Reviews - Animefangirl!

Small Shop Owner in the 60s Chinese webnovel review (spoilers)

You ever read a romance web novel for dozens and dozens of chapters, only for the translations to run out just when the male lead confesses to the protagonist? No? Then you haven’t read Small Shop Owner in the 60s (六十年代小店主), and you’re better off for it.

Summary:

Xu Nannan, the owner of a Taobao shop, wakes up and becomes a rural girl Xu Nannan in the 1960s.

Every day they only eat a wild vegetable chaff dumpling. Working from dawn to night, she carry a hoe and went to the field to exchange for workpoints.

Fortunately, her Taobao shop followed her back to the 1960s, and she was finally able to do some sideline work. (Novelupdates)

I mentioned last time that there wasn’t enough face-slapping in Raising Babies in the 70s, which reduces half of the fun of reading back-to-the-past Chinese novels (of which there are many, many). Usually the setup is for them to introduce truly infuriating family members, neighbors and in-laws, whip up the reader’s outrage and then deliver catharsis in the form of consequences, or verbal/physical beatdowns. It’s a satisfying formula when done right, and indeed the soap opera, dare I say much of entertainment, revolves around unpleasant people getting their due comeuppance.

If that’s what you want, Small Shop Owner in the 60s delivers in copious quantities, slowly ramping up from small infractions to much more serious ones. But at the same time there’s a healthy (?) mix of bad and good people, so it’s not a complete crapsack world where everyone is out to get the female lead and her sister.

For example her immediate family is cold, greedy and scheming, and many of the villagers are indifferent, but the main authority figure is reasonable, there is a kind family that helps them, and when they report serious issues to bigger authories, action is taken swiftly and thoroughly.

In fact, on the balance of things there are more good and helpful people than bad ones. The first people she tries to sell illegal milk powder to turns out to be so honest and friendly that he and his wife even adopt Xu Nannan and her sister. Her first boss loves her so much he takes her under his wing, and almost all of her co-workers love her. She never gets caught or into trouble for black market dealings or buying antiques, and so on and so forth.

However the scumminess, clinginess and sheer persistence of the antagonists, particularly Grandma Xu and the rest of the Xu family, more than make up for the niceness of the other characters. They prevent the series from being too saccharine sweet and ensure that we get regular doses of face-slapping scenes to keep our morale high.

Now, on to the romance. In a change from the usual, Xu Nannan doesn’t magically wake up with a husband, and indeed the male lead (Lin Qingbai) doesn’t show up until like 50 chapters in, maybe more. And neither character instantly falls in love with the other, but rather they start out with a friendliness that develops into something deeper as they keep finding excuses to spend time together.

The male lead Lin Qingbai is not the usual cold, unapproachable face-paralysis kind of guy either. He is a bit distant from the ladies compared to his disgusting playboy brother, but that is appropriate for the times. And he can smile, he can laugh, he has normal emotions, he doesn’t touch her inappropriately, he doesn’t get violently possessive when other guys show interest in her, he doesn’t try to restrict her movements, he doesn’t fantasize about locking her up… man, when did my bar for male leads get so low?

Random picture of couple on bikes because Lin Qingbai woos Xu Nannan by picking her up on his bike.

The main downside is that he smokes. Normal for the times, but really icky. Also the 10-year age gap is off-putting not because of its size but because she’s 17 and he’s 27, and the difference in maturity is a bit much. 27 and 37 would be a-okay. Plus he comes with an annoying family, especially his brother, but then again so does she (and how!).

In all, it’s a healthy and relatively fast-moving romance, which is helped along by the prevailing attitude of the 60s, which held no truck with this “male friend/female friend” stuff. As soon as you guys are seen together more than a few times, everyone starts asking when the wedding is.

And so, after being together for a while, others start asking questions and Xu Nannan tries to put some distance between them. But then she misses him terribly, she runs into him with his family, he introduces her as his “partner” and takes her away. Then he asks… “So do you agree?” … AND THEN THE TRANSLATIONS END BEFORE WE CAN HEAR HER ANSWER!!!! NOOOOOOO! No updates since August 2021 is just too cruel :’-<

I always worry about the translator/site owner in such cases. Anything can happen to any of us at any time, after all. The cause of a sudden translation stop can range from benign or even positive (won the lottery and moved to an island resort) to very bad. Fans can always machine-translate the rest of the series (in fact the “translation” of Small Shop Owner in the 60s is barely-cleaned machine translation anyway) but a life can’t come back. Stay safe, wherever you are.

So as I said in the beginning paragraph, we get a build up to a confession and then nothing unless you want to MTL the rest. Which I can’t be bothered to do because raw MTL hurts my brain. Engines like DeepL have made great progress, but it’s still hard to read. It’s easy to figure out that Xu Nannan and Lin Qingbai will marry and live happily ever after, but what about all the side characters?

From Novelupdates reviews, I learned that Lin Qingsong rapes Xu Hong and gets away with it, and that Xu Nannan’s birth parents get divorced and her mother dies miserably in poverty, but what about everyone else? The Xu grandparents? Liu Qiao and her scheming daughter Xu Meizi? Xu Nannan’s neglected sister Xu Ling? Her mine worker friends? Teacher He? Etc etc. I’m quite curious, but I already decided to put the series behind me, so I’ll just paper that curiosity over with the next series and move on.

I recommend Small Shop Owner in the 60s if you want a balance of characters and drama in your face-slapping novel. Not too crazy, not too boring. Also if you want non-pushy actually kind of decent male leads because the bar is set in hell these days.

Lastly, a word on the “twist” in this series, which is that Xu Nannan has access to her Taobao (think eBay or Amazon) shop and can buy and sell things there. This does not make as much of a difference as you would expect, mainly because a 15 year old girl splashing around large sums of cash would attract all kinds of questions and lead to horrible consequences.

The level of scrutiny and lack of privacy in those days also means she can’t buy or sell anything too modern, or even use such things in her personal life. However the shop does play a role because taking out useful items like milk powder here and there helps her befriend her benefactors, and more importantly keeps her and her sister from starving to death before they finally get out of the Xu family’s clutches.

So if you’re expecting some dramatic business shenanigans with the Taobao shop, nah, at least not at chapter 89 where translations stopped. The female lead doesn’t use her ability to shop from the future to buy history books and find out what’s going to happen next either, though she does stockpile antiques. It’s implied that she’s avoiding standing out too much or rising too high because of the Cultural Revolution that is coming in 1966-76 (I’d find a way to escape to Hong Kong if I were her), but either way she doesn’t do anything too flashy in the chapters I read. Just FYI.

Raising Babies in the 70s webnovel dropped

Don’t you just hate it when you’re reading fluffy slice-of-life romance and the author takes a decision that completely ruins everything? I have a couple of dealbreakers for a formerly fluffy series, mainly physical or sexual abuse from one of the romantic partners – i.e. no more rapey CEOs/princes allowed. Also if the side characters are too annoying, like those in-laws with the endless face-slappping scenes, that gets tiresome if it drags on too long with the same characters. But in general I try to be pretty forgiving because I realize most web novel authors are amateurs. If I like the characters and they behave well, that’s enough.

Well, now I guess I have to add new dealbreakers to the list: kids butting into the romance from nowhere. I already mentioned that I don’t like the “little bun” kind of character in Chinese romances, with the preternaturally smart and precocious son (almost always son) of one/more of the main characters being obnoxious and getting in the way all the time.

In Raising Babies in the 70s (七零海岛养娃日常) it’s even worse than that. The kids are basically foisted on the main couple before they can even start their new life together.

Long intro, but here’s the series summary at last:

Qin Rou was a kindergarten teacher with a soft personality. After dying while protecting a chlid, she transmigrated into an arrogant and coquettish female supporting character whose personality was opposite of hers.

Meanwhile, the ill-tempered Lu Yan, from a good family background, had made great contributions and was about to be sent to a certain island. His parents wanted to marry him off ASAP, but every girl who went on a blind date with him returned crying.

To give him a lesson, his father said bluntly, “Choose a girl with the fiercest character for him!”

And so Qin Rou and Lu Yan went on a blind date together. Qin Rou returned from blind date with red swollen eyes as well.

But just a few days later, news came that after just one meeting, they had agreed to marry each other? (summarized from Novelupdates)

If you like the “arranged marriage” and “cold guy being softened up” tropes, and we all do, don’t lie, this is right up your alley. And so indeed, through an amusing misunderstanding (read it yourself), Lu Yan and Qin Rou end up deciding to get married, and they set off on a train to Lu Yan’s new posting.

So far, so great and fluffy, right? Lu Yan was smitted at first sight and just keeps falling deeper and deeper in love (just as we like). Meanwhile Qin Rou has her reasons for wanting to leave her job, but she doesn’t think he’s so bad. We’re all set for a lovey-dovey romance with some face-slapping here and there, maybe a rival or two. Y’know, the usual delicious formula.

BUT NOPE. Enter the Children. For some bizarre, stupid, ill thought-out, needless, senseless reason, the author decides to have Qin Rou’s four year-old nephew (one of those “‘autistic” but magically cured by the female lead” kids. Yes, there’s more than one. Oh you have no idea) and Lu Yan’s nephew insist on accompanying them to their new home on the tropical island of Hainan. The kids aren’t even in abusive situations or orphans or anything. Some random excuses are made and then presto, two strangers are butting in on our budding romance.

Lu Yan and Qin Rou start their new life on a tropical island paradise.

And not just butting in to sit quietly by, Lu Yan’s nephew is loud, ill-mannered and obnoxious, completely unbearable. Both kids are bound to make complete nuisances of themselves. Or I assume they are, because after two chapters of the kids, when it became clear the author wasn’t going to send them back, I threw in the towel.

Especially since Qin Rou confesses in chapter 24 that part of the reason why she brought her nephew along was because she didn’t feel comfortable being alone with Lu Yan. A child is not a prop! If you’re that uncomfortable with him, adding a kid to a potentially dangerous situation is not the solution.

But anyway, as I said, I try to cut these authors a bit of slack because they’re amateurs. And furthermore, an author has a right to write the story they want to write, just as a reader has the right to read the story they want to read. If the author of the Raising Babies in the ’70s novel wants to write about two newlyweds becoming instant parents, well, there’s an audience for that, I’m sure.

… … … and so I wrote all that, and prepared to conclude and hit “Publish.” But then I thought I was remembered some details wrong, so I decided to re-read a bit of it to refresh my memory. And so I read, and read, and read, past where I originally quit (chapter 24) all the way up to chapter 60.

For the sake of full honesty, let me say that the kids don’t turn out to be as much of an issue as I had expected. Lu Yan quickly puts his annoying nephew in his place, and Qin Rou’s nephew might as well not exist for all the presence he has. However the kids are still good at fulfilling their purpose of preventing the romance from developing too quickly just by being there and stopping the newlyweds from getting too frisky. They also serve as an excuse for Qin Rou to show what a wonderful kindergarten teacher she was, and… that’s about it.

Secondly, Qin Rou is a bit of a Mary Sue (sooo beautiful and her voice is sooo nice) but not to excessive levels. In particular her cooking isn’t that great and she’s not very hardworking. Most “back to the 60s/70s/80s” series… in fact, most Chinese romances have the woman as this amazing, world-shatteringly good cook (e.g. My Fantastic Chef Wife) whose food can melt the hearts of gods. Qin Rou is good, but not that good, and her husband can cook quite well too. So that makes this a bit bearable compared to some of the others.

Despite all that, I didn’t feel like reading past chapter 60 because the main characters weren’t that compelling. I’ve read too many of these romance series, and honestly, too peaceful is just as bad as too dramatic. Lu Yan is from a wealthy family, has a ton of savings and has accommodation provided, so basically the family never has to worry about anything because they’re rich.

He’s also a rising officer in a military barrack setting, so few people are willing to mess with him and his family because it will harm their own careers. It’s not like most other series where the lead character has to scrimp and save to feed her family, manage finances, clean up her little hovel, etc. The bulk of the series is even set on a beautiful tropical island with coconuts, papayas, abundant seafood, etc everywhere.

Basically Raising Babies in the ’70s is a little sweet and is very low-drama, perfect if you’re into that kind of thing. But due to the kids, the overly generous setting, and Lu Yan’s personality and job, you don’t get that much fluffy interaction between the two romantic leads. It’s a very bland, but inoffensive series. Read if you have nothing better to do or really, really like this kind of series, but don’t expect too much.

I Will Divorce my Tyrant husband (Korean manhwa) – Spoiler: no she won’t

This is a universal spoiler for Chinese/Korean romance series. The longer the heroine spends proclaiming that she’s going to divorce or break up with her horrible boyfriend/fiance/husband, the more inevitable it is that they will end up together in the end. And if the declaration is in the title, then they’re bound to live together happily ever after (see also: Divorce Me, Husband).

That being the case, the point of reading such series is not to find out “what” happens, but rather “why” and “how.” Why a divorce? Is the husband really so irredeemable or is it a misunderstanding? How will they overcome their differences and get back together? Those are the thoughts I had when I started reading “I Will Divorce My Tyrant Husband.”

Summary: I possessed the Empress in the romance novel. Isn’t that supposed to be good? But the problem is that this Empress is always pushed around by the deceitful Empress, beaten up by the Emperor, and she eventually died from an illness. However, unlike the original Empress, I cannot die in vain. I have to become a villain in order to divorce the tyrant husband.

Heroine Robelia is a woman from Korea who possessed an ill-fated Empress in a novel. However her husband (Alexsandro) is trash who has a favored concubine and treats the empress like dirt until she finally dies. In a twist, the concubine, Aisha, is also from Korea. Typical white lotus who cries at everything and tries to act innocent while causing trouble. She is so ineffectual and dumb at it that it’s pitiful to watch, though. You can’t really get mad at her like you could at Trashta in Remarried Empress, for example.

If you believe that, I have a bridge in Antarctica to sell you

Anyway, Robelia asks Alexsandro for a divorce, but he refuses and promises to give her anything she wants except a divorce. That doesn’t mean he’s sorry for neglecting and ignoring her or that he will necessarily treat her better going forward, though. He says so himself: he’s not sorry. Maybe one day he will be, but maybe not. And if she insists, he’ll apologize, but he won’t mean it. Again, he says it himself. He’s scum.

The rest of the series is consumed by Robelia trying to do mean and rebellious things to force Alexsandro to divorce her, while dodging the cutely pathetic schemes of Aisha and resisting Alexsandro’s attempts to get into her bed. Yes, he’s only interested in keeping her around, sleeping with her and having her manage the palace for him. Love…? He doesn’t love anyone except himself.

That makes it all the more painful when Robelia starts blushing and goes all heart-a-flutter whenever he kisses her hand or makes a suggestive comment. Girl, hold firm! He’s garbage! When garbage touches your hand, you don’t blush, you sanitize it! But no, it’s so obvious how this thing is going to go. Especially since Robelia is such a soft touch that she hasn’t done anything really bad to deserve a divorce. So basically she’s going to remain in this polygamous thing until Aisha messes up enough to be disposed of. Disgusting.

On the plus side, the character art in I Will Divorce my Tyrant Husband is gorgeous. I especially like Aisha’s flamboyant red hair and frequent outfit changes. This is how an empress should dress, not boring and dowdy like in 9/10 of other romance series. Everyone looks good, even– no, especially the scumbag jerk Alexsandro. And he knows it too, which is why every other shot of him features the biggest s**t-eating grin ever. So, so gross.

Alexandro the male lead from "I Wil Divorce My Tyrant Husband" Korean series — “I think I’m cute, I know I’m sexy”

TL;DR: I Will Divorce my Tyrant Husband is worth reading for the eye candy, and I quite like Robelia. But the male lead is just too filthy and hateful, so I’m not going to waste my mental powers on this series any more. (Psst: according to a spoiler I read, she does leave him briefly, but comes back right away because “he’s sad.”) Blergghh, yeah, I’m out.

Author of My Own Destiny manhwa review – Not my taste (spoilers up to chapter 54)

I don’t really get why, but I find it a bit icky when an author is reincarnated inside his/her own novel and starts getting romantic with the characters. Kind of like dating your own kid, you know? There are possible workarounds, like having the novel be a subconscious memory, but for the most part I’m iffy on it.

Which is why I wasn’t expecting much when I started the Korean romance/fantasy manhwa Author of My Own Destiny (also spoilerfully fan-titled “I Became the Wife of the Male Lead”). I mainly picked it up for the nice cover art, and boy did it deliver. Everything else aside, the face and character of daddy Abel alone is worth the price of admission. 10/10, would daddy again.

Summary (official):

Evil mage Fiona Green was destined to die at the hands of the protagonist couple in “The Emperor and the Saint.” That is, until the story’s author became Fiona herself! Though mistreated, cast out by her pompous family and thrown into the battle at Heylon, Fiona is determined to use her magic for good. But things take a rather unexpected turn when she rescues the male lead, Siegren, turning him from foe to friend… Will she successfully rewrite her fate without changing the story’s happy ending?

Apart from Abel, the male lead is also good-looking in a generic black-haired kind of way. Come to think of it, has there ever been a manhwa with varicolored hair where the black-haired male did NOT get the girl? Seems like black (or darkest color available) always wins and the other colors are just there to make him more “dramatic” or whatever. Random thought that just occurred to me…

Back on topic, the art is nice, and even the side characters are gorgeous, though heroine Fiona’s kiddy design is a bit… eh. However the plot and its development is unfocused and generic. Fiona and Siegren quickly bond, then just as quickly they grow up and the action moves to the capital. And then the series starts going round in circles with no clear trajectory.

Since Siegren is the bastard child of the emperor and the crown prince is an unpopular, perverted idiot, you would expect some effort to go into depicting court intrigue, key political figures and other events, but no. Siegren seems to have no interest in the throne, politics, business, nothing. He’s just a pretty face who doesn’t have a thought in his brain besides Fiona. Who also doesn’t have much in her brain besides living day to day. Not that I blame them, because the opponents are weak and pathetic and don’t make any serious efforts to dispose of them. Why wouldn’t you chill out and go to balls every day with “oppposition” like that?

However while there is almost no progress on the political side in the 54 chapters I read, there IS progress on the romantic front. This isn’t one of those series where it takes 100 chapters for the female character to realize the male lead likes her, and another 50 for her to reciprocate. Siegren asks Fiona out shortly after they arrive in the capital, she fully understands his intentions, and she accepts his confession!

But! Yeah, there’s a but. You know it couldn’t be that easy. Fiona may have accepted the confession, but she doesn’t love him in the romantic sense. She’s attracted to him on a physical level, but she’s doing that “protecting my heart so it won’t hurt when I’m dumped” and “acting as a placeholder until he falls in love with the real female lead” thing that Korean isekai manhwa overwhelmingly favor. Sooo annoying. Speaking of the real female lead, Eunice, she appeared once and never again. This is gonna be a long, looong manhwa.

So the story isn’t really going anywhere or making much sense beyond Fiona trying to navigate her feelings for Siegren while making sure she doesn’t have to die for the story to end happily. Which is pretty much what the summary says, so it’s almost like the past 54 chapters were unnecessary.

That said, there is one nice thing about Author of My Own Destiny: the female character is actually strong. I mean in terms of holding her own in a fight. You know how it is with romance series. No matter how much of a badass special-ops grizzled veteran the heroine is, she will almost always be much weaker than the male lead and will need saving in every action scene, because how dare she try to do anything ‘manly’ without being a man, right? *rolls eyes*

Well none of that in Author of My Own Destiny, at least not yet. The other main characters are no slouches either, but Fiona gets plenty of action scenes, takes charge and directs people in fighting off attackers and takes the fight to the source where necessary. She’s not afraid to use dirty tactics like torture or intimdation either. Props to her.

That said, this isn’t enough to make up for the meh-ness of rest of the series. The author put Abel on a bus because his awesomness was overshadowing Siegren and Fiona’s, so I can’t even see my favorite character any more. Instead I have to read chapters full of Fiona/Siegren making out and leaving hickeys on each other (just get married already!) while the most boring subplot ever takes place.

Normally I’d say I’ll check back in a year, but in this case, eh, I think I’m done. I have way too much stuff to read and I’m trying to simplify in 2023. For fans of nice art who want to stan Abel only!

Warrior High School – Dungeon Raid Department: manhwa that hasn’t really started

I like the “Suddenly, monsters!” genre of Korean action manhwa. They all start the same way: everyone walking around in the city, suddenly a rift appears in the skies and monsters pour out. Waah, whatever will we do? But some people awaken powers and save the day, hurray, tralala~ It’s the same every time and I’m super here for it.

However, because there are so many in the genre, every series has to find a gimmick to distinguish itself. In the case of Warrior High School: Dungeon Raid Department, our subject for today, the gimmick is that there’s a… warrior high school. An exclusive high school for elite future adventurers. Our hero, Yoo Jaryong, badly needs money and items to save his ailing ex-adventurer father. A rich girl offers to fund him in exchange for Jaryong enrolling in Warrior High School to protect and party with her.

So far, so easy to understand. Except… I’ve been reading for 31 chapters and Jaryong hasn’t even taken the high school exam, much less enrolled, much less set foot in its hallowed halls. “Dungeon Raid Department”? What’s that, is it a food? I like a good, detailed setup, but come oooon now.

What’s been happening instead makes it look like the author lacks clear direction. First Yoo Jaryong is introduced as this super strong, experienced adventurer/smuggler… then no, he’s not actually that strong. This is to justify his need to enroll in a school and benefit from actual training. Fair enough.

Then we’re introduced to his background, his father, his financial issues. Also fair enough, so we can understand why he would need to trade his skills for money, and also why he would take the exam. Then he takes an unofficial exam, which is largely pointless except to introduce him to two former acquaintances of his father. Which IMO could have been done in a speedier way, because the excess focus on Yoo Seung (the father) makes him seem like a far more interesting and exciting character to follow.

He was so gloomy at the start of the series

Then finally, the exam….? Nope! Having been introduced as an aloof high-schooler obsessed with making money, Jaryong is now painted as an ordinary kid who enjoys gaming and kills time in a PC room where he just happens to make friends with an elite but lonely student from Warrior High School. The place he still hasn’t enrolled in or taken the exam but he totally will. I wanted to nitpick a little more on this, but his friendship with Tir/Cheolkang is pretty sweet and they make a good team, so I’ll let it pass.

Not that I have time to nitpick because suddenly! the place is attacked by monsters! And there are absolutely no adventurers nearby except Jaryong and Tir! Wao, what a coinkidink. But like I said, they make a great team.

And when all seems lost despite their efforts, suddenly! Jaryong awakens a super power! Noooooooooooo! I mean, yes, it’s the author’s right but nooooooooo. I liked him as a diamond in the rough, without the Naruto-style bloodline whatever hogwash attached. Waaahhh. And that’s around how far we got before I caught up to chapter 31. Oh yeah, Jaryong also found out the name of the enemy he needs to beat to save his dad, so that’s progress.

Long story short, it looks like Warrior High School is going to be a long story, not short. 30-something chapters just to take the exam to enter the titular school is the author’s way of saying “Get ready for the long haul.” I’m all on board for it, to be honest. I like Jaryong, I feel sorry for his dad, the other characters are not bad and the action is easy to follow.

The slow pace isn’t something I’m used to in these action manhwa, but I can make it work. That said, there’s no need to follow Warrior High School on a weekly basis. Checking in once every February should be enough. Binge-reading for the win..