Maid kara Haha ni Narimashita
From Maid to Mother

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This story is a perfect example of why I'm hesitant to read female romance stories. This is just not a great story.

The Premise? I actually like. I find it to be interesting. I wish that we just got a story of some chick reincarnating and taking care of some small girl without any guy being a love interest. I'd especially love it if the chick went adventuring with the girl.

I don't like dropping stories. So I thought I'd just get to the currently released chapters and be done with this story. But I had to force myself to get to chapter 10. Keep In mind ... that I'm not the targeted demographic for this type of story. A girl might read this story and find it to be a magnificent piece of art, But not me.

The Romance is one of the most awkward and forced romances I've seen and is exactly what I don't like out of female romances. The guy is either one of three things. A complete Douche, A complete Pansy or has no personality besides some blank responses and the author tries selling that as a personality.

The Romance has no time to build up. The Maid/MC has no reason to like this dude. Hell, She should be despising him cause the first time she see's the little girl, She's been tied up by ropes thrown into a small room underground with the only light being some Magic formation he made. This guy isn't sweet or endearing. But a total asshole.

I'm not even kidding. This dude gags this 8 or 9-Year-Old looking girl then ties her up without any humans nearby in case of an emergency If I remember correctly, He also wasn't feeding her or if then barely. I've read some bad LN with douche Male Love interest characters, I.e "Swamp Girl" or " My Disciple Died Yet Again" But as far as I remember, This takes the cake for the most annoying Male Love Interest.

Overall, This story is just filled with wasted potential and wasted potential is worse than no potential IMO.

So good side, heart warming and cute.

Eh side, art's decent, magic system is good but not the focus.

Bad side, the romance is slow and awkward.

The main problem is the that MC is still in love with a guy from her past life, and the guy is clueless about everything. He's not bad but he has no idea how to act, like some form of low-grade autism he just doesn't GET people.
So the romance is danced around, and danced around, and danced around. If this wasn't a romance and they just genuinely were caring for the adopted daughter, or if it was just a straight romance, ... it'd be better, but the dancing drags the pace down and what plot there is has to deal with it.

The story is largely saved because the daughter is cute, and the 3 of them, plus the 3 spirits, are just cute together. If you can put up with the not-romance it's a fine bit of fluff, but really nothing else, and I like fluff.

This is a story about a girl who is reincarnated in another world, this doesn't matter at all to the story. On the good side, she starts from the very beginning: Birth. Becomes a maid without the aspiration of wanting to marry, (the principle is that unmarried women become maids as a way of finding a marriage partner) is recruited by a mage to become a mother to a child that can inexplicitly kill her. The first time they meet, this child is gagged and bound, crying inside a magical circle that's supposedly designed to protect her because the magician who adopted her thought that ... was a good idea. Lily forgets about this way too quickly, and so does the child, Jill.

The art is okay.
Characters:
Lily, the maid/mother suffers from protagonist syndrome. Simply she can do things just because. She also suffers from heavy-duty cluelessness
The magician, Leonard has a non-personality. He just sometimes says nice things without having a clue while doing stupid clueless stuff. He's forgettable.
There are three main spirts in this story: Sid the cat is clearly in love with Lily the maid. He's calm, handsome, and kind.
There's a girl: I can't remember what her name is, she's a tsundere who's in love with the third spirit.
Amdo is the third, and he's a bird. That's all.
The daughter, Jill, is sort of cute, in a forgettable manner. She says mommy and daddy a lot. And that's her personality traits. Be cute and say, mommy and daddy. A lot.

Plot/story.
The plot is pretty much a slice of life sort of thing with a decent, but an unimportant magic system. Which is probably why it's decent.
The story is forgettable at best, things happen, if you miss a chapter or two you haven't really lost anything.
Lily is the proclaimed royal maid, she can fix any issue almost instantaneously, and at least that's nice in a way because it prevents drawn-out drama like a lot of romance mangas suffer from. She can always spot a problem in the making and deal with it very quickly. E.g. Spirit-Girl is angry at her, she talks to her and discovers she's in love with Amdo the spirt. Problem solved. She talks with the wife of the crown prince discovers she wants children, shouts at the crown prince, Jill the girl enamors the crown prince with her girlish charms and he wants to make babies. Lily is nearly thrown in prison by the one person who doesn't like her. Anyway, this happens a lot. She can solve all personal problems. She can prevent people from fighting.
Anyway, so there is a good chunk of people that are in love with Lily secretly, Leonardo the wizard, two other wizards, Sid the spirit, several of the soldiers want to get to know her. And so on. She is majorly clueless. She can see everyone else's love affairs but her own.
This does influence the plot. The supposed romance between her and Leonard the magician goes nowhere because they are both clueless. In Leonard's case, I doubt he even knows what sex is, or love. Or anything romantically because that's how the writer heavily paints him. Even though women are apparently throwing themselves at him left and right.

Lily does die and is reincarnated into this fantasy world, but if you removed that it wouldn't influence the plot/storyline very much. She had a lover she pines over, she creates ketchup and mustard in this world, and knows a bit about menstrual cycles and trying to fall pregnant. And that's it. Her love died in a tragic accident, she loves to experiment in the kitchen, and because Leonard is rich beyond your beliefs, he can afford it. There you go, no need for an incarnation cycle. NONE.

As far as character conflicts there aren't any. Which is needed. it's all solved either instantaneously, not really addressed, or somehow it's okay.

Jill, the daughter, is abused by her guardian, Leonardo, the first thing Lily does is untie her, and say "we're going to talk about this" in what comes off as a stern tone. It takes a long time for her to actually do it I feel. And never does it in a meaningful way.

It's explained that Magicians when they are young especially, can't control their magic and when it goes out of control, they can easily kill people. Which makes them extremely dangerous. That's his explanation for why she was tied up, and Lily is just like okay. And she has a few words with Jill and the daughter is all like okay, I love you daddy. Trauma averted I guess. Oh, and she doesn't care that Jill could accidentally kill, doesn't bother her one bit.

There is also this thing where people with black hair has a high density of mana, which makes them particularly dangerous and therefore a lot of magicians in this world will just randomly ask Lily, "aren't you afraid of us" implying of course that they can kill her so very easily, and maybe not even on purpose. And Lily is just, nope we cool.
Her daughter nearly kills Lily because someone is denying that Lily is her mother, and Lily doesn't seem to care. She doesn't even deal with the insecurity that her daughter displayed by losing her temper in that situation.

Point is, there is a lot of potential good character conflicts that could lead to the characters growing. Only it never happens. It's always "we good".

If you want to read a romance manga, it's an okay read. It'll occupy your time, and there are worse. The romance feels forced and very slow. I wouldn't want to watch the anime because it would all just take too much time and be uninteresting to watch essentially.

This manga focuses on the protagonist Lily a Japanese girl who is reincarnated in a fantasy kingdom, where she becomes the royal maid, adept at information gathering, problem solving, and caring for others. The story starts when she is recruited to be the mother of the royal magician's new powerful ward.
This is an ongoing manga, so my opinion might change. Also, I am a big fan of isekai, so that definitely skews my point of view. That said, I am finding this very enjoyable to read so far. The art is average, and maybe a little old fashioned even, but nothing horrible. The story ... isn't airtight, there are some plot holes and a lot of suspension of disbelief, but considering the genre and the fact that it is incomplete, I think that's fine. I do enjoy the world building, the system of magic, and the characters. The magic system is an elemental system, with spirits possessing elemental powers and sharing them with magicians in the form of magical contracts. The character aren't super complex, but they are likeable and fun to root for. The little girl, Jill, is very cute. Lily could use a little more depth, being the almost too perfect type of protagonist, but that is fun to indulge in sometimes, and could improve in the future.
Personally, I like the kind of 'love will save the day' plot, especially when other kinds of love besides romantic are acknowledged, in this case, there is a big focus on familial love, even if the characters aren't blood related. One thing I don't love is the protagonist's relationship with her past love interest, although that might be a translation issue, I can't tell.