Apr 6, 2023
To summarise this manhwa in a very simple manner: gorgeous art severely wasted on mediocre characters and a story riddled with so many plot holes it may as well be cheese. Now, to go a bit deeper–perversions notwithstanding–’Crowning of the Spoiled Prince’ is a rather… unique take on the whole girl-boss fantasy. In some ways, it is much better than most others like it, but in some, it is simply outright atrocious.
As I mentioned at the start, the manhwa has absolutely gorgeous art. It’s colourful, dazzling, riveting, and a thesaurus-worth of other adjectives that I cannot bother writing out. Every character is beautiful, clothes
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are absolutely ridiculous as even someone with literally no fashion sense can attest to, and it is extremely easy on the eyes. It has some of the best art I’ve seen across the board, and is one of the main culprits why I read as far as I did.
The secondary reason is the main girl-boss, though she is also one of the reasons why I’m dropping this. As a bonafide dude, I’ve come to appreciate a lot of the girl-boss manga and manhwa, as, unlike here in the west, they tend to do the girl-boss characters quite well. Rather than stripping them of their femininity entirely and just making them dudes with tits, they embrace the fact that these characters are women while still making them strong and infallible.
However, before I move on to the characters and their slew of problems, I’d like to discuss the manhwa’s story for a bit. Spoilers ahead, as it’d be difficult to explain why I loathe this story without them.
Imagine a scenario in which you return to the past knowing who the traitors that will eventually destroy your home are. There, really, is only ever one scenario that ought to play out in this: kill the bastards as quickly as possible and prevent all the future troubles. Except, for all her girl-bossiness, Regina doesn’t do that. In fact, she doesn’t even entertain that thought–not once does she contemplate simply killing her fiance and what’s-her-face. And it is not as though our dear princess is unaccustomed to death or murder–but for the plot to play out the way it did, it was necessary for her to ignore the most simple solution to all her problems.
However, that is where the plot holes simply begin and not end. Her solution to the problem makes no sense, as neither does the way she goes about ‘fixing’ the situation. In order to dissolve the engagement to the fiance she should simply kill, she latches onto the classic romantic trope of swindling a gorgeous dude into pretending to be in a relationship with her. It is entirely unnecessary, as their relationship could have become far more organic rather than just outright awkward and weird.
Beyond that, there is simply the constant cloud hanging over my head that she is making decisions that an experienced war veteran never would–like allowing her enemies to live in her home and have virtually unfeathered access to it. Instead of throwing calculated tantrums to gain something, she throws legitimate, childish ones that left me scratching my head. If she is as determined as she claims to be, after realising that the Emperor was willing to bend his ass in order to repair their relationship, she should have abused that instead of just ignoring it.
No, despite the claims that she is a veteran–she behaves like a sixteen-year-old child in far too many situations. This, in turn, creates one plot hole after another and none of them ever lead to anywhere. Misunderstandings pile on, the story loops unto itself repeatedly, and time is wasted on wind and clouds as the story remains virtually the same for 30+ chapters.
Her plan to keep her 10 year old brother ‘thrash’ was moronic from the onset, but it is only compounded further by the fact that if her goal was to keep the prince thrash… why is she even doing anything? The reason why the Prince stopped being thrash was due to magic–so, she should simply prevent that and not care about anything else. If her goal was to make the prince ‘competent thrash’ as she claims, then occasionally beating the kid does fuck all in progressing that goal.
Few decisions made by a lot of characters throughout make sense, and even fewer still once you start taking into account the motivations of the characters. Our main lead, for instance, is one of those ‘I am made of assumptions’ characters, and while his deadpan personality is nice and all, like most characters in the story, he’s… kind of stupid? Everyone in the story is, at minimum, kind of stupid, to be honest.
From the princess to the prince, and the moronic emperor, and the pair of villains that are equally dumb, to the comedic maids and knights that are about as filler as you can get… there’s just a whole lot of stupid going around in this story.
My biggest gripe, in the end, is that this story tricks you with a hook that it never delivers upon. Its initial chapters promise a story of cold-blooded and calculated revenge, but what actually ends up happening is, well… nothing. Just a big gust of wind whizzing by like piss. Rather than focusing on the revenge part, far more focus is given to ‘educating’ the prince and flirting with the ML. Which, you know, fine and dandy, but the story then breaks the mood frequently enough with sudden dark undertones that it did not earn.
Again, gorgeous art that is in the service of very poor storytelling and some lacklustre characters. Perhaps the story just missed the mark for me, and if you enjoy what is effectively a semi-lukewarm SoL romance, you might gain far more enjoyment from it than I did. Cheers.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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