the noble spinster and the season of shiyuka
Translation Team
Art_lapsa
“This was supposed to be a loveless, business-like contract marriage—or so I thought.”Arelila, whose engagement was broken off and who has passed the appropriate age for marriage, is secretly called “the noble spinster.”Currently, she works diligently as the right-hand woman of “the cold-hearted Prime Minister,” Duke Eysteria Wegmund.One day, while on duty, Eysteria proposes to her.Although rumors suggest that the Prime Minister is romantically involved with another woman, and given Arelila’s low social status and position as an old administrative officer, she assumes it to be a contract marriage and agrees to the engagement.Thus begins her business-like newlywed life with the cold-hearted Prime Minister… or does it!?
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33 Chapters
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I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, there's a lot I like. The characters are interesting, varied, and unique. For example, the FL is stoic which is a very rare trait for a rofan FL, and her ex is a friendly little chubby guy who ends up marrying someone much the same. Some of the character dynamics are really interesting, her ex that dumped her did so because he knew neither of them would actually be happy together, and the remain friends afterwards. It has a message of meritocracy over nepotism and stagnation, while also saying its ok not to be the smartest person in the room because you can work with others.
On the negative side, I dislike that it fully embraces the trope of "FL is amazing but only if you don't compare her to ML". The FL is a brilliant and capable woman, she's reasonable, she's logical, and with these skills she's surpassed all of her peers as a bureaucrat. But ML does literally everything she does but better, and every time they work together on something he catches something she's overlooked or he has some information she lacks, so he always looks better and more capable than her, and in the process it gives the impression that things would always fail if left for her to handle it on her own. FL's stoicism, while a strength, is also shown to be a weakness in that she struggles with understanding her own emotions and the emotions of others. ML is stoic but without and of those problems. The story is largely about FL growing and changing...but really she's just growing towards the level ML started the story at, and he gets no character growth because he was already perfect from the start. The story also has a habit of having events where characters keep information from FL and manipulate her life "for her own good" instead of just talking to her like reasonable people. I'm up through chapter 19, and it looks like we're discovering that her loving and widely adored grandfather has and possibly still is manipulating her life "for her sake". This all combines to make FL weirdly infantilized despite her entire character being "incredibly smart, capable, and mature woman".
Feels like it was kind of unnecessary for the ex-Crown Prince to throw his fiance those public strays about being too narrow minded to be Empress, given he apparently never bothered to talk with her about the situation (massive dick move), he followed it up by saying she should be Empress, and the situation must have been hurtful enough for her as it was without being publicly shamed for no real reason. Everything seems to have worked out well in the end, but the ex-Crown Prince comes across as incredibly self righteous and with real communication issues (he knows his fiance believes a bad rumor, but doesn't tell her its wrong, just judges her instead; then he goes decades without ever talking to his family despite having one of the only cell phones in the world?).
Oh dear! These side characters are obnoxious.