Bottom of the barrel Isekai review
Today we are looking at the following, "The white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon kings lap."
christ thats a long as title.
anyways, do you have a friend? no? yes? maybe? how nice, how do you treat them? how do you speak with them? how do you interact with them? while you are filling out this survey, could you be as kind as to fill out those silly little digits on that odd plastic card in your mothers purse for moi~?
no? well fuck you to.
the flowers, the painfully average looking protag, the specific notation about the eye color? we are about to dive into the live of a special young lady and her mystical adventures through whimsy and wonder.
anyways the story is that ruri, are main charecter lives a rather average life with her super importent dad and her super model mom, as the image stats, how could her life ever be distrupted in any form or fashion?
if you guess that a random girl made friends with her and followed her for most of her life until they both got sucked into a fantasy world and the kingdom decided the friend would be the priestess, then you would be correct~!
"But dox!" you say crawling out of my airvent "thats huge gap in time, what happened in between?"
well asashi and ruri had a rather odd relationship. you see, everyone fucking loves asashi, they are all in on ensureing that this random girls life is as easy as possible but at the expense of asashi. they will all work togather to do make sure asashi is happy while also bullying ruri.
do you feel that? thats the worm in my brain slowly getting into yours as more and more questions about this specific dynamic arise. some of them will be answered, but they will only be answered in a way that makes sure the worm Burrows Deeper.
first question: its clear ruri fucking hates asashi, why do i say shes her friend?
second question: Why are they friends? why hasent ruri made her leave her alone if she doesnt like her?
well to answer those questions...
as asashi is appointed the new priestiess ruri attempt to discover things about this kingdom, she learns from a priest that there is no way back home that they know of, nor are their any stories of a person summoned being Un summoned.
anyways we cant get any plot done here! we need to roundaboutly kick shit off while also makeing this asashis fault somehow!
so she ends up getting kicked from the castle, forced to wander the woods for the rest of her natural life, her mulchcore attitude persaudeing her to lay down and become one with it all...
ok no thats not what happens, she walks around a little bit, learns she is the greatest mage alive
, wanders presumably without food and water for five days, yes im screaming at the overpowered mc cliche once again just ignore it, where in she meets a old lady in the woods
who of course unlocks her
Special eyes of destiny
which allows her to see the collection of fucking creepy fairies that constently surround and are touching her at any given moment of the day.
I am lead to belive due to the daisies drawn in the back ground that this is supposed to be a moment of whimsy and joy, this image fills me with a special dread as it fullfills almost every single one of my autistic fears imagineable. night mare night mare nightmare.
anyways magic is discussed for a vary long time but oh fuck, we havent complained about asashi in five seconds, time to make a horrifying point about her!
this conclusion seems to be that no one can truly love asashi as all the love she will ever feel is artifically grown because of her magic. this also means that if you have a strong heart and a good soul you cannot love asashi because you would naturally and rightfully find her as annoying as ruri would. this is because ruri is the only one that can see her objectivly.
if you hare undergoing a string of panic that comes from the fundamental question that comes from the doubt of love from the sources in your life, dont worry, Ruri says she is annoying and bad and the story belives her to be objectivly correct so everyone belives that if they are good. you are a good person right?
growing dread aside, more plot, the fairys bend to the whim of ruri, all faries, meaning that unless you are a motherfucking wizard, the one source of universal and public magic has been cut off. all villagers that relied on water and fire magic have been cut off. farmers that need earth magic are cut off.
of course this is not her fault because again she is an objectivly good person with a good heart so she tut tuts the fairies for depriving villagers of clean drinking water and easy acess to heat and light for a week and the story moves on.
she learns more magic, she summons the fairy of time and they platoniclly flirt because ruri is a completely heterosexual girl.
the fairy of time is a simp and donates to her only dimensional space. one item of which is a bracelet that turns her into a cat, fulfilling one item on the title.
she goes to the market, her special chosen one powers make her super duper populer and people naturally want her advice and to give her money
wait a second, what time is it?
OH FUCK, WE HAVENT COMPLAINED ABOUR ASASHI IN A BIT!
SHE HAS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE OF ASASHI GIVING UP HER DREAM LIFE IN A FANTASY WORLD TO BE WITH HER, THIS IS CONSIDERED A BAD THING, IN ANY OTHER MANGA THIS WOULD BE CONSIDERED A ROMANCE TO END ALL ROMANCES
she decides to leave and go to the city of dragons because fuck it, thats a thing to do, she has to tell them she is the special chosen one with the blue eyes and blonde hair.
we cut for a second our lead.
as you can see the prince through his actions is a completely heterosexual man, one that loves Boobs And Vagina. as one can clearly Tell.
anyways the prince is creepy, he walks through town in disgues, happens upon ruri and without a second thought proceeds to do this:
gross.
anyways, the prince tells his homophobic advisors that he met a girl and they immeditly start a witch hunt for her while ruri enters the room as a cat to establish that again, she is the special chosen one of destiny.
anyways she meets the prince and nothing happens. the fairies threaten to kill everyone with the knowladge that ruri has apocalyptic plot armor.
now, to explain what a special chosen one is:
"hey dox, pre-emptivly asking a question, why would their ever be a chosen one? it seems their sole existance is to get a small scratch and make everyone die about it."
GREAT QUESTION, I DONT FUCKING KNOW, THEY APPERENTLY CAUSE PROSPARITY BUT I HAVE YET TO SEE IT, NOT EVEN A GOD DAMN DECENT 401K
anyways the prince gets Really attached to the Cat
Really Close.
this is explained through the fact that they have simalier wavelengths or similier magic types, meaning that they feel lonely without each other nearby.
the manga is astouindingly quick to stifle any comparison to asashi because remeber, asashi is Objectivly Bad and Unloveable.
Remember, Wanting to be friends with someone and not immeditly knowing if they like you or not makes you an objectivly Bad and Annoying person.
cut forward a bit, more werid cat flirting and she gets a job outside the palace... anyways she hears knews that the kingdom she was exiled from is wageing a war against the nation of dragons. this is handwaved as being something they just do when they find some cool magic shit.
but notably, the reason for the war has changed, as rumors have emerged that the priestess of the kingdom is supporting the war to save ruri who they belive to be kidnapped.
she gets sad about this and goes to the grandma to whine about it.
so we can see here a few things.
we are supposed to belive that its completely unreasonable for asashi to make the assumption that her best friend has been kidnapped.
that it is her fault for allowing a war to happen when we know that regardless of her support they would wage it regardless
ruri only considers asashi a friend when it is deemed attractive to her moral charecter.
yes this is the first time ruri has every said that asashi is anything resembling a friend to her.
she slips into the castle after some poverty porn about how evil and bad this kingdom is, we get a brief scene showing the king is planning on makeing sure both asashi and the prince die because he finds him annoying (I guess he has a strong and objectivly good soul)
"Man, isnt asashi awful, worrying about her friend like that? wanting people to help her find her? isnt she just the fucking Worse ever?"
im going insane, the worm has won, they have consumed any rational part of my brain and replaced it with the vast rot of whatever fucking bizarro verse this manga demands me to be within.
the two friends finally reunite after being seperated for so long.
we get a sob story about a time she broke her watch because again, asashis charm powers make people jealous of how close she is to asashi, so they bullied her and since asashi has literally never seen anyone ever act anything like that because again, everyone s magically forced to love her unconditionally, she doesnt belive her.
and of course she dosent belive her either but instead of just blindly saying no to ruri, she says she'll talk to them about it, when its clear ruri fucking hates that idea, and gets ready to leave with a little cryptic warning, she asks to flee with her
which again is displayed as a creepy and werid thing because she accidently uses her charm magic that we have established she has no control over. again, in any other manga the idea that while you may not belive what you hear, you are willing to give up any comfort to be with your friend, would be considered the most profound act of love. please feel free to contrast this to captian hair sniffer and Cat spooner.
I cannot add any more images so lets speed run this. asashi is shaken up so she goes to the king to ask him whats going on, he says "Mind control" which lets be perfectly clear, is an established and perfectly reasonable thing to belive can happen in a magical fucking world, asashi is shown to be dumb for belive this.
war happens and nothing happens, dragons win by a land slide and asashi gets captured.
she dosent belive the dragon princes words and all of her allies that got captured with her are placed in an anti magic zone and now hate her completely because again, without magic, asashi is completely and utterly unloveable.
ruri makes friends with another god and they learn that asashi convinced a guard to let her go because i guess that charm magic works whenever. but shes stuck in a dungeon and she may run into the soldiers who i guess the charm magic wont work on which leaves us with this haunting scene:
we are told that asashi legitamitly does not understand what the fuck is going on, she does not understand why they hate her, she just thought she was going to save her fucking friend.
Behold Your Antagonist.
it ends with that.
here are the questions.
"Is the underlying story, barring any other concept, good?"
Kinda. its vary bland and vary generic. its a romance that does not know how to present itself a romance. it is a romance that spends more time complaining about someone then being in love.
"on a sliding scale of min to max, how much is the author using this to explore fetish"
none, the few saveing graces.
"How many story crutches does the author use to explore the story"
an absurd amount, from the plot contrivances to the power cliches, to the physical attributes denoting specialness to ensure we and the charecters know to treat her in a special way.
"Is the author attempting to use the story as a way to explain why he is not weird."
yeah, if you have any fucking trouble with social interactions or cant read people, then you are an objectively bad person, and if you are somehow populer, no one actully loves you, and they are being forced to love you.
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im so salty that willel has been barely explored because there must be so many complicated feelings on wills end that id love to see more explicitly played out
like theres this girl who saved your life that you saw in the void once in a daze, then she vanished and is presumed dead. and all your friends talk about her and she seemed so cool and youre so grateful for what she did. then she shows up again a year later and saves your lives again and you get to meet her for real this time, under non life threatening circumstances, and you feel so thankful for what shes done for all of you.
but then your best friend, who youre in love with, starts dating her. and you know shes saved your lives and she seems to make him so happy, but hes spending all his time with her now and, whether you like it or not, that leads to so much bitterness and resent and you wish more than anything that you were her. and you hate yourself for feeling that way because shes done so much for all of you, she doesnt deserve your resentment, she has every right to be with him. but you cant help but look at them and feel a painful, burning jealousy.
and then more things happen. she saves your lives for a third time now, losing her powers and father in the process, and now shes joining you as your sister moving all the way to california. and shes still dating your best friend. she sends him letters and he sends more back, she smiles as she updates you and your family on his life in hawkins. and your heart hurts realizing that you and him never talk anymore, that you have to be told by someone else what hes up to, that you used to be the one to tell your family at dinner what he was doing lately.
you feel like youve lost him to this girl, to this wonderful girl who smiles and waves at people in the hallways despite their glares, who risked her life so many times over to save them, who lost her dad not even three months ago and grew up in a lab and has been hurt by the world so many times over. and you still manage to feel resent towards this amazing, beautiful person. and you feel so, so guilty.
you feel so selfish for feeling this way, for feeling so bitter towards her, when shes helped you so much. when your disappearance is partially what caused a lot of her problems in the first place. and you love her, you really do, and you appreciate every last thing shes done. and yet despite this, the jealousy stays. she deserves all the good things that come to her and yet you cant help but feel bitter over it. youre such a horrible person for feeling this way about her.
you hate these things you feel, and you do everything you can to make up for them. youre as nice as you can be to her, because she deserves it and you love her, and she should have the good things that come to her. you shouldnt be taking that away from her just because of your stupid, selfish jealously. you repay as much of the limitless debt you can to her, for saving your lives and doing so much for them. you do everything you can to show your love and appreciation, and bury the jealously that burns in your heart, but still lay awake at night wracked with guilt. because youll never be her, and you hate that. and a part of you hates her for that. and all you can do about it is cry into your pillow.
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