First of all, this is partially my fault for comparing this with Another Typical Fantasy Romance. There's a reason why that title is as popular as it does and the writing there is not something every other title can just replicate. On paper, I get the charm of this story. There's an easy and obvious appeal in otome stories where neglectful husband turns around and not only begs for the forgiveness of his oft-abandoned wife, but also becomes hopelessly devoted to her. This story attempts to fill that niche on top of giving a clumsy dog x stubborn cat dynamic, and regardless of how well itwas written, this story WILL have a market.

I also recognize ML's vibes. If you like Stark from Frieren: Beyond the End and wants to see how he'll act in a romance story, then Zester / Jester, this story's ML, will please you a lot. Jockish warrior + clingy puppy mentality is not only just adorable, it's also quite a rarity in the whole OI genre. There are quite a fair bit of moment where I do find myself aww-ing and uwu-ing over his abandoned puppy schtick and if the story took better care of the beginning, then I might have loved Zester even more.

Cassia, the MC, is your generic manhwa OI protagonist. She's not a badly written character, but neither is she anything particularly special either. An inoffensive MC, perfect to push the story along without challenging the norms.

The art is pretty okay. Every now and then the proportion gets wonky and characters would turn into Slenderman, but it's smooth and flows well.

But.

The first 20-30 episodes are a pain to read.

You see, Cassia's past suffering is painfully realistic. Here's an overworked, undercared, abandoned woman, victim of a painfully typical man with a painfully typical Confucian mentality. Past Zester may not be abusive but he's neglectful, a manchild with no previous need to even think about emotional intelligence, the kind of old-fashioned man who sincerely believes that all a husband and a father has to offer is to work, work, WORK, and provide material sustenance to your family. The kind of man that is still all-too-common in our modern society.

And because of that, I totally vibe with Cassia's initial goal after she reincarnates. She DOES deserve rest. She DOES deserve to express her displeasure. She DOES deserve to raise a middle finger at Zester and live according to her own wishes.

And Cassia DID grow. Cassia DID change. She now speaks her feelings out loud and doesn't restrain herself in the name of propriety. She recognizes that she's been shouldering everything herself in her past life and she didn't really talk to Zester before she reincarnated. That is good.

...But that's the end of it. The narrative refuses to properly address Zester's behavior, much less explore it. Cassia complains but never points out where and how Zester errs.

Because the story is started upon false assumptions, the actual show would be to make them recognize (and communicate) those falsehoods and act on them. It's a simple "Well, I fucked up, let me do better."

But the story omits Zester's recognition, progress, and growth, flipping him into house puppy uwu so quickly. Other than 'he is now openly adoring to his wife', I'm not sensing a lot of change to his original character. And to me it feels like the story is using his house puppy mode to tell me that Zester is changed and their marital problems are resolved.

Instead of giving a moment where Zester and Cassia communicate about their different situation and how that leads to this mess, the narrative is content to simply throw conflicts and smut to push them back to each other's arms. I get that part of this is adhering to 'show not tell', but this is the VERY wrong time to employ that rule PRECISELY because Zester (and the story, and the readers) needs to be told.

Present Zester doesn't have to say about past Zester's actions BUT he needs to know where he's failing and how he can build a proper marriage the second time. From start to end, he is full of self-loathing and self-debasement, but he remains lacking of self-reflection even over a hundred chapters later. His mindset never strays too far from "I'm not worthy of my wife, I love her so much, I can only TRY to be half the man she deserves" even when Cassia has evolved from "heck my husband (derogatory)" to "heck my husband (complimentary)"

Instead, what happens is that the narrative itself is very eager to move forward that it doesn't give much attention to the initial neglect beyond a skin-deep "Zester doesn't mean to hurt Cassia, see he actually loves her and doesn't think of himself as good enough for her" and "you see they are physically attracted to each other and that solves the problem".

Don't get me wrong, the story -does- show him trying in the initial chapters, but those scene are rarely aimed at Cassia. No, those scenes are trying to convince us, the reader.

Of course, later the story has Zester deal with a man who actually abuses his wife, as if the narrative is trying to say "hey Zester may be wrong but AT LEAST he's not hitting his wife"

Of course, later you'll find out that oh no past Zester actually loves Cassia too uwu uwu uwu.

*Eugh.*

Given that this story is meant to be a wholesome story, and given how very REAL Zester and Cassia's situation are, this creative direction feels offputting. An excuse. It's as if the narrative is trying to brush the real harm emotional neglect causes to people. As if "awww he means well and he looks ADORABLE when he's sulking so let's just brush things off and move along" is a good enough message to give.

And the narrative never looks back. It never tries to dig deeper beyond that. They never try to examine Zester's background as a commoner and his low self-esteem beyond a fuel for hurt/comfort with Cassia. They just keep throwing plots and smut and sulky adorable Zester in hopes everyone can see that "oh yeah they really love each other".

In the end, the romance is adorable, but it is VERY skin deep. The narrative tries and aims to make Cassia and Zester's relationship the foundation to the overall plot, but it has never been as strong as, say, the relationship portrayed in Another Typical Fantasy Romance.

So when the plot goes deeper and the intrigue keeps piling, the romance ends up becoming the weakest part of the story. Like the story outright refuses to make Zester anything but the most innocent cute uwu ML, and it's annoying because the plot at this point is NOT the kind of plot that tolerates this kind of ML.

Whenever Zester is around Cassia becomes the least interesting version of herself, a mother handling a giant whimpering red puppy with a big unmentionable. And when Zester clings to Cassia and throwing puppy eyes, it reads as a manchild in need of a mother instead of a loving husband who worries about his wife.

That is just too bad. Doubly so because everyone else in the story is relatively much more nuanced.

Again, when the story is cute, it DOES get cute. When the story wants to engage in intrigue, it HAS the chops. And there are moments where Zester's devotion to Cassia DOES feel heartwarming, wholesome, green flag, all the good stuff.

The story has all it takes to be good. The fact that I'm ranting feels really, really bitter.