Pros:
- Good art
- Strong female lead
- Hints at an interesting overall plot with the female lead's backstory and court intrigue
- Comedy is good
Cons:
- Story drags on (stuff could be resolved in half the amount of chapters)
- Male lead is pretty irrational for an emperor
- Follow-up to the above, the story is more comedy and requires some suspension of disbelief
- So far the romance is entirely one-sided and the male lead's interest in the female lead is more cringy jealousy than anything to squeal over
======= Update (ch. 59)
So the female lead’s past has been exposed more and the intrigue is still there, but I’m dropping this because I can’t stand the emperor / male lead. Especially when one of the other male leads has been introduced and seems awesome, but instead of him based on screen time it’s clear she’ll end up with the emperor and oh my god is there nothing good about this guy.
In the latest chapter Yesuh is somewhat injured, but it’s nothing for an assassin. And yet the emperor insists on a physician - sure, that’s okay I guess even if by now it’s grating how this guy seems to solidly ignore this assassin fact at all times. Yesuh is like no it’ll expose me ‘cause I have scars all over and that’s not normal and I’m fine… but the emperor still forces her to get checked out and expose all her scars for this minor injury, and of course he’s then also beyond shocked by her scars despite how she’s an assassin. (The physician was also shocked, but he’s trustworthy said the emperor so of course he won’t expose her and how her having scars makes no sense for her cover story.)
Oh, still no romance at all btw. The saving grace is Yesuh still has no feelings for the emperor. Also ridiculous is how the emperor so far has fallen for Yesuh but seemingly only the fake version of her? He pretty much refuses to see her or treat her as a competent assassin, which is the real her and pretty much her only defining character trait so far. Instead he’s taken to seeing her fake affection as real, and then acting out like a total child whenever anyone reminds him that uh this is an act and she’s an assassin (which he just refuses to acknowledge).
Also, he thinks wow she’s so pretty / cute / whatever… but only while she’s faking absolute affection towards him? He doesn’t think that when she’s her normal self. And then there’s him ordering people to dig into her personal life too, even after she expressly gets mad at him for this invasion of privacy - not because she might be a threat or any of plenty reasonable reasons, but because she let slip the name of this other guy and well he has to know about this other guy. The sheer amount of ridiculous stuff he does that hinders their mission or the female lead out of a ridiculous jealousy is just frustrating. And again, there’s how the emperor doesn’t really have anything good going for him either. Not really anything attractive about his personality so he ends up just dull or annoying.
I’ve rambled a bit but basically the emperor is a huge man-child and knowing this competent cool female lead is more than likely ending up with him instead of this other actually great guy is enough for me to drop this.
It’s a shame because the art is nice, Yesuh’s airheaded act is funny, and the characters (other than the ML) and plot are interesting enough too.
