Fresh February Catchups Are Here!

myskaros

Looking for a new series to fall in love with? We've got just the lineup for members trying to find that special series; everything this month is on catchup for the first time!

Looking for an isekai underdog adventure? Try out The Magician Who Rose From Failure! Prefer a relaxing VRMMO romp instead? How about A Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life? Reincarnation? Here's the manga of The Emperor's Lady-in-Waiting Is Wanted as a Bride! Looking for found family and child raising? Dragon Daddy Diaries: A Girl Grows to Greatness... is probably not going to offer the best advice, but it's cute!

More interested in the trending villainess subgenre? We've got some series you might be interested in too! Villainess: Reloaded! Blowing Away Bad Ends with Modern Weapons is on the extreme end of things, beating the story by packing heat! Prison Life is Easy for a Villainess plays the trope straight with no otome game link, but things might go off the rail in another way... And Reincarnated as the Piggy Duke: This Time I'm Gonna Tell Her How I Feel! is a bit of a twist, starring the male villain instead!

What are you waiting for?! Members can start swiping right on these 30+ volumes now!

saffire

Thoughts on all the catchups, in order of how much I like them:

Piggy Duke is on top, though I'm kinda hard pressed to say exactly what I like about it. It's a little like Elf Bride, if you like that, but Slowe has a roundabout personality that always complicates things (usually to humorous effect).
I enjoy Late Start Tamer a lot, I hope you like cute monsters being cute.
Prison Villainess is a short read where the hyper-competent lady just keeps dunking on everyone around her while taking it easy. It's hilarious but kinda wears itself out by the end.
Failure Magician is fine, I'm not super hot on it but I do read it consistently.
I fell off on Lady-In-Waiting but I do want to try it again, I liked what I read of it at first. Just too many other things to read.
Villainess Reloaded is weird because I feel like it got axed before it actually had a chance to cash the checks it was writing. The end result is a part 1 that's missing what I was hoping for from it.
Dragon Daddy Diaries I haven't read, may give it a shot if I have time.

Taylor

Villainess Reloaded was such a fun read, I'm really thinking about rereading it. I'm a sucker for a story that combines magic with modern technology, and the FL being a huge weapons otaku and slightly sociopathic makes for a really unique otome isekai protagonist.

Dragon Daddy Diaries is super wholesome and worth reading if you don't mind extreme saccharine levels. I got a little bored with Prison Life as it became kinda reptitive.

I may check out The Magician Who Rose From Failure this month

HarmlessDave

@Taylor said in Fresh February Catchups Are Here!:

Dragon Daddy Diaries is super wholesome and worth reading if you don't mind extreme saccharine levels.

Yes, recommended for anyone wanting something cute, sweet and 99% violence-free.

@saffire said in Fresh February Catchups Are Here!:

Villainess Reloaded is weird because I feel like it got axed before it actually had a chance to cash the checks it was writing. The end result is a part 1 that's missing what I was hoping for from it.

Yes, I enjoyed where it was heading but then it just stops, though not on a cliffhanger. It's free on catch-up so I'd say to people try it if you can handle an incomplete story.

Prison Villainess is a short read where the hyper-competent lady just keeps dunking on everyone around her while taking it easy. It's hilarious but kinda wears itself out by the end.

There's also the issue of a violent yandere side-character that spoils it a bit, but ignoring that I found myself laughing often especially in volume 1.

I fell off on Lady-In-Waiting but I do want to try it again, I liked what I read of it at first. Just too many other things to read.

I fell off the LN after volume 2, because it felt like the love interest of the MC was turning into a creepy possessive type like in The White Cat's Revenge.

Travis Butler

Piggy Duke is one I enjoyed a great deal in the early volumes, but I started losing interest up in later volumes, and stalled completely in the first part of volume 9. Among other things, I got really tired of the retread cycle - Slowe hits bottom, climbs back out, then something sends him back to the bottom and he goes through it all over again. It feels like he never learns in any long-term way.

Late-Start Tamer is a lot of fun, particularly if you enjoy seeing someone do well by poking into unexpected/uncommon areas. I am starting to worry how long the author can keep it up.

Villainess Reloaded… kinda fun, but the MC was starting to get a little too realistically sociopathic for my tastes.

Which was not a problem I had with Prison Life - it was so OTT that I could never take it seriously. I just enjoyed the ride, which was a fun one.

Dragon Daddy Diaries was very sweet, and got too sweet at points, but it stayed entertaining to the end.

Lady in Waiting started promisingly, but I also thought it started getting a little too creepy in the later books and dropped it.

Magician Who Rose From Failure tickles my ‘innovative protagonist’ button, and I enjoy seeing him be clever. It does drag a bit at points, and the author occasionally seems to slip in the restrictions he puts on the protagonist.

kuali

On the subject of The Emperor's Lady in Waiting... checking the blurbs, the manga only covers the first volume or so. So most of the 'LI getting creepily possessive' bits won't be in there, as they were in the later novels.

Prison Life is the only other one I'm really familiar with. It's a fairly dark comedy with, as mentioned above, one side character that really hurts the mood when she shows up. 2 books was about the right length for it as a series - I don't think the author would have fit all their good ideas into a single volume, but I don't think they had enough material to stretch out to a third.

rkkn

@kuali said in Fresh February Catchups Are Here!:

So most of the 'LI getting creepily possessive' bits

what's "LI"?

kuali

@rkkn Ah, sorry. 'Love Interest'. I read that story a while back and couldn't be arsed to look up his name.

TheGrimLich

@kuali said in Fresh February Catchups Are Here!:

Prison Life is the only other one I'm really familiar with. It's a fairly dark comedy with, as mentioned above, one side character that really hurts the mood when she shows up. 2 books was about the right length for it as a series - I don't think the author would have fit all their good ideas into a single volume, but I don't think they had enough material to stretch out to a third.

Yeah... the yandere showing up was the point where it made a sharp turn towards the uncomfortable. Especially because that particular character was attached to the one who was least deserving of that fate (not that anyone ever actually deserves to end up with the yandere, but of all the ones in the cast, he was one of the few who it felt like more of a punishment for existing than any actual wrongdoing).

strangeattractor

Late-Start Tamer is one of my favourites. I like how pleasant it feels to read. It's fluff in the best way.

I also like the feeling of exploring new areas and experimenting with new techniques in the game.

After Ascendance of a Bookworm, it is what I look forward to reading most each week.

Kotenmaru

@strangeattractor Just started Late-Start Tamer, and it's giving me non-combat Bofuri vibes. Definitely seems like it'll be a fun one to keep up with going forward.

myskaros

Reminder that catchups will be changing on March 1 around noon-ish US time, so 1 week left to finish catching up!