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150
25
Finished
Mar 5, 2009 to May 20, 2020
3.7/10
Average Review Score
0%
Recommend It
3
Reviews Worldwide
You don't hear this often, but just go watch the anime. The manga is a waste of time. Spoilers, by the way. This manga suffers from a really bad case of "should have ended a long time ago". The first 20 to 40 chapters of this manga are really solid. Top tier shoujo romance, with good characters, interesting interactions, light and compelling story. That doesn't last long though, things get rough, and they get rough fast and they don't get better. The first bit of the manga, about up to where the anime ends, is the only real enjoyable and worthwhile part of the series. The dramaisn't too overblown, the characters are largely enjoyable and complement each other quite well, and the story doesn't have any real flaws. It was really quite good enough for me to consider it one of my "favourites" and a gold standard for shoujo romance. After that little honeymoon phase the story takes a repetitive turn wherein the characters continuously degrade and the general plot stagnates. Chapters (roughly) 40-110 can be summarized in one phrase: "Your princess is in another castle". The plot from this point forwards is basically Nike gets kidnapped, gets a little Stockholm syndrome, NTR bait, Livius rescues her useless ass, and she defends the people who kidnapped her because "they had a good reason". The problem is over, and everyone lives happy every after*... until Nike gets kidnapped again. This same plotline happens literally three times, and is literally the same exact shit, with just a new skin / villain. This gets real old, real fast, and does little to develop the characters, or the plot (which comes in real hard, last minute, and not in a good way). This hurts Nike as a character and the general story because we don't see her relationship with Livius develop (which is the literally supposed to be the focus of the series). Nike prior to Livius was carefree, naive but strongwilled, took her blows in stride and knew what she wanted. Afterwards, we begin to resent her as a character because she defends villains very clearly in the wrong and does so by directly opposing Livius who is in the right, both as a King and a husband, seeking retribution / punishment. We also see some half-assed NTR bait where the captors fall in love with her because she's so nice and she does little to rebuke it or even notice it, and when Nike and Livius do meet up after all this, they make each other worse people, and worse monarchs, either through their nonsense fights, or general character regression. Nike somehow continues to become more, and more naive as this repeated kidnap nonsense occurs, the direct opposite of what you would think should happen. She also ends up combative with only Livius too, almost as if he is the villain who kidnapped her or is in the wrong for wanting to retaliate, as a King should. At least if he wants to keep his head. Nike goes through no meaningful character development until the end of the manga, which has to asspull it. Livius becomes an awful king and weak person. Livius prior to Nike was a cold, callous, and maybe even a cruel king, but an effective one, who largely improved the lives of his citizens, and the country, as well as the surrounding areas / countries. As a person, he was a checked out, distrustful, but moral, intelligent, and logical. After Nike, the prodigious king becomes an idiotic emotional child. He loses his conviction, his ability to rule, his logical nature, and becomes a weak, whipped, angry child who has nothing to offer as a spouse or as a king. He is worse off from having met Nike (until the end which obviously has to asspull progression), he trades his old personality flaws, which he managed to capitalize on, and trades them for new ones he cannot capitalize one that have essentially no merit, that never could have built the country he has. The side characters, villains, and other characters honestly aren't worth mentioning, they're very one note, and none of them have any real serious development / regression, at least when compared to the two main characters. The villains are pretty pathetic, either in their justifications for whatever their plot relevant actions are, or general personalities which seem to revolve around Livius or Nike, or both of them, in some ridiculous manner. The side characters are really overshadowed by the leads which do not really allow them develop or take any meaningful spotlight. Some of them are pretty interesting / funny, others are generic and whatever. None of them can either save or ruin things however, as the latter has been thoroughly handled by Nike and Livius. The story and the new villains / characters (for the duration of the kidnap nonsense), often appear and try to guilt Livius and paint him as an awful person for making mistakes, or awful (but justifiable or at least understandable) choices, as a ruler might have to. This often ends up, at least to me, feeling ridiculous, doubly so when we largely view the story through the lens of Livius, and we see the context surrounding these misdeeds, and we remember Livius was a literal child throughout the duration of these events. Sure their motivations are understandable, but even when looking at the story through their eyes, it's really hard to like or sympathize with them, at least from a logical point of view. After making it through this nonsense we end up in quite possibly the worst boat a fantasy manga / story can end up in, and we ride it all the way until the end of the manga. We end up with a "future past" story-line wherein the setting of the manga actually ends up the results of a now dead hyper advanced civilization, a la Horizon Zero Dawn, except we get literally no indication of this, until it happens over 100 chapters in. This revelation is jarring, out of character (for the manga), and completely unnecessary. It adds little to the overall story, if anything it detracts, and is not even close to the best direction the manga could have gone. It's even more irritating when a "end of the world" sort of apocalypse conspiracy plot line joins in, which is even more jarring and even more out of no where. The only benefits of this is that the manga is ending and we get some half-assed character development. The story is at this point, for all intents and purposes, completely dead, a shell of it's former self, and has all but abandoned its previous romantic / adventure SoL focuses for which it gained a name from and which was the primary redeeming feature of the manga. The manga ends off exactly how you might expect, with the power of friendship and love, and a little bit of self sacrifice saving the day, before all consequences and sacrifices are wiped away after a timeskip, where everything ends happily ever after. Except no one gives a damn at this point, no one cares about the characters, the story, the manga, at all, anymore. You just end up at an empty, disappointing ending, that honestly, you've probably checked out for the majority of, for a manga you no longer care about, wondering about how good the story could have been if it had gone down a different route. Seriously, don't read the manga, 20 chapters of greatness is not worth 120 chapter of dreadfulness. Just watch the anime and use your imagination to create a story of where things could have gone, because I guarantee it will be better than what actually happened in the manga.
Nike, the fourth princess of the Rain Dukedom and one who holds the power to call forth the rain, travels to the Sun Kingdom to marry Sun King Livius for her country, despite her own reluctance. She soon discovers that the King, who conquered the world in only three years after his ascendance to the throne, is still a child!! Furthermore, for trivial reasons, he has demanded that Nike call forth the rain...?! (Source: MU)
I don't know how can someone read this manga and actually claim that they liked it. Basically the author decided to ran it down after where the anime left, we are reading Nike getting along well with everyone (including villains who kidnapped her and literally tried to rape her as well) but somehow having lack of empathy towards Livius. The reader is stuck in the loop of events that I've described above, she will get kidnapped and saved until the author decides it's enough and concludes the series in the worst possible way with a ridiculously paced, rushed ending that makes you go "what thehell did I just read?"
I give this an honest rating of 4/10, "Bad", simply due to the fact that the manga is just that. The author trying to incorporate heavy themes like e.g. sexual assault and how said heavy themes are handled is simply perplexing, disrespectful, careless, cheap and weak. The author is clearly uninformed and ignorant in this matter. Now, I was never able to put everything I feel and think about this manga into words but after a reread years later I can confidently tell what I could not before; This manga is disgusting (to me). It is disguised as this complex journey with deep, complex characters and,as the main aspect, this complex and "philosophical" take of "All is in the way of the world and can not be inherently bad. Everyone/thing is loveable.". Whew, that is a lot to take in.. not really. I mentioned it being a diguise. There is many a moment that these "commandments" of this "intricately crafted" mindset deeply anchored in Nike are being played out at once. It tries so hard that is becomes this uncomfortable and foolish way of thinking "everyone deserves a 3rd and 4th chance no matter the crime, there is no true evil, forgive and forget, accept everything, even rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, kidnappings, extortion etc." It gets wild to say the least. And this is the downfall of Nike, the major character that is a part of the lifeline of this manga. But ruining is too mild a description. She goes up in flames and is reborn as a vile spawn of brainrot incarnate. Her mindset becomes so exaggerated that she starts to lean into a satirical pretentious and selfish character that has wholly different morale, thoughts, actions, feelings etc., why would she need to hold dear every single evil being and every one of her abusers. She shows traits similar to how her early character was established but is a new and infinitely worse character and everywhere she goes turns to ruin aswell. This all alone would not be able to tank my enjoyment and personal rating to a 4/10. That is solely due to how chapters ~90+ go. "If you don't like or can't stomach this content don't read!!" or other statement don't hit. It isn't about what happens. I don't care for NTR and that stuff. I care about how it is introduced, incorporated, how it plays out and how everything around it is handled. The problem lies with the manga as a whole from this point onwards. It turns into a skewed over the top fanfic version of itself. A parody. It reads a little differently... It reads like the excerpt from the mind of a rape apologist. Someone trying to tell you that "he didn't want to kill the 70 innocent people, he was deeply troubled!", someone telling you that "she chose it by wearing these clothes". A person abusing characters (in happenings and writing) for shock value. For drama. For easy pages. How I can dare to type that? It is the truth. Nike is fully disconnect from any bad thing that happens to her (even the attempted rape) to then play out the aforementioned mindset of hers. It never comes up again. She is shaking for 3 panels and we move on from ever mentioning it again, even to Livi, to then help her rapist shortly after and show signs of some bond having been created. I feel embarrassed whenever I look at any panel working around one of these events. I have seen people compare this to other works of similar nature, other Shoujo manga, other long running series and the one that stuck with me the most was someone comparing it to "Akatsuki No Yona". The difference is: this manga is a stupid formula Shoujo that started off in its lane but tried to be something it was not and could never be due to the author's inability and unwillingness to properly write around themes that take a tiny bit more brain capacity than "owo hot 2nd ML flirts with FL and she sways~ beach chapter next!!". Akatsuki No Yona has multiple instances of terrible writing, terrible dynamics and relationship management, a often questionable and unenjoyable female lead and unsatisfactory romance (progressed at mach10 after having been abandoned for so long). And still, it is infinitely better than this work even if only due to the fact that the author didn't try to force in deeper thematics when combined with e.g. kidnappings (Yona classic). They acknowledge flaws and use them as an advantage. The author really knows they are doing and it shows in how the story flows, even with major flaws. This manga had NONE, zero, not a single one redeeming quality at and from that later stage.