I was surprised at how balanced this story was. Parts of it are a little over the top, but the struggles the protagonists have seem very realistic.
As one of the characters is foreign (or rather a ハーフ), and especially since they’re Russian, I kind of expected the usual stereotypes – doesn’t speak Japanese, doesn’t understand Japanese culture, only there to be exotic. Maybe the times have changed, maybe the mangaka just knows better, but so far, the exotification is surprisingly tame. (I mostly noticed the silver hair.) I don’t know if the Russian is legit but it seems alright and they even got the Russian nickname thing correct.
The characters are still assigned traditional manga roles (lazy otaku that’s actually a genius, cold and perfect but lonely princess, meddling older sister that doesn’t know what a boundary is, gynophobic best friend, etc.) but I guess as a manga that’s aimed at a general mainstream audience, what I mentioned above is the best we could hope for haha.
(I say this after reading the first volume, so take it with a grain of salt please)
I found the vocab a little difficult, especially for a high school manga (tendency towards 悪役令嬢 rather than 部活), but having full furigana helped balance it out a little.
Surprisingly deep and legit
I was surprised at how balanced this story was. Parts of it are a little over the top, but the struggles the protagonists have seem very realistic.
As one of the characters is foreign (or rather a ハーフ), and especially since they’re Russian, I kind of expected the usual stereotypes – doesn’t speak Japanese, doesn’t understand Japanese culture, only there to be exotic. Maybe the times have changed, maybe the mangaka just knows better, but so far, the exotification is surprisingly tame. (I mostly noticed the silver hair.) I don’t know if the Russian is legit but it seems alright and they even got the Russian nickname thing correct.
The characters are still assigned traditional manga roles (lazy otaku that’s actually a genius, cold and perfect but lonely princess, meddling older sister that doesn’t know what a boundary is, gynophobic best friend, etc.) but I guess as a manga that’s aimed at a general mainstream audience, what I mentioned above is the best we could hope for haha.
(I say this after reading the first volume, so take it with a grain of salt please)
I found the vocab a little difficult, especially for a high school manga (tendency towards 悪役令嬢 rather than 部活), but having full furigana helped balance it out a little.