Rae D.'s manga / #9.4(10)

5

6

27

7

5

12

78

1

6

*happy sigh* wow. That was unexpected! I can’t lie, I kind of cried some!! After ~60 chapters into this 80 chapter manwha, the story has a HUGE shift. Those first ~60 chapters were full of stress and sadness and complicated political plot and jargon about nuclear weapons and internationally illegal blah blah blah blah. But then for the last 20 chapters of this story? STRAIGHT FLUFF!!! Like seriously shit got so fluffy and cute in a way I was not at all expecting! Somehow, given the way the rest of the story was it’s as if I almost didn’t think the story was capable of delivering this level of fluff, lol. But, oh my glob it did it did it did. *sigh* like my heart is full of fluffy feelings (and my ipad’s camera roll is full of screenshots!). Honestly, the author could have just ended the story after the second season (chapter 68) and then instead of trying to have a third season, the remaining 12 chapters of this story could have been side stories. It would have made more sense considering 1) the huge tonal shift and 2) the fact that the first two seasons are ~30 chapters each, and the third season only ended up being 12, lol. Whatever, none of that is really important tbh. What’s important is my little whittle baby Lee Younjin and how many happy tears I am shedding for him deep in my heart because he finally got the chance to attain the happiness he so sincerely deserved in his life . Alright, so this story was written by the author of the BL “Big Apple” and it showssss. Hahaha, I don’t mean that in a really bad way or anything, but the same way this author wrote the plot of Big Apple is how she wrote it here. Talking about hacking into mainframes and heists and Interpool and Russian torture methods and carrying guns and international drug cartel smuggling and on and on and on. She is such a silly girl and honestly? I love that for her, hahahhahahahaha. Like, I think it’s super cute. I do feel a bit bad for her because just like with Big Apple, the plot doesn’t really land with the audience the way she wants it to. Like, she is putting in a whole lot of effort into this political/spy/heist/mafia type plot but she does so so so much with it that in all the comment sections you can tell the girls are kind of more indifferently confused rather than super into it. So yeah, that’s not great. But also this is only her second story really, so I am assuming she will get better at making her plots more sensical and not so over our heads. With Big Apple, this author had a different artist working with them than the artist they worked with for The Origin of Species. The art styles of these two artists are remarkably different. This artist here……. Struggles with some technical art things, most notably, scaling objects and proportions of body parts lol. It’s noticeable, but not annoying, just funny. It was super easy to overlook those issues because she still made the characters looks good in her own way. Her chibis were especially cute and a little odd haha. Same thing with my baby (the MC). He is so adorable but in a slightly off looking way? Idk how to describe it exactly. And the love interest, despite being drawn with ridiculous proportions the majority of the times he is on my screen, still has enough of the work put into him so that I know he is hot. Overall I think the artist could use a lot of improvement, but the audience can definitely see the vision, so it’s alright. It’s like her brain is moving at a much higher level than her hands seem to be able to match, you know? And this is especially evident when it comes to smut. Firstly, I should say there was sooooooooooooooooo much smut in this story lol. Like, too much. But that being said, the smut was preeeetty good lol. Like, the art was defo beneath the level of the smut. I could see exactly what the artist was going for in her head. It translated directly to my brain and I felt it fully somehow, even when the art skills weren’t there lol. Idkidkidk I can’t really explain it hahaha. Basically the art was lowkey bad, but the intention that could be felt behind the art shown through so brightly it didn’t really matter. Overall really, my experience of reading this manwha was a bit odd. There are many many things with this manwha that are “bad” and that I would be way more harshly criticizing had I seen them in another manwha. The art was lowkey bad, there was way too much sex, the plot was as silly confusing over the top as it was, the love interest was pretty (actually very!) problematic when it came to consent, the MC made very frustrating decisions, etc…… But despite all that, I simply can’t manage to be upset at this story no matter how I really put it. I know the review I had in mind for this story before the fluffy part at the end came around, lol, and it was soooooo different than the review I am writing now. The fluff changed me haha. It did. Like, when I say hurt/comfort? Yeah, this is it. The story was hurting me for real, and then the comfort came and blessed my soul. The comfort was so comforting it really washed away whatever qualms I was having deep within me hahahha. God this couple really wiggled a way into my heart. Like I don’t even really fuck with the love interest like that like that, but I ADORE the MC and I know that the LI loves the MC and is good for/to him and so how could I not manage to love the LI for the MC, you know? What I feel about the LI don’t really matter. My baby Lee Youngjin has been through so so sooo much and I have full 1000000000000% confidence that being with LI is his path to happiness, so I am in love with the idea of these two being together. Also they are genuinely just sweet together. Like I was involuntarily sticking out my lower lip while reading this lol in a way that’s like “awwwwwww”. Anyway, despite all the flaws this story had, of which there were MANY, it’s one of those where I was extremely able and willing to suspend my disbelief and kind of just shut my brain down in order to enjoy it, lol. MC is such a darling little baby boy so I had to do it for him. Objectively speaking this probs deserves a lower score, but I couldn't possibly give it anything less than what I am giving it: a 9.4. P.S.: this was one of the least omegavers-y omegarverses I’ve ever read, lol. Like, the author did a thing where she broke a ton of the conventional rules of omegaverse– which is fine because others have done that before. But unlike others she…. Didn’t include anything in the beginning of the story to explain the rule changes she made! So the readers just had to… learn as we went along and guess at things? It was odd and if any other story did it, it would probs annoy me tbh. Ultimately, the author didn’t seem to actually want to write omegaverse, she just seemed to want to write a universe where mpreg is possible. Which like, she could’ve done that with it being omegaverse and I kind of wish she did. She should've just had a world where she explains in the beginning that there is a gene mutation or something like that. Ah, well whatever. The fluff and comfort of this sotyr at the end has truly trulllly made me switch my brain to “I’ll give it a pass” whenever I think of any flaw in this story, hahahha. P.S.S.: despite me saying all that I said about him, I still feel like I didn’t properly describe how cute the MC was lol. God he’s such a little baby. It warmed my heart to no fucking end. The little baby in all his little baby clothes making all his little baby expressions and that smile? UGH *cardiac arrest* (