The Princess's Jewels

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Rating Summary

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Background
One person joined the forum to complain about this webcomic and recommended it be listed. We agreed, but several people just didn't care to read enough of this webcomic to write a review. So I took on the task.

Downfall
This thing always sucked.

Story and Plot
The home page of the webcomic explains the storyline:

""Princess Ariana de Secramise knows that becoming the first-ever empress of the Arbezela Empire will be no small task. That’s why she collects five beautiful “jewels” -- talented, handsome men from all across the lands -- to help her reach her goal. Can Ariana maneuver her way through court politics to become the empress, and can these jewels help her shine?""

Doesn't sound bad, does it? A female deciding she wants power for herself instead of having to let a male have the privilege? But let's describe the plot:

Episode 1: Princess Ariana is at a ball, surrounded by men who want to dance with her. Then the story talks about one year ago, when Ariana meets her father, the emperor, who has come back from a successful battle where the empire has gained more territory. Bavilo, his son, says he wants to accompany the father into battle to also fight, but the emperor insists the son stays home. The younger brothers, seeing this, note that Ariana is a woman and cannot take her father's place, and instead would become the wife of another prince. But Ariana desires to become empress of the realm, and to even have several husbands to achieve that goal.

Episode 2: The emperor describes the war in which an enemy nation attacked, only to be defeated by his forces instead. The dark-skinned Duke Phantom is the hero of the latest victory, and the emperor is about to present him with an award, but Ariana insists on doing so, and she does. But the emperor is later displeased when Ariana would later meet with Phantom in private. Of course, he is recruited to be one of the "jewels" to help her become empress of the realm.

Episode 3: It turns out that Ariana is a talented swordfighter as well. (Though arguably TOO talented for a princess, even if women of that world are expected to know how to fight and defend themselves.) But she still needs to collect another "jewel", namely Prince Efrit, who wears a birdlike mask which he refuses to remove to show his real face...but he might do so for Ariana.

Episode 4: Efrit Karzia removes his mask and volunteers to join forces with Ariana. But some women are not happy with this business... But already Ariana has in her sights a man named Huan Baek, a commoner favored by the royalty of yet another kingdom, as a future "jewel".

Episode 5: Unlike the others, Huan Baek is still very loyal to his king and queen and does not care to leave them to join with Ariana. They fight, and then Huan reconsiders.

Episode 6: Huan can wait, for Ariana now has to visit the kingdom of Galdeon, and meet with the son of their king. He is of course wowed by her magnificence.

Episode 7: The son tries to control Ariana, but of course she turns the tables.

Episode 8: It turns out that Duke Phantom has canine ears and tail emerging. Wow, something new this time!

All the same, this thing has gotten so repetitive I decided to skip ahead to see if anything else would happen:

Episode 20: Finally, people complain to the Emperor about Princess Ariana's behavior. Namely that her having five lovers would set a bad example for the rest of high society, especially as she is already engaged to the Duke of Crytear. But another problem is that the emperor's older son wants to be next on the throne, and the emperor himself actually prefers the younger son, despite being underage. Ariana has heard of the treasury being looted and offers to investigate who is doing this.

I've seen enough. Ariana is supposed to be ambitious, but I found her insolent and rude and would not want her to lead anything. God knows why her father would favor her; I couldn't stand her, and I were the emperor I would have her learn some manners.

Art review
As said above, it is very good manga, with occasional Chibi pictures thrown in as occurs in other manga comics. Overall, the art style is baroque, and drawn with proper proportions and no big inaccuracies.



Unfortunately, I could not retrieve even a single frame, so this will have to do. But this picture, of the title princess and Duke Phantom, one of the men she intends to help her become empress, does illustrate what I mentioned about coloring problems. Not only is the princess too pale, but Duke Phantom has unnaturally dark skin and yellow eyes, making him literally look like he has hepatitis, which I assume wasn't the intended idea. (Okay, he is supposed to be a werewolf, but even werewolves are not normally so dark.)

Author biography
No information on either one of them.

Conclusion
I get the idea this webcomic is fantasy-werewolves and all that. Also, people fighting with swords, even though the characters' clothing clearly would date in type and style from no earlier than the nineteenth century, when firearms long since replaced edged weapons in the military.

But the real problem with this whole shebang is that in an old-fashioned world of monarchy and royalty with real power, no woman could possibly get away with such insolence as Ariana does. Even the most liberal-minded people in such a world would simply tell her to show better manners, and if she did not, would end up ostracizing her. You can only get away with so much flouting of social rules, even if you are, or especially if you are, royalty.

And besides that, the story is simply too slow-moving and repetitive, so the whole shebang simply winds up being boring.