I actually did find this entertaining... or maybe compelling (like a tragedy taking place) is more accurate. The writing was still bad. Then I got to chapter 56 and got fed up with how artificial and forced nearly every situation is. This isn't character driven, situation driven, nor any mix of the two, it's author driven.
The first chapters pull you in, and then the author has to force every character to an out-of-character, mentally ill, extreme just to keep the story going because I have the feeling they don't know any better.
The MC (main character) is dense only when it comes to the two most important parts of the story: women and societal changes, but then strangely gets smart enough for it not to hurt him when it should. Then he goes back to being dense at the earliest convenience.
I have literally had to have other people tell me when someone was into me. I'm as dense as a load of bricks. But even I was able to pick up on a girl who acted in obvious ways towards me. Girls don't do what the girls in this story do unless they have romantic feelings. And the MC goes back and forth on recognizing the actions and the feelings behind them...and then forgetting they ever said and did those things.
Then everything he does regarding helping the village/country is half-thought and half-baked, and yet the story presents it like it's a good thing.
He also proceeds to ignore every serious warning he gets after recognizing something is wrong. This is either bad writing or willful ignorance that's rescued by the author.
It's impossible to get immersed in the story, as the author has to constantly rescue the MC, and everything feels so forced. This also happens for the first woman he forms a connection to, which leads me to the bait-and-switch romance that irritates me: the one female character, Valetta, that is the most interesting and my personal favorite, is becoming obsessive and compulsive due to a move the author seems to do to all their characters:
Make the character do something extreme and then reign it in just enough so the reader doesn't get tired of the unnaturally excessive behavior of the characters.
And lets talk about
the attempted rape.
The situation itself was plausible, but the author then needed to
! not let it actually happen
. So what does the author do? They have Valetta be weak and actually fail to
! throw her attacker off despite having super strength
he then has her do the opposite in the next page and
! gives her strength that pushes him off to the point her attacker can't believe he's so much weaker than her.
I'm going to talk about what I think of the author now, not because I want to hurt or insult them, but because I think it's important for understanding why this story is the way it is.
I think they have a very shallow knowledge on a very broad range of subjects and a large imagination. They know what they want, but not how to get there, and thus try extra hard to direct the story despite not actually having a firm grasp on the metaphorical steering wheel of their story.
It's got all the elements and effort required to make a riveting romance in a time before war, but little of the experience required to discern what needs to be highlighted and what needs to be skimmed, and what is natural and what isn't, in order to make it all work.
I like this story, but there are too many flaws to give this even a 5/10. I also feel that a 4 is a bit too generous. After chapter 56 I'm lowering it to a 2. This author doesn't understand how people work or interact.
I, the person who had only noticed one girl having feelings for me in his life (after months of the girl being obvious), after listening to my mom tell me a whole list of girls who were interested in me and told me what they did that showed that interest, would have asked most of those girls out had they did or said even half of what the girls in this manga have said and done towards the MC.
It's entirely implausible for a human to act like the MC and not have a major mental disorder or disability. My suspension of disbelief is broken.
The art is cute, and I wish it was attached to a more competent story.