While I love the premise of a world ruled by woman and constantly seek out stories with women in power, the execution of such stories often leaves much to be desired. This one is no different.
Plot:/setting:
First of all, the insinuation that putting women in charge results in a twisted, terrible society is sickeningly obvious. Women are in positions of power, so the men are relegated to being slaves. The society is matriarchal, so there are games like using male slaves as hunting targets. The people are starving and suffering because women are in power.
Additionally, the matriarch is whimsical, irresponsible, and callous. Yet, unlike boy kings who have redeeming features such as exemplary military skills, or a shrewd mind for politics, Lilia's success is attributed to Lynas, her male slave (who is rumored to be her chief advisor). Her position in their hierachy only really started being cemented with Lynas' entrance into her life/the palace. She has yet to show any personal suitably for the throne outside of the machinations of others, which is disappointingly in line with how women were puppeted in real-life history.
Another exacerbating issue is how the story draws parallels with the patriarchal modern world and this less advanced matriarchal society. Just. Too many correlations are shown between women in positions of power to societal corruption, with slavery as just one of the negative consequences.
Characterization:
In this story, there are strong, smart, cunning, beautiful, skilled females. However, the main character is not really any of the above. Ruka feeds into the Damsel in Distress trope, and other misogynistic archetypes. She is pure, innocent, naive, clumsy, timid, shy, and everything a stereotypical shoujo heroine is expected to be. Her redeeming traits are her kindness, generosity, and strong will, though that conviction is only really shown when she is being comedically stubborn. Unless there is signifcant character growth and development, she is incredibly disappointing as the lead.
She does have strength and skill (particularly with the sword), but these admirable traits are owed to her past life, and are not consistent parts of her character. All potentially 'masculine' traits are part of this past-life persona that she remains unaware of, thereby separating the cute shoujo heroine from the fierce female warrior queen.
So her strength/charisma/eloquence/commanding presence comes and goes, while her less unique traits (innocence/naïveté/pureness/Damsel-in-Distress-ness) are prevalent and permanent.
Stereotypically "feminine" characteristics are emphasized and an integral part of her identity in this matriarchal, hierarchical society. All parts of her character that go against gender norms actually seem to be evident only as devices to gather attention from others (men). This significantly damages and possibly negates the value of this work as gender nonconforming/feminist.
This work is quickly heading towards the hackneyed theme of 'girls are strong because of their compassion and kindness', while masquerading as something far more unconventional and refreshing with its misleading premise.
I will say there are good ideas that come up; like the concerns of her agemates at school about the gender imbalances in their relationships with their boyfriends, and even the comments made by children in the new world about the suitability of women for positions of power, particularly in politics. However, even these moments are framed clumsily, in a way that implies absurdity (a teen girl whining and an idolizing kid in a 'wrong' world with male slaves).
Plus. And this mght be the worst part? But the male most likely to be the male lead (as in he's received most of her time/attention as a mysterious, attractive, powerful acquaintance) is such a shoujo stereotype. First of all, he's spying on her/stalking her. Which is always attractive, amirite Edward? Secondly, she knows nothing about him other than he pops in randomly to 'help' her. Third, readers have seem him being all manly and killing old ladies. He obviously needs a girl to 'fix' him and cure his Evil Side, as the Shoujo Bible says. Fourth, he's drawn like a pretty boy and has influence with the government/authority figures. This is probably the most important point, because what is Christian Grey without his money and power?
All in all, I'm pretty disappointed. I was expecting so much more from this premise. Should've known better when I saw it was a shoujo manga published in 2002.
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