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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!

A Returner’s Magic Should be Special… but it’s not (Korean webtoon review)

I had a conversation with someone a while ago where I likened “A Returner’s Magic Should be Special” to an airplane endlessly taxiing on the airport runway but never taking off. I said this when about 100 chapters were out. 58 chapters later and I still feel the same way. A Returner’s Magic Should be Special has a lot of potential to be an interesting series, but endless, draggy arcs and very slow progression towards the main point mean that it’s probably never going to fulfill that potential. The pacing is just too bad.

Summary

“Now that I’m back, I won’t allow my loved ones to die again!”

The Shadow Labyrinth – the most catastrophic existence humanity has faced in history. Desir Arman and six survivors attempt to clear the final level of the labyrinth but ultimately fail, and the world comes to an end.

However Desir is returned to the past, back to the time when he enrolled at the nation’s finest magic academy He is reunited with his precious friends, and is prepared to change the past to save the world and his loved ones…!

The good part of A Returner’s Magic Should be Special is that it has a nice team of main characters and a few memorable supports. The core team of Desir, Romantica, Pram and Adjest comes together quickly and has stayed together solidly through 160 chapters (as at time of writing). Pram is a shota who is not annoying. Adjest is an ice princess who is also not annoying. The story is not bogged by romantic subplots (!!). It’s bogged down by a lot of other things, but romance isn’t one of them… yet.

I also like the colorful, slightly goofy art style. The action is also easy to follow, though the battles can be interminable. So the art is nice, the characters are nice, the story is promising. Despite all that, the problems are so many with no solution in sight that it will probably take A Returner’s Magic should be Special another 160 chapters to unravel everything and finally start getting somewhere.

There are too many parties and characters that don’t get enough attention for us to care about, but they still show up here and there. Too many factions even in the real world, so I can’t keep track of all the kingdoms and different parties working together.
It’s natural that as a poor commoner Desir will have to spend some time building up enough influence to change the world, but it’s still a tedious process to read through. All that whining about discrimination between commoners and nobles, the tragic backstories, the comically evil noble villains who never amount to much, etc.
Desir’s time travel advantage is very quickly negated when a third-party called the Outsiders show up who didn’t’ appear in his last lifetime. So now instead of preparing for the Shadow Worlds like the premise suggests, almost all of the time in the real world in the series is spent on fighting the Outsiders, then, maaaaaybe one day, we’ll eventually possibly get closer to the secrets of the Shadow World invasion.
Even after 160+ chapters there is a lot left unexplained, with no sign that they will be explained any time soon. Things like the Shadow World which are a mystery in the series as well, but all things like Circle Magic and how exactly magic works. For a series called “A Returner’s Magic should be Special,” the author does precious little to explain the ins and outs of the magic system. What’s a first circle magician, second circle, what’s the difference, what is vision magic, what makes Desir so special that others can’t imitate him, what what what. So many questions.
Since we’re the good guys, we are automatically right, so there’s no need to try to understand the other party.
Because there are so many questions, it’s painful to have so many chapters wasted early on on petty academic squabbles, cheap discrimination plots, etc.
The arcs drag on way too long. Any arc where Desir and friends enter a Shadow World should be a cue for the reader to sign out for 30 chapters and come back when things pick up. Because there’s still no clear answer to the relevance of the shadow world or why they later posed a threat to the real world, everything that goes on right now in there is 90% filler which could be entirely removed for faster pacing. Maybe eventually, way down the line it will all make sense, but again it’s like I said. The series takes forever to get anywhere.
Speaking of forever, I hope you like long drawn-out battles against irrelevant enemies. Like most of chapter 160 was Adjest versus some random guy who was introduced two chapters ago, hyped and quickly disposed of. And then after battling another enemy for several chapters, only now is Desir Arman getting round to “part two” of the battle. Ridiculous.

TL;DR maybe one day it will be good, but for now A Returner’s Magic Should be Special is not special at all. It’s a long series of chapters, a lot of fillers, some charming characters and some intriguing ideas that are not explained. I kept reading because I liked the main party and their interactions, but that can only take you so far. It’s something I’ll have to come back to in about five years to see if/when it ended. Either that, or I’ll have to read the faster-paced novel so I can see things happen before I forget who did what or why. But really, it’s not worth my time when there are so many other faster, more tightly-plotted series out there.

The Evil Lady will Change – Refreshingly sensible romance

I discovered that despite the Chinese raws, The Evil Lady will Change (恶女会改变) is actually a manhua based on a Korean web novel. That explains so much about the sheer decency of all the characters in it. This isn’t to say that all Chinese romance series have rapey male leads or comically evil female rivals, but… a LOT of them do. Enough that many fans reading The Evil Lady will Change were like “Wait… is this really a Chinese series?” It’s that surprising.

Summary:

Athanasia Cloix, a woman whose elegance and beauty is akin to that of a swan lake. Due to some rumors, however, people began to misunderstand and belittle her. As she suffered through these unfortunate events, she agreed to a political marriage with the Winter-comer who’s also known as the “Northern Monster”.

“As the Grand Duke, I will do my best to accommodate your needs and desires. But love alone is something I can’t give to you.” Unbeknownst to her, that very man will change her life and thus a new fate is about to unfold.

Yeah, you know the drill. Neither you nor I have ever read a series with an arranged marriage or “we definitively won’t fall in love” relationship where the main leads actually succeeded in not falling love. It’s a foregone conclusion, so the issue becomes watching the process instead.

The huge plus in The Evil Lady will Change is that both leads have very decent personalities, to the point of being Mary/Gary Sues. Athanasia (a.k.a. Aisha) is competent, kind and friendly, same with Ryan. They treat each other respectfully and maturely with no childish bickering or arguing. This isn’t one of those series where you’ll wonder what they see in each other.

As a double plus, they aren’t excessively dense about their feelings either. Yes, it does take them a little bit of time to realize their “won’t fall in love” pact is hokum, but once they do, it doesn’t take long for them to confess to each other and deepen their relationship after that.

What’s more, there are no credible love rivals wasting large swathes of chapters trying to make a relationship happen when it’s not going to. Both Aisha and Ryan have previous crushes which have helped shaped their personalities but which they have also firmly moved past. I enjoyed seeing Ryan put his old flame firmly in her place before she could even try something with Aisha/Athanasia. None of that nonsensical “maybe he still loves her and I’m still in the way” crap that some series spend ages on.

All this to say that The Evil Lady will Change is a great read if you want a refreshing romance with mature and sensible characters in a mature and sensible relationship. I hear there’s a happy ending as well, though that’s par for the course in these series.

Unfortunately there’s no perfect series in the world. There are a few downsides to this series, one of which is the terribly spotty quality of the translations. Which isn’t the source material’s fault, but is still a flaw anyway. I already explained at length how unfair a bad translation is to a good series, so you can refer to that post if you’re curious.

The second, bigger flaw is that the story doesn’t make a ton of sense. Part of it is the bad translation, but even accounting for that, it takes a while to get some clarity on what a “winter breaker” is, what the Arundi is, what winter actually works like in the series and why it needs to be sealed? unsealed? To be honest I still don’t fully get the plot or what the bad guys are trying to achieve and why. The series doesn’t focus on the main plot often enough, is the problem. So you’ll get a satisfying romance but everything else going on in the series will be ???

The final thing that bothers me is the disappearance of Aisha’s dumb little sister she was constantly compared to. I’m sure she’ll appear again eventually, but I miss her. She was so clueless and hateable and it was fun to see her true colors being recognized by everyone once Aisha wasn’t around to serve as a foil. Well I’m only at chapter 90, so she might show up again later. There are hints that something sinister was behind the excessive love she received from others before.

I’ll update this post once The Evil Lady will Change is complete, but for now it’s a satisfying romance to read with a couple you can really root for because they’re so decent. And eventually the story will make sense and we’ll get to see Aisha and Ryan save the world and live happily ever after. I’m looking forward to it!

Ginger and the Cursed Prince – Another romance webtoon that goes nowhere (spoilers)

Last time on this blog, we talked about False Confession, a webtoon that spends 45 chapters circling around back to chapter 1. Ginger and the Cursed Prince is another in the same vein of long drawn-out romance series that you spend months reading only to realize that almost nothing has happened.

Summary (from Tappytoon): For hopeless romantic Ginger Torte, getting engaged to the man of her dreams is a fairy tale come true. It isn’t long before she realizes the gut-wrenching truth — her fiancé has been seduced by her rival! The heartbroken Ginger finds solace in a new book that recounts the tale of a young woman and a cursed prince… But to her horror, the protagonist turns out to be none other than her beautiful nemesis, Lerazie!

As reality unfolds according to the book, both ladies fall in love with the handsome prince at first sight. Ginger vows to steal both the spotlight and the prince’s heart! But, does this story harbor a sinister secret?

So far, what is listed in the summary is what is happening in the book… but nothing beyond that! In other words, you could read the summary and stop there, and you wouldn’t have missed anything by not reading Ginger and the Cursed Prince (known in fan translation as “Virtues of the Villainess”).

The handsome prince is cursed to be able to read the minds of anyone whose eyes he looks into. The story revolves around Ginger discovering that Lerazie has a special necklace that can block the prince’s abilities. Then it’s all about Ginger scheming to get the necklace, trying to get close to the prince, amusing him with her silly/perverted thoughts when she thinks he can’t read her mind, and round and round they go.

In 44 chapters, Ginger has failed to get the necklace twice, had way too many “he can’t read my mind” scenes and bantering skits with the prince and strongly considered date raping him with very strong wine. She is not a bright character – in fact, she is extremely stupid. Her ineptness at hiding her feelings, scheming effectively or doing anything correctly might endear her to readers… or make her the stupidest, most annoying heroine you have ever read about. To me, she’s meh. An idiot, but not a lovable one.

The other characters are not as bad, but they’re not very charming or worth following either. The Prince/King has far too much leisure time to be believable. He’s also too quick to fall for a drooling fool like Ginger when there have to be better choices available. Let’s face it, Ginger would make a horrible queen. It’s hard to root for the romance between an idle prince and an IQ-challenged love interest, so it’s hard to root for the whole series.

If we had to summarize whatever progress had occurred since the start of Ginger and the Cursed Prince, it would be that first the prince barely knew Ginger existed, now he’s somewhat fond of her. Lerazie didn’t know her necklace had a special effect, then thanks to Ginger’s bungling she does and she’s actively aiming for the prince too.

And the second male lead Hamel claims to love Lerazie, but seemingly confessed to Ginger just now. But it doesn’t matter because the second male lead never ever wins in Korean webtoons. I’ve seen it happen very rarely in one or two long-running Japanese shoujo manga (Peach Girl comes to mind) but in Korean romance? Forget it! So the whole Hamel Bray side plot is a massive waste of time.

Actually I’ll cut it short here and say that the whole of Ginger and the Cursed Prince is a waste of time. Especially in a day and age where Tappytoon and other companies are churning out romance webtoons that are funnier and more focused with more likeable characters. I’m going to put this particular series on the shelf until I hear that it’s complete, then give it one big binge. Hopefully the eventual pay off will be worth the wait, but I’m not holding my breath.

False Confession – Promising series that went nowhere

False Confession (잘못된 고백), now sadly(?) on hiatus, is a romance manhwa that promised much from the start but didn’t go anywhere except hiatus in 45 chapters. I honestly feel like I wasted my time reading the whole of Season 1, but maybe Season 2 will finally have the story/awkward romance we were all expecting when we picked it up.

Summary (from the Tappytoon official site)
“I think I’ve fallen for you.” With a single drunken confession, Renesha’s plans to live a comfortable and uneventful life were shattered. Somehow she confessed her love to the wrong man: the Grim Reaper of the Battlefield, Duke Cavert Willard! It’s the worst thing to happen to her since she woke up in this fantasy universe and discovered her divine powers.

In the midst of a war with a neighboring country, Renesha must balance her duties as a healer with her feelings for two alluring knights. When romance blooms on the battlefield, who will be victorious in the battle for Renee’s heart?

I don’t dislike this manhwa trope of accidentally confessing to the wrong person, usually a very scary person. It would be horrible and awkward in real life, but that’s what fiction is for, right? And it usually makes for a sweet and fluffy romance with a huge gap between the guy/girl’s perceived tough image and actual thoughts and actions. I like it.

BUT! We didn’t get any of that in False Confession. The problem is the way the series is structured. It starts with Renesha falsely confessing to Cavert in chapter one. Then it goes on a veeeery extended flashback covering the next 35-36 chapters, showing how they went to war, Renesha fell in love with another guy, they won the war and then she got drunk and confessed.

If they had done all that without the “spoiler” of chapter one, then it would be okay to sit through the whole thing and see how she messes up her love life by confessing to the Duke instead of the Prince she had a crush on. But as it is, 35+ chapters are waaaaaay too many to sit through when you just want to see the confession and the aftermath.

You sit through many, many chapters of Renesha squealing in terror because she’s scared of the duke, complaining about the tough march, gushing and blushing over the prince, and it’s all kind of meh because you know where it’s leading. You know they’re going to come back safe from the war, you know she’s going to get with the Duke, so why all the time wasting?

Plus, Renesha is really annoying. She’s acting all scared and cautious around the Duke when he hasn’t done a single thing to hurt her or anyone she knows. He’s been a little rude, but very supportive and even saved her life in battle. But no, he’s somehow the object of sheer terror. I’m not saying she has to fall in love with him because of that, but why is her fear of him played up multiple times in the series when it’s completely unfounded? It’s annoying.

Nevertheless, despite the slow progression and Renee’s paranoia, I still sat through week after week of minor update after minor update. Then finally, finally, we got to see the false confession and the aftermath… uh, not really. Just when it seemed the whole war arc was over and normal life was about to begin again, the series went on hiatus! 8 months ago! Yipes!

Rumor has it that False Confession will resume between January and June 2021, but we’re already halfway into that period with no resumption in sight. Apart from That Girl’s Damn Wild or whatever it was called, most of the romance manhwa I read that went on hiatus did come back eventually. At the same time, an 8-month hiatus is unusually long, so I’m a little worried.

After all, all the negative comments I’ve made are coming from a place of disappointed expectation. The series is pretty promising though it has yet to deliver. I like the art, I really like both of the male leads though I prefer Cavert. Fans may rage about the uselessness of Renesha in battle, but I thought her struggles, paralysis and depression were pretty normal for a teen from a peace-loving country. It’s weird when normal kids from Korea/Japan/China suddenly become master strategists and gods of war in isekai. I was also looking forward to seeing the power struggles and political intrigue that would revolve around Renee’s healing powers and relationships.

So despite the letdown that was season 1 of False Confession, I’m still hopeful for the next season. Let’s hope I won’t have to write another negative post about it when it finally comes out. See you then!

Update: False Confession is back! In Korean raws and in (mediocre) fan translations, at least! As of June 30th, chapters 46 and 47 are out, and it seem the author is determined to destroy any feeling of “Second Lead Syndrome” in the readers. Not that I ever felt any – Cavert all the way! But no spoilers here. Wait for the official translation, catch up and let’s discussion this again at the end of Season 2!