Ascending, Do Not Disturb web novel review – My kind of slow romance

Ascending, Do Not Disturb by Yue Xia Die Ying is a Chinese web novel that comes up very often when you ask for suggestions for romance with supportive, non-crazy, non-rapey male leads. Fans call that genre “fluffy” romance, but even then not all fluff is genuinely fluff all the way through. I’m happy to report that Ascending, Do Not Disturb is one of the good ones, though. Not perfect, but really good and fun to read, worth the time to try.

Summary: A deposed young princess named Kong Hou is picked up by an old cultivator and taken to the world of cultivators to cultivate. Blessed with supernatural luck and natural talent, she quickly begins to make waves not only in her sect but in the cultivation world at large. The series is fully translated and can be read here: Ascending, Do Not Disturb.

Cons:

– The chief problem is that the main character, Kong Hou, is a complete Mary Sue. Just total, perfect, almost entirely without flaws, loved by almost everyone except the baddest guys. She also has supernatural luck, which is one of her character definitions.

The drawback of all this is that it’s impossible to get under her skin. You can see the falling in love process and sympathize much more closely with the male lead, Xuan Zhong (Xi) than with the female lead. This is not enough of a problem to ruin the series, but if you want to read about a female cultivator’s love adventures, you’ll be a bit disappointed.

The second drawback is that her supernatural luck takes a lot of the tension out of things. If they need a certain herb, whoops, the grass she just happened to pull up is the herb. The random flowers she looked at are super rare once-in-a-lifetime blooms. The fish she bought is the best in the world. Etc. etc. So although the story is supposed to be a journey of adventure and struggle and hardship, in practice almost everything goes Kong Hou’s way, which is rather boring.

-This Mary Sueness also extends to Kong Hou’s sect, the Splendid Cloud Sect. They’re the smartest, happiest, secretly the strongest. It extends to their city, Harmonious City as well, where all the citizens are so bright and happy and prosperous and clever. You get sick of the endless praise for Kong Hou, Splendid Cloud and Harmonious City, especially in the last few chapters.

– While the male lead isn’t the crazy type, he is still a bit possesssive, and inclined to be extremely cold and unfriendly to any male who even looks at Kong Hou funny. Which is a lot of males because she’s Mary Sue. It’s a bit annoying the further you get in.

– Huan Zhong lies a lot to Kong Hou throughout the series. They’re mostly “white lies” that don’t hurt anyone, but it gets uncomfortable because of its high frequency.

– Misunderstandings occur galore, but not of the series and dumb type. They’re usually humorous. Like people misunderstanding Huan Zhong’s and Kong Hou’s actions of sending fish home – they’re just sending random fish, but it turns out to be super expensive and precious fish. Or people think they’re lovers, wait no they’re not, no wait they are. Even they misunderstand their feelings towards each other before they finally come together. It’s a con because I usually hate misunderstandings that aren’t quickly resolved, but it’s not too bad in this series.

-The last thirty or so chapters were a slog. First you have to read a ton of PDA between the two lovers. You’re so handsome, kiss kiss, you’re so beautiful, hug hug, I love you. Then all kinds of characters come out of nowhere with their centuries-old romance that gets dragged up, then there’s a long period of separation, blah blah, finally the confrontation with the final boss, THEN the end. Seriously tedious stuff.

Pros:
– It’s a slow romance, but it’s not really that slow. Most of the time I dread series with the “slow romance” tag because either the characters meet at a very young age and take forever to get together, or they meet once and then only very very sporadically until poof, suddenly they’re in love. In Ascending, Do Not Disturb, the characters meet early, start travelling together, and have lots and lots of interactions that show them getting closer. That means it’s not a mystery what they see in each other or what brought them together like it often is in other series.

– The characters support, respect and care for each other throughout the series with only one big conflict, which is quickly resolved. This isn’t one of those series where they bicker and banter and hate each other until suddenly they don’t. You won’t have to feel bad rooting for a nutcase married to a doormat like often happens.

– It’s short and complete at 158 chapters. That’s my kind of series. The chapters are also long and meaty, none of this “dividing one chapter into 3 for more views” nonsense. None of that reading 2000 chapters only for the author to drop the series nonsense. Plus because it’s short, the story is also focused – gather ingredients to cure Xuan Zhong, and develops rapidly.

– It’s clean. By clean I mean no sexual assault (kissing or holding a character against their will), no rape or attempted rape, no dumb aphrodisiac storylines, no other sexual content. It takes the main characters a long while to even hold hands, and then everyone’s like “GASP! THEY’RE HOLDING HANDS!!!!” I’m occasionally blindsided by series that start out normal and eventually turn into smut, like The Lady’s Sickly Husband, or that one with the runaway ninja. They should tell you upfront if that’s the case. Happily enough, Ascending, Do Not Disturb is suitable for even young teens to read.

– It’s not all sugar and light. It’s mostly sweet , but there are dark undercurrents and some dangerous moments. These mainly revolve around evil cultivators who go around doing some pretty gnarly stuff, mainly to mortals but also to cultivators. It never descends into horror, but it does have some moments of danger.

-It’s mainly a romance series, but it does have a decent amount of cultivation discussion and action. It’s not one of those “female cultivator” series where she either doesn’t see the guy for 1000 chapters because she’s too busy adventuring, or one of those where she immediately abandons her sect to chase a guy. There’s a mix of everything that was promised when you read a romance cultivation manga, so that’s great.

-Shoutout to the translators at Dreams of Jianghu for an excellent translation that was very smooth and easy to read. I deplore the current trend of people publishing unedited or barely edited machine translation for quick views and cash. This is a well-made and edited translation that made the reading experience much more pleasant.

Summary

Ascending, Do Not Disturb is a short, fun romance manga with a loving, respectful relationship between the two main characters. In the world of Chinese web novels, it’s like a flower planted in a heap of manure, as the Chinese proverb goes. As I listed above, there are a number of problems with it, most notably Kong Hou’s Mary Sue nature and the sluggish nature of the last third.

If you want a good romance web novel, though, this is a satisfying read that will keep you busy for a few days in a row and leave you happy. Give it a try if that’s your thing!

I Became the Chef of the Dragon King

I Became the Chef of the Dragon King is a combination of colorful art, cute character and mascot designs, an inevitable romance and lots of delicious-looking food. It won’t rock your world or anything, but it’s harmless fluff that is great for passing the time. I just wish there were more chapters.

Summary (from Mangadex): Cheong Shim threw herself into the sea of Indangsu! What will happen when she wakes up in a lazy dragon’s dungeon? Meet many cute monsters while living a delicious, symbiotic life!

As you can see from the cover art, Cheong Shim has a very cutesy design, and a cute, super ditzy personality to match. The reason she threw herself into the sea is not to commit suicide but so her ailing father could receive 300 bags of rice and eventually receive healing from Buddha. From that alone you can see how naive she is.

But it’s not the annoying kind of naive. She doesn’t go overboard being all cheerful and Pollyanna. She seems a little down at times, she suffers setbacks, she doesn’t want to get eaten by the dragon, and she pushes back reasonably enough when the dragon makes illogical demands.

All this to say that the main appeal of I Became the Chef of the Dragon King is the charming main character. Yes, Cheong Shim is very much a Mary Sue, but in a manageable, believable way. She didn’t win the Dragon King over completely in a day, and even her food isn’t that wonderful. One of her dishes was so salty it was almost inedible. Just like the meatballs I had last night… =_=

So since she’s sweet and hardworking, but not completely perfect, it’s easy to root for Cheong Shim as she tries to make a peaceful life for herself in the dragon’s abode. That’s the main reason why I’m following the series. 

Although the series will supposedly be about winning the Dragon King over with food, only 7 chapters are out so far (as of early May 2020). In those chapters, Cheong Shim has only made two dishes, so if you’re here for delicious food pics and recipes, you have a long wait ahead.

If you’re reading it for romance, you’re out of luck again. So far the (admittedly cute) Dragon King only finds her to be a somewhat intriguing annoyance. And he himself is a bit grumpy and whiny, so it’s hard to ship them together. Though I suppose one would be grumpy if a noisy squatter suddenly moved into your house.

All in all, I Became the Chef of the Dragon King has made a very promising start. I’m looking forward to seeing more tasty-looking meals once Cheong Shim gets a set of cooking tools together. I’d also like to see the cute mascots on the cover being introduced. And of course, mustn’t forget the romance! I’ll update this post when the series is complete/much further along. Until then!

Kaikisen manga review

I don’t have the energy to read long volumes these days, so I turned my hand to a one-volume manga by the late Satoshi Kon. The blurb of Kaikisen goes as follows:

The legend has it that once upon a time, a pact was sealed between the Shinto priest of the town of Amide and a mermaid. Ever since, abundant fishing has guaranteed the town’s prosperity. This pact has always been honored by the priests of the Yashiro family. However, the legend has attracted both media and property developers, and the acting priest has acceded to their demands. Yosuke, youngest of the Yashiro family, has doubts about the existence of the mermaid, but will soon change his opinion as strange occurrences begin to unfold…

What I liked:

The art was clean but detailed. The story was short but action-packed, it felt a lot like an action movie especially near the end. Not too much happened, which kept the events simple enough to understand. The “big bad” was a little ridiculous in the lengths to which he would go to keep the egg, but the other characters in the story were believable and understandable.

The tension between the islanders who wanted to modernize and those who wanted to keep things the same was easy to sympathize with as well. The resolution was positive, but it didn’t magically clear way all the tensions that had existed in the town.

What I didn’t like:

I can understand the motivation of some of the characters, but that doesn’t mean any of them are likeable. The main character Yosuke in particular is just a chain-smoking unmotivated slacker who happens to do the right thing for once in his life. Kudos Yosuke, but that doesn’t make you any less annoying. His friend might as well have been air and his not-really-relationship with that girl who just came back from the city smacks of one of those relationships Hollywood throws into every action movie just for kicks.

That’s the main problem with Kaikisen. You’re not really rooting for anyone, except maybe the mermaid who stupidly entrusted a precious egg to those perfidious humans. The bad guys are given a treatment at the end that suggests they might not be so bad after all but given that their motivations were never really explored and the ‘good guys’ weren’t that easy to sympathize with either, it just smacks of Satoshi Kon trying to end things on a realistic note (bad guys aren’t killed) while not leaving a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. It… doesn’t really work IMO.

Overall:

Well whatever. That’s the beauty of a one-volume manga. On the minus side it might rush a few things and tie up some ends too neatly, but on the big plus side, when it’s over, it’s over. Kaikisen is a short, action-packed read with a good mix of modern-day realism and the supernatural. There’s a bonus, unrelated short story after that, but I disliked it after one page so I dropped it. The main story is worth a read as long as you don’t have to go out of your way to do so. Enjoy~

Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~ vol. 1 manga review

Another stupid manga, I won’t waste too much time writing about this one. Kouhei is a photographer of spiritual phenomena. He runs into this loli named Hazuki in Germany and she tries to make him her slave by biting him. After some hijinks involving a cursed castle, Kouhei and Hazuki end up back in Japan together. She turns out to be a vampire, and Kouhei promises to help her find her mother, partly because he has unresolved mommy issues of his own.

If Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~ doesn’t sound too exciting from my description, that’s because it’s not. Hazuki’s too stupid to be a manipulative loli, too young to be a convincing tsundere and too bad-tempered to be a sympathetic character. As for Kouhei, the only thing he’s got going for him is that he’s invulnerable to hypnosis and stuff, but that’s because he’s DENSE, nothing else. So you’ve got a series that revolves around a relationship between two unlikeable characters…is anyone but me seeing the problem here or do you need a few more hints?

After licensing so many bad titles like this, no wonder Tokyopop is in trouble. Moving on…