Gyeoeul Gwon

I'd read so many isekai, reincarnation, reborn as a villainess, reborn as a character in a game and etc types of manwha, yet this one feels fresh and different from the rest! The female main protagonist is a Korean college student who is reincarnated as the villainess in an otome game that she recently played. But she's only traded one crappy reality for another. In her world, she's a college student living in a slum apartment, after finally getting away from her abusive Father and step-brothers. She starts to play "The Lady's Love; Love Project", an otome game recommended by her friends, and gets fixated on trying to beat the Hard Mode version of the game one night. But after getting stuck at a certain part of the hard mode storyline, she decided to go to bed, only to wake up as Penelope, the villainess of the game she had just been playing. Penelope's life is almost identical to Cha Si-Yeon's, both illegitimate children who are terrorized by horrible step-brothers. Penelope's route is literally hard mode, where just one wrong move could mean death. Cha Si-Yeon, now Penelope, wants nothing more than to escape the game, so she can return to her college student life. (I'm going to refer to Cha Si-Yeon as Penelope from this point.) The reason this felt different than the rest to me, is both how clear-cut the rules are and the goal of the female main character. Usually, when a female MC is isekai'd into a new world, it's because they died in their original one, or they just have no desire to return to their world. This is not so with Penelope. Penelope wants nothing more than to return to being Cha Si-Yeon, and her entire goal for the series is to escape the game and go home. The "rules" of the world being so clearly defined and always being followed is also a nice change. It's stated as fact, "This is how the world works, this is how you can operate within it" right at the very beginning. It disallows for any "godmodding" type of storylines, which a lot of these manwha's end up doing. Another thing is that Penelope has a clear plan of how she needs to "win" and how to avoid dying since she doesn't know if "You die in the game, you die in real life" applies here or not. It's just really refreshing to read a female MC who is both intelligent and calculated. Every move she makes is planned, and everything she says is calculated. Some of the characters are...a bit baffling. The Duke's volatile emotions baffle me every time, as do his motives. The brother's behavior confuses me, as well as the maid. I think this is one purpose though because Penelope herself goes "This wouldn't make sense in real life, but I guess it's whatever here" in response to something her maid said. I don't know man. The art style is gorgeous. I really love how the colors are done, some of the fancier panels almost look like gouache paintings. The way eyes are drawn and the way they're colored are also so pretty. I don't know how, but the way the eyes are done, "her eyes glittered like jewels" becomes a factual descriptor, not a poetic one! I'm excited to see how this manwha does as it continues on.… (more)