- #1
Typical female MC transmigrated into otome game fantasy European land in contract marriage with stereotypical cold noble ML, one of the dateable leads as a “villainous” role. What really made me stay was the commitment to fleshing out the side characters. Cheering on the MC as she won them over. Building the infrastructure and developing product and land and people. I love these types of stories.
However, this MC has a clear “I am Japan and Japan mentality is good and I must see all humans as humans” etc etc etc. As a reader, my immersion broke when MC gets kidnapped and with less than a quarter of the chapter, forgives her kidnappers and makes everyone who was concerned about her safety also forgive them.
By this point, it is clear that end goal couple is MC and her husbando. Who at 76 chapters has not only no redeeming features, he’s also a super forgettable character that I want to skip over. Who of course has a hinted tragic backstory regarding his youngest sibling and how he sees hints of his youngest sibling in MC. Wtf bro, y’all married. I’m not here for pseudo in*est. (To be fair, this could be misconstrued cause MTL but when that came up... weird.)
Why is this couple predictable even though other dateable knight lead has been by her side all this time? Cause of how much the story constantly repeats how she would not survive as a divorcee. There is no way this woman who has done some incredible things to raise this village could possibly survive social suc*de. She would have to become... a nun!!! MC doesn’t believe she’ll be okay. Her aides don’t believe she’ll be okay. Her villagers don’t think she’ll be okay not being noble (and married). Her husbando... doesn’t think she’ll be okay. But wait!
The whole premise of this story was her going and getting the rights to own this land and draw up a marriage terms contract and doing so much, was so that she would be okay. All of this build up just to be tossed out the window cause MC and ML gotta be together. OMG.
Also mild annoyance was new character introduction was third dateable lead, shota sickly crown prince of neighboring country whose super duper powerful magic (with no context of how much) has to stay with her cause politics. And some reason, she has to heal this guy even though true Heroine was slated to be savior. But don’t worry, of course he’s important. They eat her newly invented mozzarella cheese together and have a picnic.
[collapse]TLDR, first few chapters are nice. Later gets boring. I’ll reread “Common Sense of a Duke’s Daughter” to get my fix of female MC building towns. Maybe someone could tell me if it gets better after ch 76...