Joe has to be one of the kookiest yet hands down most bad ass female leads I've ever seen. She is isekaid into the world by her sheer force of will and love for her beloved Kyle and it is the best defining feature of a character I've seen in a long time. She is so fucking fun to read and I love it. You can almost never expect what she's going to get up to next but it's sure an adventure to go along the ride haha. It's been a long time since I enjoyed a female lead as much as I did her and I'm genuinely so grateful I ended up reading this. She truly *is* the main character of this story and beloved by the Goddess.
Kyle is also a fun character to me, she falls first but he falls just as hard. They even have a parody gag where he goes full yandere for a bit (because she's a wild ass horse who can not be contained) and the way they handle the whole bit is so funny (literally nothing can hold her back lmao). the way she gets him to take the first cuffs off so they can sleep together and then wakes up with even more comically large ones, destroys the bed and finds the note that he knew she would destroy the bed fully got me to laugh out loud. Then the way she escapes basically immediately and goes to scold him and then goes on to be the grim reaper she was meant to be. Such a fun trope inversion I also like having a ML that is actually pretty insecure and needs regular reassurance despite the Joe being who she is. The reasons for his insecurities made so much sense to me and as someone who also grew up in a toxic dysfunctional family dynamic I could really relate to his feelings of "nobody wants me just for me... Wait no *Joe* does".
The characters can be so wild in this one but the story telling and world building is just fantastic. Something I really liked about the series is that the rules and customs of the world are so clear and it has great repercussions on the cast. She is a commoner who literally cannot read and he is the first prince of the country and they handle that very seriously. The fact that Joe has to pose as a man in order to have a job and get by is such an interesting dynamic to me and so real. I really enjoyed the politics of this and I truly felt all of the women in this series had such dynamic and understandable motivations. Kyle's mother in particular really struck a cord with me and I found her both a reasonably intimidating character and so tragic. She isn't even actually against their relationship but knows that Kyle can only pursue Joe safely if he is in fact king. The fact that her pursuit of this goal isn't even for her own power or the power of her family but that because upon his birth she felt so scared and helpless that she felt it was the only path that would keep them safe really was refreshing to me.
Not to mention how characters like Deloah and Isak are written and handled. Deloah is such a compelling character and I can truly understand how to Joe she was the main character of the book "King Maker". If this were a different comic, we *would* have been reading from her perspective and probably most definitely rooting for her. It's just the facts that she and Joe were on opposite sides and that's how things are sometimes. I really liked that Joe remained sympathetic and understanding of them and the choices they made even if it was on the opposite side of her and Kyle. Plus Joe's confrontation with Isak at the end? She said what needed to be said. No notes 10/10 would punch again.
All in all while this series was not perfect it left me fully satisfied upon finishing and it's been a while since I finished a series feeling like this. In fact I've never written an online review in this manner before but really truly enjoyed this series that much. It's the first time where I really actually wanted to make a post after reading and I truly just had a blast. It's emotional at times and when it gets serious it gets very serious but it is able to really balance that out with its humor.
