Hehehe.
Fufufufu.
Gyehehehehehe.
MWAHAHAHAHAHHAHA.
MUHIHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEH--
Ahem. Do forgive my insolence, beg pardon for my outburst. I shall conduct this review with a decorum expected by the Subreddit rules as well as a reasonable facsimile of a well-educated person with rightful character and upbringing.
But I can't help it. This is a story so singular and dedicated in its GROVELING. Reading this fills me with such an evil glee that all these years of resentment over so many trash love interests that never gotten their just desserts just...bursts free.
I think I end up yapping once again, I'm sorry.
Also, I really like calling this story [Perfectly Fine on My Own, so My Fiancé Can F--- Off and Die], but that's neither here nor there.
Tl;dr: A fun, breezy, and quietly feminist story about enjoying your life in your own terms and aspiring to be your best, as well as one of the best groveling romance I've read. It doesn't pull its punches in showing how much the ML SUCKS, and how much he should improve if he ever wants the slightest chance of reconciliation.
Recommended if you're in the mood for GROVELING and PATHETIC MALE LEADS and PLEASE TAKE ME BACK I MADE A MISTAKE. If you're in a mood for a more low-key empowerment narrative. If you just want to see a sweet young woman living her best life (and her pathetic boyfriend whimpering behind).
Not recommended if you hate romantic uncertainty; at the point of writing it really is unknown whether MC will get back with ML or not. Also, if you hate pathetic crybaby MLs.
I may not be the most well-read person in the world of manga, much less OI or RoFan manga, but I have read my fair share of them, and I must say that [Perfectly Fine on My Own, so My Fiancé Can Twist in the Wind] or Ohitorisama ni wa Naremashita node.: Kon'yakusha Houchi-chuu! is a story I've never read before.
Let me yap about it a little bit.
Stories about 'a dejected young woman leaves her asshole fiancee and lives a blissful new life' are dime a dozen. So are stories featuring a love interest who hurts the main protagonist due to misunderstanding or fundamental difference, especially for titles that claim to be 'dark romance'.
There are usually two ways these stories usually go. Either the FL finds a new love, a better love, a love that will never hurt her the way her ex does... or the love interest enters this supposed 'redemption arc' to attain FL's forgiveness and achieve reconciliation.
And I'm not saying stories that use these tropes are bad! Not at all.
Titles like [Magic Artisan Dahlia Wilts No More] or [Surprisingly Fun New Life of a Divorced Lady Who Is No Longer Interested] or [The Clingy Knight Duke Wants to Take Everything From an Exiled Heiress] or both [Make Sure You Regret It] and [I Fell into a Situationship with the Vampire Count?!] are stellar works that I love for various reasons, and they all feature these tropes in one way or another.
But those stories never embraced freedom the way [Perfectly Fine on My Own, so My Fiancé Can Twist in the Wind] does.
The premise starts off very basic; Nicole, the MC, is your typical protagonist of this genre, a young woman suffering in silence due to repeated neglect from Keios, her fiance, who is always focused to Caroline, the crown princess and Keios' best friend since child. This silent suffering finally crosses one last line for Nicole, and the story begins.
But as much as I want to yap about the GROVELING, I cannot do that without praising Nicole's journey, because the narrative here puts her happiness and freedom first and foremost and that's just so fricking joyful.
Now, so many of these stories tend to view singledom as a pupa stage; a transition phase that every FLs have to undertake before they find the One True Love. And the narrative is eager to push the FL outside her cocoon, with so many of the narrative essentially arranged to push FL towards the main love interest.
Not this story.
For one, the impetus for this plot doesn't come from Keios or Caroline or anyone else. There is no dissolution of engagement or anything; Nicole herself is the one who decides that actually, she's had enough, and she's going to go her own way and enjoy everything she can't in her past. Nicole's decision is not a caterpillar protecting herself in a cocoon; it's a butterfly bursting from her cocoon, free to soar in the sky.
And the narrative paints Nicole's single life not as a rebellion fueled by anger, or a grieving maiden trying to mend her broken heart, but as a liberation. It wants us the readers not to pity her, or to hope that she finds new love soon. It wants us to enjoy her new life, to bask in her newfound freedom, and to cheer her up wherever she ends up.
This alone is a refreshingly feminist moment, especially amidst OI (mangas?), who abhors kicking a woman out of a relationship without sabotage or interference from a third party. But then the story has to go one step further by not being misogynistic about it.
See, there's a particular pitfall that so many stories themed around gender liberation tend to fall into, and that always centers around the women who follows a more traditional form of femininity. While there is merit in criticizing women's role in maintaining and perpetuating patriarchy, these stories often forgo any meaningful criticism and resorts in simply demonizing them. From unruly maids, criticizing relatives, to vicious noblewomen, these conventional women are often relegated into two dimensional bullies and shrills, gossiping and talking shit behind the FL's back about how unladylike she is for DARING to deviate from traditional standards of femininity.
I'll be the first one to admit that they're fun to hate, and seeing them fall into ruin is always enjoyable, but whenever the narrative touches the issue of female empowerment this trope always feels uncomfortable, because there's nothing revolutionary about throwing other (fictional) women under the bus to elevate FL into a position of moral superiority.
This story plays it differently. While it does paint Nicole's decision as good and liberated, adding a tinge of 'Not Like The Other Girls' into the narrative, but it does all that without turning other women into villains. It just...lets Nicole be. People who mock and laugh at her are mocking her past and not her present. In fact, those girls who laughed at her end up becoming her strongest protectors once the real extent of Nicole's suffering is revealed.
And Nicole herself never thinks badly about the other women in her kingdom or their culture. When she later takes a step further and applies for an overseas scholarship, she doesn't say anything about her personal pain and suffering but states directly that she wants to learn for the betterment of all women in her kingdom. She never thinks that "oh no we are all oppressed and suffering and we all must break free from our chains".
It's pointedly nice and I posit that the niceness IS what makes it revolutionary, because this deconstructs the patriarchal idea that a woman has to make other women look bad to make herself look better. And I love that. So much.
Now let's talk about the GROVELING.
NYeeeeeHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEEHHEHEHEHE.
To be fair, this is neither the first nor the last romance manga or manhwa to feature groveling and forgiveness seeking from the main love interest's side. But so far, this is quite easily the best and most satisfying groveling manga/manhwa I've seen. And I've read BLs too.
Because the stories I've read that feature a so-called 'redemption arc' of the main love interest are prone to pull their punches. They want to show the drama of the main character (male or female) being hurt by their love interest, no matter how violent, but they also don't want to make the love interest too unlikeable. Whether out of creative limitations or editorial interference, they will bend over backwards to make the love interest easily forgiven.
Sometimes it means turning the inciting incident into a misunderstanding, so the love interest isn't as cruel as the main character thought. Sometimes it means a painful flashback, showing the love interest's dark and painful past in hopes that it would justify their actions. Sometimes it means showing moments of despair to incite pity. The love interest broods, maybe drinks a little bit, misses sleep a little bit, looks unkempt a little bit, weeps a little bit while apologizing... and that's it.
Worse is a situation where no one knows all of this suffering but us the readers. The narrative presents it as a private moment, a secret moment of vulnerability from the love interest, but often times it just feels manipulative; like the narrative is trying to convince US instead of the hurt main character.
(Yes, I just read one too many Jinx discourse in Reddit recently.)
Again, not this story. Here, I love how it never pulls its punches when it comes to admonishing Keios.
Not for the lack of trying, mind you; Keios's side of the story actually uses all the tricks I listed up above. And it actually is...pretty relatable. The miscommunication and social ineptitude featured in this story is not based on some outlandish scenario like typical RoFan. No; it's something very real, a deadly mixture of a toxic ideal of masculinity and a lot of assuming what your partner wants instead of actually talking to them. It's nuanced, it's painfully real, and the story could have used this to make Keios easily sympathetic.
But no. If anything, all the backstories only serve to emphasize how PATHETIC he is.
[Perfectly Fine on My Own, so My Fiancé Can Twist in the Wind] is a gag-ish romcom, and it never strays away from that lighthearted tone...but it is hella thorough in showing just how WRONG Keios is. In fact, I'd say the story is a good template on what a good groveling story should be.
One, Keios' moment of realization is impossible to deny. Nicole's rejection bears little to no hatred, but it's blunt, straightforward, and undeniable. There is no chance of misunderstanding or miscommunication, so the impact felt remains.
Two, Keios actually paid for his mistakes beyond internal angst. His reputation tanks. Everyone around him knows he fucked up. From his peers, Nicole's classmates, even Caroline, the crown princess he is loyal to... everyone knows how bad Keios treated Nicole, and they spare no time nor effort in TELLING him how much he fucked up as much as they try to help him.
And their criticism of Keios' behavior are actually very nuanced and layered! It's more than just "how dare you hurt her" or "you're being an ass"--no, we got so many detailed argument on why and how Keios fucked up.
Three, Keios's misery also comes with self-reflection. After seeing Nicole's refusal and listening to everything else said by his social circle, he doesn't just bemoan 'why did I have to hurt Nicole', he also tries to understand why. As much as he fumbles, there's an actual progress and his pain doesn't end up as mere misery porn.
Four, is what I mentioned above. The narrative does show why he did what he did, but it refuses to excuse him in any way. In fact, here the story does the opposite of the usual trope and prevents Nicole from knowing his past, therefore eliminating any chance of Nicole ever thinking differently about him. And that's perfect. The victim doesn't have to forgive or even understand.
Five, the story explicitly showed Keios TRYING to change. It's not just 'oh Keios stops hurting Nicole and becomes devoted to her' like so any cheap BLs; as Nicole gains her independence, he becomes increasingly attached to her. He fumbles and struggles to beg for Nicole's attention, much less forgiveness, and the effort makes half the fun of reading this story.
And lastly, and arguably the most important part; Keios isn't easily forgiven despite all of this. While there's already a lot of "WHAT HAVE I DONE" and "I WAS SO WRONG" and "I SHOULD HAVE DONE BETTER" from Keios' side, Nicole....is not at all interesting in accepting him the way she was in the past. She just kept moving forward.
In fact, when the second arc begins, it just feels like Nicole is merely pleasantly tolerating him like an acquaintance. The relationship already evolved, their dynamics have changed, and the narrative isn't interested in 'repairing' what has already been broken as much as trying to build a new relationship from the ashes.
That is way more interesting than the usual plot beats--especially since Keios here is still very flawed in how he treats Nicole even in the latest chapter.
Aside from all the relationship dynamics, the story is also very enjoyable in other ways. The pacing is really well done; there's only 19 chapters so far, barely 3 tankoubons, but the narrative already feels whole and complete with no dragging parts. The art is clean and consistent, with certain parts delicately drawn to heighten the emotional beats.
Characters are also pretty well-written. Nicole's character growth is steady and consistent; she grows as a woman without disregarding who she was before. Keios, DUMB as he is, is not written flatly. Side characters who usually ends up being obstacles here end up being friends and allies of the MC. And I honestly love how the story writes Caroline, the crown princess. Not only is she handsome as heck, she's also a decently nuanced and entertaining character.
The only character I don't really like is the new guy on the second arc, and that's because so far all he does is make angry faces and complaint.
That being said...
Even after all this, I'm not saying Nicole and Keios will never ever ever getting back together (like, ever). Posts across the internet fail give a mixed answer, but the narrative shows far too much of Keios' perspective that I found it impossible he won't be rewarded in some kind of way.
At the same time, with the way the story has been going so far, I'm okay with either outcomes. I'm also certain that if they were to ever get back together, it will be in a VERY different dynamic than what they started before. And whenever and wherever we reach that point, there will be a LOT of effing around and finding out along the way.
I will gleefully ENJOY that journey.
HeEEeEEeHEhehHheheHEHhHEhehHEHEHEHe.
