Comment on Manga Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2025, Week 43]
Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m not sure about dropping huge walls of text outright so I’ll be sticking with putting stuff in spoilers when talking about multiple series. We’ll see how this works.
Another Typical Fantasy Romance
First things first: two leads are really cute together. Second things first: I really appreciate how plain/average Lithera looks (by manhwa standards anyway), it’s a breath of fresh air to be honest.
As for the story itself, it’s really fun so far. I like the theme of getting hurt > moving on > getting stronger it starts with but despite a lot of talk about it I’m not really feeling it in character’s actions? Not to a degree I’d expect that is. Some of it comes from the fact that the pace and passage of time feel rather fast so I’m not sure if they’re working on those feelings over a span of days or months. It’s almost like there’s not enough time to stew on their dilemmas so characters kinda just power through as if things weren’t that serious (and then everything is resolved a bit later).
It’s the same with some of their other problems to be honest, with a special mention of season 3 which was suppose to be the biggest challenge of all so far. We have a big new problem > oh, turns out things went smoothly and easily > back to chilling with friends. It feels like the author is more interested in just going through all of those plot points rather than exploring them.
I dunno, perhaps I’m just overthinking it. It’s not a story destroying problem so I’ll just keep enjoying it and see how things go but it’s definitely not my favourite way of approaching stories. It does live up to its name at least.
Other than that this series is great. Much steamier than expected or wrote about here before but fun nonetheless.
Hero Killer
I think I already mentioned this before but this series honestly feels like the author is just winging it at this point. There is a plot, I guess, but I wouldn’t really call it coherent or pre-planned - at least it doesn’t feel like that to me. Things happen, story moves forward and we theoretically move closer to the final goal. What is this goal? I’m honestly not sure right now. Things blur so much in my head I honestly don’t remember what’s still relevant and what was already solved or sidestepped. The fights are really dynamic and cool at least?
PrincessKadath@ani.social 3 days ago
LOL, forgot to tell you. 😅
Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 days ago
No worries, I’m not a prude who’d feel offended by this stuff nor is it an R-18 series to hide from any potential passers-by. I was just surprised after multiple titles where stuff like this was pretty much kept at a “kids friendly” level.
PrincessKadath@ani.social 3 days ago
Usually they are clearly marked as R19+. I usually skip those and read the 15+ version because sex scenes don’t really bring anything to the story.
I am not a prude myself, but for me it’s like trying to fill holes (ha!) in the story with smut scenes. I get it, the characters had sex. Big deal. 🤷♀️
Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Now you’re making me curious if there are series like this where full-on sex scenes have actually important info/growth/plot relevance without feeling like cheap filler. Overall though I think scenes like that can still serve a purpose when done correctly, like show off a different side of the characters. I feel this series is a good example of that - compare “normal” and “tea time” Pell (to use manhwa’s terminology here).
Also, I’m not gonna lie, well drawn smut can be a great read from a purely technical point of view. I love analysing how people draw stuff, especially bodies as nature is something I have HUGE problems with myself, so even without plot relevance I tend to get something out of things like that. I know people often joke how they check these things for art but that’s actually kind of where I’m at most of the time.