and says he won’t follow someone who hides his face, so the Emperor just walks out and everyone is in shock. The emperor then denies sending aid to his land and the rebel just… gives up. Ok? After all of this the guy just gives up after seeing the guy's face??? And why is he ok with revealing his face now!?!? What changed!?!? I guess now he has someone he loves. Speaking of that after the rebels pledge their loyalty to him he then says “Lucia (FL’s name) you will report to my bedroom tonight.” God what a dipshit, could he not do this in private. When she rightfully gets annoyed at him he says “I see I put you in a predicament but I had no choice”. The white lotus thing ends here too with the white lotus being shocked that the Emperor was the Chamberlin (because she fucking stabbed him earlier and I guess expected that if she stabbed the Emperor’s closest ally (which was him himself) there would be no repercussions) and being sent to eternally rot in the dungeon. Good riddance Ms. Plot Device.

The funniest part of this manhwa is that I apparently read it before. There was this joke that I have been trying to find in other manhwa for quite a while. It was a joke about her getting a painting, the painter asking her what kind of painting she wanted and her just saying “Monkey”. And when the painting actually came she had this “monkey aura” she was giving off from the painting. It was a bizarre joke and I wanted to find it again. Well turns out it’s in this manhwa meaning this manhwa was so unmemorable that I had no clue until chapter 40 some that I had read it before. And the monkey joke suffers from being in this manhwa! The FL does not make wise cracks or jokes through the whole thing. Why is she now asking for a monkey painting? It’s out of character, they can’t even get that right!

Well now that we have the formalities out of the way I suppose we should move on to the atrocious story (besides everything revolving around if the Emperor is the Chamberlin bullshit because that is a good 1/3 of the story). It took me a long time to read the final 20 chapters of this story. I wanted to finish it before I wrote this but god it was such a fucking struggle. Anyways this won’t take too long because there really isn’t a story. It’s shit! Obviously the main story revolves around the FL helping the ML get through trauma… kinda maybe… they don’t really talk about it. The main antagonist is the resurrected brother of the ML who he killed to get the throne. He really doesn't appear till way late in the story. I mean it’s set up, mainly by him giving ominous dialogue at the end of random chapters but beyond that he doesn’t appear till way late.

So the big thing the plot revolves around after the chamberlin is revealed is that since her soul is not the soul that belongs to the actual body she is dying. She is told this by the magic tiger in the necklace she was given from the white lotus character that was supposed to kill her (kinda) but instead gave her a magical tiger. This tiger tells her that the only way to cure her soul an`r4d not die is to marry the Emperor for some arbitrary reason. Guess we should be happy she already wanted to do that despite not meeting him at that point. How convenient. And even after she gets with him and it seems like it’s almost certain they are going to marry she still tells him that she is going to die. You solved your problem without needing to do anything! Why cause more strife!?

Anyways the evil brother thing pops up again randomly after doing things from the shadows. Apparently the body was for him to possess and she just got in it somehow??? There is a whole conflict about him promising that if she gives him her body that she can go back to her old world. I understand the kind of conflict they are trying to do but it doesn’t work here. It’s given no time to breathe.

This kind of plot line works in a far better stories such as Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion where she needs to grapple with her old life and her new life or even stories like The Duchess’s 50 Tea Recipes where she feels guilty about taking over the life of Chloé. In these two examples this moment of uncertainty is a climactic moment that has been built towards. But here it’s randomly dropped without any development. We don’t know a ton about the FL’s old life and what she’s giving up beyond being in modern times and her missing her mom. She wakes up and accepts it immediately and wants to get with the Emperor from the beginning. The evil brother says that if she should go back because she is going to die but the Tiger has already said that her old body is dead and impossible to go back to and that if she marries the Emperor (who is in love with her and she has been trying to get to from the beginning) she won’t die. So what’s the conflict here? WHY DOES SHE WANT TO LEAVE!? She mentions having connections to other people and being afraid of the alien world she is in now. Where was this development for the rest of the fucking story!?!?!?!?!?!?!? WHY IS IT COMING UP NOW!?!?!?!?!?

Also the ML takes this news surprisingly well. He doesn’t seem to be surprised about the evil ML and is fine if she goes back to her old world but wants to have memories of them together to remember her by. Honestly this is suprising considering he was fucking annoyed and angry about her being sad about her servant being killed. The FL also takes the evil murder brother’s word at face value and is actually preparing to go back home!? WHY ARE YOU TRUSTING THIS RANDOM GUY! UGHGUGUGHGG.

Well the brother ends up coming to the castle. But by the time he is given some kind of agency in the plot there are only 11 chapters left. The poisoner (the supreme white lotus) was his lover. She yells out for him when her plan is revealed and he appears just to say that he doesn’t want to save her and then he kills her hahahahahahaha. In response to this the emperor just says “You’re insane as ever Harry” hahahaha. Oh my god. AND THEN THE EVIL BROTHER LEAVES AGAIN AND DOESN’T APPEAR AGAIN UNTIL THERE ARE FOUR CHAPTERS LEFT! How am I supposed to take him seriously when it’s obvious the plot doesn’t. I mean he literally says “This is just the beginning” when there are three fucking chapters left. He has no time to be an actual villain because by the time he isn’t just being ominously teased the manhwa is already over.

They end up killing the brother by stabbing him with a sword covered in the blood of a living member of the royal family. This just kills him for some reason. I don’t know, nothing is ever really explained. They try to explain it in a flashback after he is dead but all the flashback says is that he will die when stabbed by a sword covered in the blood of a living member of the royal family and not why. Ugh. The plot has so many holes and inconsistencies and ends on a complete anticlimax.

In the end they get married (obviously) and they add in a thing about her possibly eating her wedding ring that he put into a cake. She has a ring in the final panel though so I guess she didn’t swallow it, I don’t know. This series has no consistency or structure so I should expect shit like this from it by now.

Now for some other random things that I wanted to structure somewhere but didn’t really fit.

What was the point of her becoming the prince's teacher? I guess it was to show that she was smart and to get the prince on her side so he’s cool with her marrying the Emperor but she teaches him fuck all. The lessons are either playing Baskin Robbins 31, making paper flowers or having him read a history book that, by her own admission, she just picked up randomly at the library. What is the point of her teaching him! She does nothing for him! And then by the time she finds out the chamberlin is revealed as the Emperor it just becomes sidelined. Not that it mattered much anyways considering half of the lessons end early because the chamberlain (and after the reveal the Emperor) keeps interrupting their lessons and sending the kid back.

At this point since I’m just complaining so I need to mention these orders she got. She got two massive orders for the same type of thing around the same time for her shop (she owns a shop that sells products made from rose petals). One of these orders is an excuse for her to meet the evil brother and get made the offer, the other one is a real order. She decides to fill the orders with candles instead of what they ordered and eat the pastries she made despite them ordering those pastries. Why? I have no answers.

Speaking of the shop, I need to mention this. It said that in the shop she has pies that sell well because people enjoy carrying them around since they smell good. IT IS A TREND TO CARRY AROUND PIES!

I also want to put this quote in this review but didn’t have a spot to put it in. “Eric, where I come from, there are two kinds of women. Cuddly bears and sly foxes.” If anyone knows what this means, specifically the bear part, please let me know.

I’m sorry about how rant filled this thing got at the end. I kept writing and my thoughts just kept pouring out. This manhwa just frustrates me to no end.

Overall this manhwa is a mess. It has no tonal consistency and leaves out crucial plot details until they just randomly pop up. The main plot is sidelined till the last ten chapters in favour of Chamberlain being the Emperor shit. Somehow it moves at a glacial pace but everything feels rushed. What an annoying read.