Read The Former Noblewoman with a Distrust for Men Decides to Help the Lustful Prince / The Former Lady Who Distrusts Men Decides to Help His Highness / 男性不信の元令嬢は、好色殿下を助けることにした。
“Claire Radish! A failure like you, who can’t even use a single spell properly, is unworthy of being my fiancée!” Claire, the daughter of a Margrave, is the fiancée of the selfish and arrogant Second Prince, Oliver. Following the Queen’s orders, Claire has spent many years as his fiancée, tirelessly cleaning up his messes. However, Oliver becomes infatuated with the cunningly cute Baron’s daughter, Carol, and declares the annulment of his engagement to Claire at the Royal Academy’s appreciation party…! As one unexpected event follows another, the one who comes to Claire’s rescue is none other than the First Prince, Gilbert, who bears the nickname “the Lustful Prince.” Claire had been wary of him due to the nasty rumors, but he turned out to be completely different from what she expected…?
Spacetrebuchet
Note to self not my cup of tea
Eveaustria
As of chapter 5, I can say this Japanese manga (according to other sources the name of the author and artist is Yuuki Rinrin) may not be the top of the crop, but it has its charm, and it’s not too illogical either (yet?). So far I like it.
The story is decent. Not exactly super original, but it’s also not full of typical tropes for now. The female lead is likeable, has a working brain and puts in a lot of effort. She has troubles with her magic though, so she’s neither a Mary Sue character who excels in everything, nor one of these airheads who patter instead of speaking their mind and stumble over their own feet so that they can be saved by the male leads.
The villain – the female lead’s fiancé and crown prince – is a complete jerk, but interestingly his mother does not agree with him. She is the true boss villain(ess) and a rather cruel scheming queen. There’s also the prince’s newest pink-haired love interest; a “white lotus” b*tch who acts like she’s an innocent victim.
The actual male lead is a bit too cliché once again (another black-haired uncommunicative “cool” royal master-swordfighter AND master-wizard too), however with a weird twist – malicious rumors make him out to be a womanizer, even though he acts the complete opposite… No idea why anyone ever believed those stupid rumors to be true, especially the usually clever female lead?
The artstyle is very Doujinshi-(fan-art-manga-)like. It’s okay enough to bring the story across nicely though. The coolest artwork is that of the “witch” cat (it shows up in chapter 2), I really like how it looks! The adults look like little kids sometimes tho and their bodies often have weird proportions 😀
Eveaustria
At chapter 17, I still like this calm story with its unexpectedly creative developments about the female lead who’s now a witch’s apprentice, has learnt to transform into a cat herself and tries to help the male lead (first since he was her “saviour”, later on because she falls in love with him).
The summary is not fully correct though – the male lead did not “come to her rescue”, and he also didn’t free her himself. Instead the female lead escaped from a cell by the help of a witch that had transformed into a cat and became the master of the female lead afterwards. Then – during her escape – the female lead ran into the male lead outside, who helped her finalize her escape by distracting the guards and lending her a cloak as a disguise.
They actually only really get closer after she transforms into a cat and tries to find out more about him by accompanying him in the shape of a cat, since he seems to have been poisoned and/or cursed, which makes her worried.
I really liked this part, it was refreshingly unique, her cat-form was cute, and I wished her training period as a witch had also been shown in a little more detail as well… Instead, the male lead contacts her in person and from then on they work together as a (second) prince and a witch in human form in order to create a cure for him.
I was a little afraid of a possible manhwa-typical over-dramatization right after the cheating idiot of a fiancé crown prince had tried to keep the female lead prisoner – because of her little speech when their engagement was broken. But nothing worse happened then and still hasn’t happened up to chapter 17 now.
It’s quite interesting that the evil queen pretends that the female lead is still betrothed to the crown prince and is recovering from an “illness” somewhere, while the prince himself is unable to perform his duties without the female lead’s help, and his white lotus b*tch girlfriend is forming her own “faction”.
I am looking forward to the time both of these plotlines will re-unite, since the female lead is quite happy with working as a witch and doesn’t plan to ever return. But I guess she’s going to help the male lead with overthrowing the stupid crown prince since he’d be a calamity as a ruler for the nation, perhaps during or after his coronation?
Eveaustria
P.S.: no isekai nor time-travel so far, and it doesn’t seem like one of such plot-turns is going to happen either, since there’s no reason for this in sight.