Manga Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2026, Week 20]
Another week in the books. Let's chat about manga in the general discussion thread! Feel free to use this thread for questions, comments, recommendations, etc.
Like normal, please be careful with spoilers. I wrote a guide about spoilers in case you need a refresher on how to handle them (also linked in the sidebar).
I've been thinking about my manhwa adventures and came up with a few things I'd like to be combined at least once in the future:
Pretty much every story I've read that starts with these things drops all of them by the end and cruises to a generic "rich and powerful family" ending. It's honestly disappointing and extremely annoying.
I don't know if it's some kind of power fantasy popular in Korea or a general manga/manhwa/manhua trend (it's been a while since I read a non-Korean series of this kind) but boy is it common. I should take a break.
Now with rant out of the way, it's time to talk about some of the series I've been reading since last week. I have three titles to go through today so I'll jump right into it.
The first title I want to write about this time is The Villainess Empress's Attendant.
Knight with magical powers bails out of her home country to search for her destined mission, necessary to keep her powers. She tries to lay low about her status, ends up working as a maid in the imperial palace then, shortly after, becomes appointed to the empress who's so villainous she's been churning through attendants on the regular.
Things obviously aren't as straightforward and the story quickly moves to talking about bullying, social isolation and standing up for yourself. It's pretty good.
Eventually, things shift from a pretty personal story to a more generic, world threatning plot (villain's goal is technically different but their success might lead to it anyway) which is kind of "meh". Add the fact it also has two characters (crown prince and crown princess from different kingdoms) who are obsessed with the protagonist and the whole things ends up sounding less and less engaging with each chapter.
It's not terrible and the initial focus isn't forgotten but I can't say I cared much about these developments.
It was fun, it was good and it managed to keep me reading despite pushing my dislike multiple times - I just wish it didn't.
Series number two: The Villainess Is Tired of Everything.
This one starts with a decent premise - lady gets dumped into a body of a villainess, tries to act decent but regardless of what she does everyone interprets her actions in the most malicious and negative way. She decides to give up and enjoy her life while holed up in her mansion instead.
This should make for a decent story about a woman flaunting her wealth and having fun on her own, right? And since she's from the modern world, it could focus on her figuring out how to do it without access to things like smartphones and the internet - huge potential of situations and activities to explore! I wish.
The world she's in has magic and, thanks to the power of "story wants things to be easy", it can be used to create "magical tools". That includes things like making a camera and projector, to record stage plays and use them in her personal home cinema room. Not only that but she meets an extremely powerful magician who makes whatever she wants without breaking a sweat. All of this kind of takes any (and already limited) challenge from her self-imposed isolation making it feel like a temporary vacation more than anything else.
Not that it matters because the story quickly shifts away from the initial premise and our MC willingly throws herself back into social life and other activities that go completely against the "I don't care any more" attitude from the start. Add the usual obsessed male leads, basic political intrigue and inability to keep things simple and the only thing I can say is: I feel baited.
It's not bad but it's not what I wanted coming in. Anyway, it's too early to make the final judgement on this story as it's not yet finished. We'll see how things go in season 3.
Last on the list today is The Price of a Broken Engagement.
MC is separated from her family as a child and raised as a "chosen once from the prophecy" in the imperial palace instead. One day it's revealed she's not the chosen one costing her position and engagement to the crown prince. MC vows revenge.
This series is difficult and somewhat frustrating to talk about. It's mostly a power fantasy but written in an engaging enough way to not make it boring or entirely predictable. Ersia, the protagonist, is smart and knows how to make use of her previous position, knowledge gained during her stay in the palace and her family's wealth to be a painful thorn in crown's side. Most of the story focuses on political and social manoeuvring which is pretty fun to read through.
The final arc of the story is also mostly that but we also get an uptick in combat scenes which... don't really fit well with the rest of it, in my opinion - not because of being action focused but rather because how they play out. I'll put the rest in spoilers.
::: spoiler General(ish) combat spoilers Multiple times throughout the story we see that, in the right circumstances, Ersia can defend herself with her dagger. At the same time, she can be overpowered pretty easily by any decently built guy due to the size and strength difference - this makes sense and prevents her from feeling too powerful in the scope of the plot.
Then comes the final arc where we see her hold on against experienced assassins with swords while she's equipped with a dagger (strike 1) and wearing restrictive skirt (strike 2) + high heel boots (strike 3). We're talking about a woman who previously couldn't even free herself when someone grabbed her wrist with enough strength.
Not that combat matters much anyway since MC's side has access to a powerful priest who ends up healing multiple people so there aren't any consequences to fighting (outside a few faceless goons who are off-screened). :::
All in all, combat scenes don't add much to the story but they're neither numerous nor egregious enough to destroy the experience. They can be ignored easily enough. The same however can't be said about the mandatory romance - that part genuinely pissed me off. I hated it to the point I ended up dropping the series at the very last chapter of the main story (there are some bonus chapters but I won't be touching them either).
Am I overreacting? Possibly, it doesn't make me hate the end result any less. Why did I drop it so late? Because for whatever reason I had a sliver of hope the author won't go through with it. I won't go into details because at this point I don't even want to think about it any more but it completely sank any remaining interest I had in this story.
It's a pretty good series, as long as you don't mind the undeserved romance built on, in my opinion, toxic foundations.
Well, this is it. Another week, another rant. I should really take a better look at the kind of stories I'm getting into, preferably start looking for series with zero romance altogether from now on. So many interesting starts only to be dragged down by a bad romance. Ughh...