Apr 3, 2025
If I were to rate Your Ultimate Love Rival in the first chapters, I would have given it a solid ten. However, as the story progressed, the plot slowly yet certainly turned into a mess.
The existence of mages, spirits, demons, and gods is a nice branch — if the author knows how to use them correctly, but it, unfortunately, wasn’t the case.
When we look at the big picture, Your Ultimate Love Rival sounds just as interesting as any other Isekai. The story followed Heeso, an average Korean woman who gets transmigrated as Irene Amber — the character of a novel with a tragic end.
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Heeso quickly realized that she (as Irene) was supposed to change the novel’s end and save not only herself, but the original female lead, Claudia, and her brother, Felix Chamberlain.
Although overused, it’s a plot that I can’t grow tired of and the problem with this manhwa was the small details.
The story started by introducing us to the three original male leads — who were, in fact, possessive and disturbing men who did anything to get Claudia at the end of the original novel — from small courting to kidnapping her and even trying (and spoiler ahead: succeeding) to make Felix’s body be taken by a demon. It would have made sense if it were a single male lead, but three? And the three of them working together when their objective was the same — have Claudia for themselves? It didn’t make sense to me.
Not to mention that Duke Lemberg was the strongest among them — even having a pact with a demon, so why would he need to rely on the weak prince and the unloyal priest?
And again, mages and magic are not an issue to me. I actually love some Romantasy. I loved that Felix was a mage, but Claudia and the pact with the spirits was so random and with no big utility at all. The Magic Island plot felt like coming from a different manhwa and the worst part is that the author didn’t explain anything about it at all.
Their plans were another thing that was never explained, they were suddenly doing something big as rebelling against their prince and it’s treated as if readers were supposed to understand and know what’s going on.
I read a comment around chapter 30 that said: “It seems like they keep adding random plots and hoping for the best” and I think there’s no better way to describe Your Ultimate Love Rival’s plotline.
Honestly, if it weren’t for the amazing art and Felix, it would have been a manhwa that I would have quickly dropped. However, Felix took my heart. Not only for being an amazing brother in the original story and the one Irene changed but for the green flag he is.
In the beginning, we believe that he is a yandere, but as the story unfolds and shows his point of view, we notice that he turned into a soft man all to protect and make Irene feel safe by his side since she came from an abusive and problematic family.
I caught myself re-reading the episodes where the romance was the main plot more than twice, but aside from Felix, I am not sure if it is a manhwa which I would recommend.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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